allanpcameron
Donor
13 August 1940. RAF Dishforth. Yorkshire.
No 78 Squadron, part of Bomber Command’s No 4 Group, had been primarily used for the training of newly formed crews prior to posting on to operational squadrons. Over the few months that process had been stopped and the Whitley bombers had been traded in for Wellingtons. Having made the transition, the squadron was declared operational and tonight would be their first big raid.
No 4 Group had been in the thick of the fighting since May, and the arrival of a fresh squadron was greeted with relief. Part of their training was an attempt to increase the accuracy of their bombing. The Pathfinders from No 3 Group had been using a version of OBOE introduced in April. Now No 78 Squadron would be the new Pathfinder squadron for 4 Group. They were trialling a new type of ground mapping radar. While the historical H2S was known about, and although it was still being used by the RAF, the naval personnel were unfamiliar with it. What they did know was marine Type 978 navigational radar and the Blue Fox radar on the Sea Harriers, one of which was on the Olna. The radar technicians had been working with the team at Worth Matavers, the Ministry of Aircraft Production Research Establishment (MAPRE).
With the newly developed cavity magnetron and a great deal of trial and error, a working radar was produced and tested. Using the I band width, which the Harrier’s Blue Fox used, between 8-10 Htz, a 3cm wavelength, it proved as effective as what would have been known as the H2X system. No one seemed to know what H2S actually stood for, so this system was called type 301 radar.
Over the last week the crews of No 78 Squadron had been practicing over the east coast of Scotland and had very good bombing results, even on cloudly nights. Tonight, would be the first trial sortie over Germany, the target being Kreigsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven where the Tirpitz was being fitted out. With the particular shape of the fitting out basin and the other clearly visible waterfront, it was hoped that this target would show up clearly on the television type screen. As an exercise in precision bombing, the docks would be the target, but it was hoped that they might get a lucky hit on the Tirpitz. To maximise the damage all twelve aircraft were carrying two of the specially made 2000lb Armour Piercing bombs. These were 15-inch shells taken from Admiralty stocks and fitted out aerodynamically for dropping from aircraft.
It was thought that German air defences were still very primitive as attacks on German radar installations were a regular occurrence, so the small raid would hopefully find its target and withdraw before the Germans could mobilise any nightfighters. Six AI radar equipped Beaufighters would arrive over the target at the same time to give the bombers extra protection. There was very little that could be done about flak defences.
Flying over the North Sea at 15000 feet they followed the Oboe path that would bring them along the Frisian Island chain, which then showed up clearly on the type 301 radar picture. This allowed the navigators to descend to the attacking height of 6000 feet and turn south as they passed Wangerooge and up the Jade estuary to Wilhelmshaven.
The searchlights came on, trying to pinpoint the aircraft they could clearly hear, but the low cloud cover worked against them. Meanwhile the twelve Wellingtons were flying at 6000 feet in a very precise formation, four groups long of three aircraft wide, a little closer to one another than was completely comfortable for the pilots, but one that should provide the best hope of having a tight pattern of bombs.
With Flak shells bursting all around them the bomb aimers squeezed the release mechanism and twenty-four bombs fell to earth. The weight of the bombs meant that they penetrated down into the earth and concrete before exploding. While the explosive charges weren’t strong it was enough to produce big craters and seriously damage the infrastructure of the dockyard.
Only one bomb actually struck the Tirpitz. It hit the port forward secondary armament 15cm turret. Penetrating the 40mm top armour it destroyed the turret and badly damaged its mounting.
Behind the Wellingtons was a force of Hampdens which sowed the Jade estuary with magnetic mines, in the hope that if the decision was taken to move the Tirpitz that she would run into a mine and be further disabled.
Two Wellingtons were damaged by flak, one of which had to ditch in the North Sea. Part of the Beaufighters’ task was in the case of a 301 equipped bomber was lost the heavy fighter should attempt to make sure that the whole aircraft did not fall into enemy hands. The pilot of the Beaufighter circled the stricken aircraft, calling for an air-sea rescue boat to come and pick up the crew. Once he saw the bomber’s crew were safely removed from the bomber, he hastened it demise with a long burst of 2omm shells. In fact, the navigator of the Wellington was awarded a posthumous Air Force Medal for destroying the equipment as the plane was ditching. One Beaufighter shot down a Me110 that had been sent up to intercept, without radar of its own, it was a sitting duck for the Beaufighter pilot. A further two Hampdens failed to return to base.
