Finest Years

by Max Hastings

  Yet there is evidence that Churchill’s personal view was shifting towards an expectation of US belligerence. He asserted to Lord Camrose at the Other Club on 14 November that he was confident the Americans would soon be in the war. Camrose was sufficiently impressed to write to his son, repeating the prime minister’s words. On the 19th, Churchill told guests during a lunch at Downing Street that he expected to land the second of four possible ‘prizes’. The first would be US entry into the war without involving Japan; the second would be America’s accession as an ally, matched by that of Japan as an enemy; the third would be that neither country entered the war; the fourth, that Japan became an enemy, while the United States remained neutral. Yet to others privy to secret intelligence of Japanese motions, the prime minister’s hopes seemed ill-founded.

  Churchill strove to provide cause for Americans to modify their impression of British passivity. Briefing Commodore Lord Louis Mountbatten on his new role as ‘chief adviser’ to Combined Operations, soon translated into overall command, the prime minister said: ‘Your whole attention is to be concentrated on the offensive.’ This was another of the periods when he enthused about a possible descent on Norway, heedless of the intractable reality that its coastline was beyond British fighter range. Eden expressed dismay about this plan to his private secretary: ‘A.E. is much perplexed—he feels as I do so many of W.’s gorgeous schemes have ended in failure…a false step—a faulty short-cut—would set us back years.’

  In Churchill’s fevered search for aggressive commanders he cast a jaundiced eye upon many incumbents. He harboured a persistent animus towards General Sir Ronald Adam, Adjutant-General and one of the army’s ablest staff officers, partly because Adam created the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, a perceived socialist propaganda instrument. Churchill talked of sacking Tedder, commander of the Desert Air Force, who would soon be recognised as one of the ablest airmen of the war. Sir Wilfred Freeman, vice-chief of air staff, called on the chronically disaffected Hankey to ask what Portal, his boss, should do if Churchill insisted on Tedder’s removal. Hankey offered his usual answer: resign. Freeman asserted that in such an event he himself would quit also: ‘He said he had no use for Churchill at all.’

  The prime minister often felt oppressed by the perceived pettiness and petulance of Parliament. In the House on 11 November 1941 he faced a barrage of questions and supplementaries: first about alleged Italian atrocities in Montenegro, then about the government’s apparent unwillingness to allow the RAF to bomb Rome. When he answered evasively, Sir Thomas Moore, Member for Ayr, demanded: ‘Does my right hon. friend really think it wise to provide a hide-out for this rat Mussolini?’ Churchill responded: ‘I think it would be as well to have confidence in the decisions of the Government, whose sole desire is to inflict the maximum of injury upon the enemy.’ Another MP drew attention to shortages of equipment, described in Lord Gort’s recently published dispatch on the 1940 campaign in France. Churchill brusquely rejected calls for an inquiry. He might have suggested that such matters came under the heading of archaeology, rather than conduct of the war.

  Another Member demanded information about the precise composition of the prime minister’s party at the Placentia Bay meeting, and asked ‘whether in view of the fact that we are fighting for our existence, he will consider removing from Government service all persons of German education and of German origin’. Churchill invited the questioner to be explicit. This the MP declined to do, but the House readily comprehended the enquiry as an attack upon Lord Cherwell. Other MPs then raised questions in which Cherwell was named. ‘The Prof’ was widely perceived as a pernicious influence upon the prime minister. MPs who did not dare to attack Churchill himself instead vented their frustrations upon his associates. The prime minister defended Cherwell. But he bitterly resented being obliged to do so.

  At the same question time, an MP urged that greyhound racing should be banned on working days, to deter absenteeism from factories and pits. Others called for a review and modification of Regulation 18B, under which aliens were detained without trial. These exchanges occupied twelve columns of Hansard, and caused Churchill to return to Downing Street in dudgeon. Who could blame him? How pettifogging seemed the issues raised by MPs, how small-minded the pinpricks of their criticisms, alongside the great issues with which he wrestled daily. If self-pity about the intrusions of democracy is in some measure common to all prime ministers in war or peace, such carping became infinitely irksome to the leader of a nation struggling for survival against overwhelming odds.