Work on repairing the dockyard and Tirpitz would add a few extra months to its delivery date. It was decided to leave it where it was as the mining had been spotted and the Germans had no easy countermeasures for dealing with magnetic mines.
13 August 1940. Copenhagen. Denmark.
King Christian X rode his horse through the streets of his capital city, as he did every day. Without guards it was a sign of normalcy, and in some kind of way a sign of resistance. The people had been no great lovers of their king, but now something as simple as this, brought them consolation.
With the liberation of most of Belgium and parts of Holland had held out some hope that Denmark itself would be liberated. The loss of exports to Britain hurt the economy, and while the Germans were increasing their orders for Danish produce they were paying in Reichmarks rather than sterling. Danish farmers were also less inclined to work as hard to send off their produce to a country that had invaded and was occupying them.
So far Denmark had had very little damage from the war. The main place where there had been significant conflict was around the air base at Aalborg. Attempts to repair it and use it against Norway were hampered as it was regularly attacked from bases in Norway, whose air force recognised the danger of an airfield that close.
Norway had taken delivery of a number of new aircraft from the United States of America, these included Curtis Hawk 75s and Lockheed Hudsons (which the British had passed on to them). The Fleet Air Arm were also transitioning some squadrons through to support as much they could. What was making a difference was the arrival of some mobile radar units that allowed the Norwegian defences be better prepared for German attacks. Over the summer months a few satellite airstrips were prepared to provide the ability to disperse the aircraft better.
The remnant of the Danish Army/Navy Air Corps had fled first to Norway, then went to England for retraining, along with some Czechs and Poles. The Dutch and Belgians were flying over their home countries, and the Danes, Czechs and Poles were now flying over Norway mostly in Hurricanes. With the Spitfire Mk II now being produced a number of ex-RAF Spitfire Is were now becoming available. One Danish pilot flew his Spitfire, clearly marked in Danish colours across Copenhagen at low level to show his countrymen that the war continued. The fact that he was later reprimanded for pulling a stunt like that didn’t bother him too much.
The Luftwaffe had been so busy over Belgium and France that if very rarely attacked Norway anymore, expect if there were raids on Berlin or other German cities, and then revenge attacks were made. It was something of a stalemate over the Skagerrak.
14 August 1940. Military Engineering Experimental Establishment (MEXE). Christchurch, Dorset. England.
Colonel Thompson of the Royal Engineers had supervised the development of the Bailey Bridge and today was the trial of the first prototype, which was going to go over Mother Siller's Channel which cuts through the Stanpit Marshes at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Stour. The pieces of the flat truss bridge had been fabricated in Chepstow by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering, a firm already confident with welding techniques. Some of their engineers were here, along with 274th Field Company of the Royal Engineers. Belonging to the 9th Highland Division, a TA division that was still gearing up for war, this company had been chosen to see how an ordinary unit would cope with the new bridge. They had been trained on the Inglis bridge and it would be interesting to get their feedback on using this new bridge.
After a morning’s instruction from both civilian and military engineers, the 274th Field Company waited for the whistle that would signal their exercise. They very quickly got the hang of the way it was designed to be put together, urged on by their officers they also got into a simple rhythm. While it was heavy work in the sunshine the bridge took shape quickly enough. In two hours, they completed a 40-foot span. Looking at their achievement, they were clear that with practice, the time could be improved upon.
The men from the ministry of supply were suitably impressed and a contract for was placed immediately with Fairfields to produce this bridging equipment. A number of other companies would also be approached. To ensure the interchangeability of the parts, each company would build a bridge, to which the new parts were added, then the older parts dismantled, and sent off for delivery. Efforts were made to interest other countries in this British invention. The Dutch government in exile and the Belgians were particularly keen, since so many of their country’s bridges were already destroyed. The Dutch in fact had already made a significant investment in the design costs. In an unusual innovation, a couple of American Army engineers had been invited to Dorset for the prototype build. They were keen to have it, if a deal could be done to allow American firms to build it under license.
14 August 1940. Cherbourg. France.
Another convoy had arrived safely from Halifax, Nova Scotia. The ships were now being unloaded both here and in St Nazaire. As well as grain and other foodstuffs, the main cargo was motor transport. The Ford and Chevrolet factories had been producing trucks at a prodigious rate for the last few months, and these ships carried the first batch. These Canadian Military Pattern trucks, built with right hand drive were in various forms, but the most important were the three-ton trucks. When the BEF had been mobilised and shipped to France it had taken up a great deal of its motor transport from civilian stocks, and so butchers’ and grocers’ trucks had received a coat of green paint and used by the army.