  The best news in November was of Auchinleck’s long-delayed offensive in the desert, Operation Crusader, which began on 18 November. Churchill trumpeted its progress: ‘For the first time, the Germans are getting a taste of their own bitter medicine.’ On the 20th, before the House of Commons, he described the North African assault in the most dramatic terms: ‘One thing is certain—that all ranks of the British Empire troops involved are animated by a long-pent-up and ardent desire to engage the enemy…This is the first time that we have met the Germans at least equally well-armed and equipped.’ The prime minister knew from Ultra that Auchinleck had launched 658 tanks against Rommel’s 168, that the RAF deployed 660 aircraft against 642 of the Luftwaffe’s. Yet, in Crusader’s first days, the British suffered much heavier losses than the Germans. Churchill continued to cherish hopes of the tangled, messy desert fighting, but there was no sign of a breakthrough. On 23 November Auchinleck sacked Alan Cunningham, commander of the newly christened Eighth Army, and replaced him with his own chief of staff, Neil Ritchie. Rommel had destroyed the career of yet another British general. The Germans were once again fighting harder, faster and more effectively than the British.

  It was at this time that Churchill’s patience with his senior soldier, Sir John Dill, chief of the Imperial General Staff since May 1940, at last expired. Dill’s difficulty was that, like his predecessor ‘Tiny’ Ironside, he suffered from a surfeit of realism. This inspired in both men successively a gloom about their own nation’s prospects which grated intolerably upon the prime minister. Dill was exhausted by Churchill’s insistence on deciding every issue of strategy through trial by combat, testing arguments to destruction at interminable Downing Street meetings. ‘Winston’s methods were frequently repulsive to him,’ wrote Alan Brooke. Dill recoiled from the need to work with the Russians, whom he abhorred, believed that whenever Hitler chose to reinforce Rommel, the Middle East would be lost, and feared that neglect of Britain’s Far East defences would precipitate disaster if the Japanese attacked. Dill never doubted Churchill’s greatness as national leader, but he considered him wholly unfit to direct strategy.

  Churchill, in his turn, had told John Kennedy many months earlier that he found Dill ‘too much impressed by the enemy’s will’. The CIGS was an intelligent man, possessed of much charm. But, like many other British officers, he lacked steel to bear the highest responsibilities in a war of national survival. On 16 November 1941 Churchill told Dill he must go, designating as his replacement Sir Alan Brooke, C-in-C Home Forces. The change provoked dismay in high places. This was partly because, as a man, Dill was widely liked. Colleagues and friends indulged that fatal British sympathy for agreeable gentlemen, however inadequate to their appointed tasks. Dill was perceived as a victim of Churchill’s determination to bar dissent from his own conduct of the war. There is no doubt, however, that his removal was right. Never a driving force, he was now a spent one.

  His successor proved the outstanding British command appointment of the Second World War. Brooke—like Dill, Montgomery and Alexander—was a Northern Irishman. He was fifty-eight years old. He had characteristics often identified with Protestant Ulster: toughness, diligence, intolerance, Christian commitment, and a brusqueness that sometimes tipped over into ill-temper. His sharp brain was matched by extraordinary strength of purpose. A passionate bird-watcher, Brooke saved his softer side for his feathered friends, his adored second wife Benita and their two young children. He h
ad a low opinion of his fellow men, fellow soldiers and allies, expressed in his wartime diaries with a heavy dressing of exclamation marks. His booming voice and thickrimmed spectacles intimidated strangers. Intensely active and indeed restless, Brooke was so little seen in the War Office that it was said of him that he knew his way to only two rooms there—his own and the lavatory.

  Though the new CIGS was often charmed by the prime minister’s puckish wit, and never doubted his greatness, he and Churchill never achieved full mutual understanding. Brooke was disgusted by the selfishness of Churchill’s working habits, late hours and strategic flights of fancy. Like Dill and Wavell, he loathed war as much as the prime minister relished it. But he displayed a tenacity and resolve in the face of difficulties and Churchillian follies which Dill lacked. David Margesson, the Secretary for War, said that Brooke was sustained by ‘his ability to shake himself like a dog coming out of water after unpleasant interviews with Winston, and…his power of debate (& his rasping voice)’. The new CIGS was a harsh and ruthless man. These qualities equipped him to fulfil his role far more effectively than the mild-mannered Dill.