The CMP trucks, although built by the two rival firms, were in fact largely interchangeable. The three tonners were in both long and short wheel bases, and had good reliable engines. They also came in a variety of forms, such as general service, water and petrol tankers, artillery tractors and vehicle recovery (tow trucks). Members of the Royal Army Service Corps had been transported to the docks, and these helped the get the vehicles roadworthy. In due course they drove them off to their depots, with a very reasonable chance of arriving without breaking down, and that made them happy men. To make things even better each truck had carried a certain number of spare parts in it as it crossed the Atlantic, meaning that if anything did go wrong, the army would have parts to fix them.
15 August 1940. Flugplatz Maldegem. Belgium.
The roar of Merlin engines was well known at this forward airbase, and today two new squadrons of Spitfire IIs arrived to take up residence. It had been upgraded since May. Concrete had replaced the grass strips. Revetments were dotted around, and a light anti-aircraft regiment were present to defend it. The burnt out remains of some Hurricanes and Gladiators at the side of the airfield a constant reminder to be on guard against German air attacks.
No 1 and 2 Squadrons of the Royal Canadian Air Force had arrived in Greenock in May, and were among the first to be trained on the new Spitfires. Now declared operational, and renamed 401 and 402 squadrons, they were to be based here in Belgium. The Canadians, some of whom wore Eagle badges on their arms and aircraft, would be sharing this particular air field with a Belgian ground attack squadron flying Hurribombers.
More and more of the RAF’s infrastructure was being moved to France and Belgium, including elements of the Civilian Repair Operation. The earlier fighting had seen RAF squadrons departing their stations in England, fighting over France and Belgium, then landing back in England, where the planes would be repaired and maintained, before doing it all again the next day. With the stability of the front line, and the hope of advances, a number of Belgian airfields were improved to be able to move whole squadrons, with their ground crew forward.
Along with Maldegem, the RAF were also using Nivelles, Wevelgem and Sint-Denijs-Westrem for their Belgian Wing. This was made up of 8 squadrons of Spitfire IIs. Altogether things were improving for the RAF. Even before the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme would provide new pilots in the autumn, the monthly average of 200 new pilots a month at the start of the year had been increased to almost 300 by June. It still wasn’t quite enough, only the Canadian and Rhodesian graduates would make up the shortfall when they started to arrive in numbers.
Getting more pilots through the training programme hadn’t been easy. The severe winter weather had taken a toll on the days available for flying. A streamlined system was put in place, with new pilots being kept back in Britain out of the front-line squadrons to give them more experience in Operational Training Units. After further instruction by veterans who were being rested after a time on the front line. Once they had acquired enough hours on the aircraft, and shown improvements in tactics and better gunnery essential for combat, the new pilots were moved to squadrons as replacements for casualties.
The lull in the last couple of months had allowed the RAF to introduce the upgraded Spitfire. The Hurribomber now in production had the improved Merlin, and crucially better armoured protection from ground fire. Numbers for both these aircraft were building up again, but the aircraft production was greater than newly trained pilots, leading to an increase in available aircraft in reserve. To help with numbers the RAF accepted the transfer of three Polish Squadrons from the AdA.
The AdA had taken on only a tenth of the Polish pilots who had arrived before May, at that point their lack of aircraft was a liability. The 150 they had taken were given poor aircraft, but had shown willing to fight. The survivors were now moving to better aircraft. The others, many of whom had been bomber pilots had either been spread out in reserve squadrons or acting as ground crew. The Poles were keen to get into the fight and the RAF had aircraft that were available. There had been some resistance to the idea, some officers would have preferred to have allocated the Polish pilots among a number of RAF squadrons. But the Poles wanted to fight together, to be the seed of an independent Polish air force. This was granted, though they had to accept some RAF officers to help with communication, such as "Shut up! Silence - in Polish!"
17 August 1940. RAF Bichester. England.
The second prototype Halifax bomber was getting ready for its first flight. The first prototype had flown on 25 October 1939, but a series of changes were ordered for the second prototype. The first was for improved power. The original Merlin engine was replaced with the Hercules III, producing 1650 HP, which were now being built.
The wing had been expanded to 104 feet 2 inches, which increased the service ceiling. The fuselage had been stressed to allow it carry more fuel, extending its range. The tail rudder shape was changed to a rectangular shape as the first prototype had problems with directional stability. The overall length was increased by the fitting of a new nose, without a forward firing turret. The decision to reduce the aircraft’s defensive armament was the subject to much debate. The facility to place a single gun in the nose was added, but not on this prototype. There was also discussion about using a ventral turret, but it wasn’t felt that the bomber would be better protected and that the weight saving in speed and height would be better.