  Brooke proved a superb planner and organiser. He gained nothing like the public celebrity of Montgomery and Alexander. The CIGS and the prime minister could not be described as brothers in arms. But they forged a partnership in the direction of British strategy which, however stormy, served their nation wonderfully well. Churchill, so often accused of surrounding himself with acolytes and ‘yes’ men, deserves the utmost credit for appointing and retaining as CIGS an officer who, when their views differed, fought him to the last gasp. The ascent of Brooke, on the eve of another critical turning point in the war, was a great day for British arms.

  In the first days of December a flood of intelligence revealed Japanese forces redeploying in South-East Asia. The suspense was very great as the British waited for Tokyo to reveal its objectives. To the end, there was apprehension that a Nipponese whirlwind might bypass the USA and its possessions. On Sunday, 7 December, Churchill learned that Roosevelt proposed to announce in three days’ time that he would regard an attack on British or Dutch possessions in the Far East as an attack on America. That day at lunch, US ambassador ‘Gil’ Winant was among the guests at Chequers. Churchill asserted vigorously that if the Japanese attacked the United States, Britain would declare war on Japan. Winant said he understood that, for the prime minister had declared it publicly. Then Churchill demanded: ‘If they declare war on us, will you declare war on them?’ Winant replied: ‘I can’t answer that, Prime Minister. Only the Congress has the right to declare war under the United States constitution.’ Churchill lapsed into silence. That terrible apprehension persisted, of facing the Japanese alone. Then he said, with his utmost charm: ‘We’re late, you know. You get washed and we will go in to lunch together.’

  Harriman, a fellow guest at dinner that night, found Churchill ‘tired and depressed. He didn’t have much to say throughout dinner and was immersed in his thoughts, with his head in his hands part of the time.’ Then they heard the radio news of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and looked incredulously at each other. Churchill jumped up and started for the door, saying, ‘We shall declare war on Japan.’ Within a few minutes he and Winant were speaking by phone to Roosevelt. Soon afterwards the Admiralty called, reporting Japanese attacks on Malaya.

  Churchill could not claim that his long campaign of seduction was responsible for US entry into the war. This had followed only upon Japanese aggression. America’s policy of deterrence in the East, fortified by sanctions, had instead provoked Tokyo to fight. Though the ‘day of infamy’ resolved many dilemmas and uncertainties, it is unlikely that Roosevelt viewed Pearl Harbor with the same enthusiasm as the prime minister. Events had produced an outcome which the president, left to himself, might not have willed or accomplished for many months, if ever. What is certain is that Churchill had sown seeds of a fertility such as only he could have nurtured, for a harvest which he now gathered. He possessed a stature, and commanded an affection among the American people, incomparably greater than anything won by the faltering performance of Britain’s war machine. In the years ahead, his personality would enable him to exercise an influence upon American policies which, for all its limitations, no other British leader could have aspired to.

  When Britain’s Tokyo ambassador Sir Robert Craigie later submitted a valedictory dispatch, he was sharply censured by the prime minister for describing Japan’s assault in the East as ‘a disaster for Britain’. On the contrary, said Churchill, it was ‘a blessing…Greater good fortune has never happened to the British Empire.’ That night of 7 December 1941, Churchill wrote in a draft of his memoirs: ‘saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful. One hopes that eternal sleep will be like that.’

  EIGHT

  A Glimpse of Arcadia

  De Gaulle said after Pearl Harbor: ‘Well then, this war is over. Of course, there are more operations, battles and struggles ahead; but…the outcome is no longer in doubt. In this industrial war, nothing can resist the power of American industry. From now on, the British will do nothing without Roosevelt’s agreement.’ The US president told Churchill: ‘Today all of us are in the same boat with you and the people of the Empire, and it is a ship which will not and cannot be sunk.’ Unlike Churchillian assertions earlier in the war, born of blind faith, Roosevelt’s words were rooted in realities of power.

  Harold Nicolson wrote on 11 December: ‘We simply can’t be beaten with America in. But how strange it is that this great event should be recorded and welcomed here without any jubilation. We should have gone mad with joy if it had happened a year ago…Not an American flag flying in the whole of London. How odd we are!’ Part of the explanation was given by London charity worker Vere Hodgson. Like many of her compatriots, she felt that Pearl Harbor served the Americans right: ‘Though I do not wish anyone to be bombed, a little wholesome shaking-up is good for people who contemplate the sufferings of others with equanimity…Poor dear people in those islands of bliss, sunshine and fruit drinks. They must have had an unpleasant Sunday afternoon…I should think Colonel Lindbergh has retired to a room with dark blinds—not to be heard of for many a long day.’

  A Home Intelligence report said: ‘While the public are prepared to make any sacrifices necessary to help Russia…they have no such disposition towards America…America is “too damned wealthy”…Americans are too mercenary-minded, and…the hardship and suffering of war “will do them a lot of good”.’ Few British people felt minded to thank the Americans for belatedly entering the war not from choice or principle, but because they were obliged to. Some were fearful that US belligerence would check the flow of supplies to Britain and Russia. It was left to the prime minister to open his arms in a transatlantic embrace which many of his compatriots were foolish enough to grudge.

  In the days following Pearl Harbor, from everywhere save Malaya the war news reaching Churchill briefly brightened. The Royal Navy was faring better in its struggle with Hitler’s U-boats. Auchinleck continued to signal optimistically about the progress of Crusader in the desert. ‘Consider tide turned,’ he reported from Cairo on 9 December, and two days later: ‘We are pressing pursuit vigorously.’ The Russians were still holding Moscow, Leningrad and the Baku oilfields. Churchill told the House of Commons on 8 December: ‘We have at least four-fifths of the population of the globe upon our side. We are responsible for their safety and for their future. In the past we have had a light which flickered, in the present we have a light which flames, and in the future there will be a light which shines over all the land and sea.’

  On 10 December came ghastly tidings, of the destruction of Prince of Wales and Repulse by Japanese air attack off Malaya. Churchill was stunned. Their deployment reflected his personal decision, their loss an indictment of his misplaced faith in ‘castles of steel’ amid oceans now dominated by air and submarine power. It is often claimed that the f
ate of the two capital ships was sealed by the absence of the carrier Indomitable, prevented by accidental damage from joining the battle squadron. Given the shortcomings of the Fleet Air Arm and its fighters, it seems more plausible that if Indomitable had been at sea off Malaya, as intended by Churchill and the Admiralty, it would have been lost with Prince of Wales and Repulse.

  Yet even this blow was endurable in the context of American belligerency. On 11 December Germany and Italy removed a vital lingering doubt by declaring war on the USA. Next day Churchill cabled to Eden, who was en route to Moscow: ‘The accession of the United States makes amends for all, and with time and patience will give certain victory.’ There were short-term hazards. Washington would cut overseas weapons shipments to meet the needs of its own armed forces. Ten RAF squadrons en route to Persia to support Stalin’s southern front must be diverted to the Far East. But these were mere inconveniences alongside the glittering prospect opened by American might.

  The prime minister’s first priority was to meet Roosevelt and his military chiefs face to face, to cement the alliance created by events, though never ratified by formal treaty. Henceforward, Anglo-American dealings would be influenced by formal agreements on material issues, above all Lend-Lease, but governed chiefly by personal understandings, or lack of them, between the leaders of the two nations and their chiefs of staff. When Churchill proposed an immediate descent on Washington, the president demurred. On security grounds he suggested a rendezvous in Bermuda, which he said that he could not himself attend before 7 January 1942. In reality, Roosevelt was hesitant about making space at the White House for the overpowering personality of Britain’s prime minister and the torrent of rhetoric with which he would assuredly favour the American people. Nonetheless, in the face of Churchill’s chafing, the president agreed that he should come to Washington before Christmas.