The main change was internal to its bomb bay. Its bomb load was still 12000lbs, but as originally designed, it wouldn’t take large diameter bombs. The wing bomb cells were removed to increase the fuel storage. The top turret had been removed so that the bomb bay could be deepened so that it could carry the proposed 4000lb cookie bomb satisfactorily.
Taking to the skies the second prototype out performed its predecessor dramatically, and the Air Ministry were confident enough in it to order 400.
17 August 1940 Ravenstein, The Netherlands.
Lieutenant Edward Kilbane, now commanding A Squadron, 5th Royal Innisikilling Dragoon Guards was watching the Germans on the far side of the river Meuse (known as the Mass in this part of the Netherlands). Accompanied by Sergeant McNaughton they had crept forward out of sight to this observation post and were examining the enemy positions through the set of binoculars he had taken off a German Reconnaissance officer back in May. The optics were much better than the ones he had been issued with, and he liked the idea of using them against their makers and former owners.
Things were pretty quiet in this sector, a live and let live attitude had grown up between the troops on opposite sides of the river. That wasn’t to say that some idiot wouldn’t take it upon themselves to start sniping or starting something up, so Kilbane and McNaughton kept their heads down and their voices hushed. There was no great sign of any changes from the last time they had done this, perhaps some evidence of the Germans digging in deeper and it looked like they had done a bit of work with camouflage.
After marking everything they noted on a map, they made their way back to their own positions, where their light tanks were themselves heavily camouflaged. When they were out of sight of the enemy, they carried on the debate which seemed to be the topic of conversation throughout the army. McNaughton was of the opinion that having another phoney war wasn’t helping anyone but the Germans. They had been thrown back on their heels and it made no sense to stop here on this river. If the advance had carried on, they could well be on the Rhine by now.
Kilbane couldn’t help but agree that sitting here was frustrating. But he argued there were a number of issues that halting the advance was necessary. Logistics was a big part of it. There was a need to resupply the army that had moved further and further from its base of operations in France. It took longer for rations and ammunition, fuel and everything else to be brought forward. Supplies were now being built up in Belgium, so when the next big push kicked off, they have all they needed at hand. Secondly the French had taken a beating at Sedan, but had held on. Now that the Germans had taken the pressure off, the French were getting themselves sorted out, but it would probably take a while before they were ready to go on the offensive. Likewise, the Belgians were having to rebuild their army.
As for the BEF, as most of the men still called it, it was much stronger now. Auchinleck and Wilson the two new army commanders were in place now, and getting to know their units. The fact that there was now a full armoured division in each army, meant that when they did attack there would be a better armoured punch. More and more new equipment was arriving, they themselves had just got a better radio, were all signs that when they did attack it would be better coordinated and powerful.
McNaughton replied with the fact it was giving the Germans time to build up their stuff too. When the attack went in, it was likely that the Germans would be better organised, and probably better equipped, there wouldn’t be as many of the light panzers as there had been. Also, if they didn’t get going soon, it would soon be autumn, and that would just slow things down.
18 August 1940. Meeting of senior members of the OKH. Berlin. Germany.
Chief of the Naval General Staff, Admiral Otto Schniewind: So having moved to the four rotor system on our enigma we moved a number of units around, which should have been tempting targets for the British, but they didn’t bite.
Chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff, General Franz Halder: We moved an entire panzer corps and all we saw was increased reconnaissance by French and British planes until they found them.
Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff GeneralOberst Hans Jeschonnek: Likewise we made a number of changes and it seems that “the British Spy” wasn’t able to alert the RAF of them. Our own reconnaissance seemed to show an increased alert all along the Maas front from August 6th when we all started using the new enigma rotor. It would seem that Himmler was looking the wrong place all this time.
Halder: And too many good officers have died for no reason.
Schniewind: So, they were reading our codes after all. Do you think the new enigma will work for long?
Jeschonnek: My cryptographers say it is unbreakable. But they said that about the last one too.
Halder: We’ll have to replace Fritz Boetzel as director of OKW/Chiffrierabteilung. He should have had some idea that the enigma system wasn’t completely safe. I think his deputy was executed by Himmler’s goons. We’ll need to get someone better. Maybe from your department Otto, after all it was your lot that suspected the leak was here.
Schniewind: I’ll look into it and recommend someone later. But I’d be happier moving to a different system altogether. But that will take some research. Perhaps that should be the first order of business for the new director of OKW/Chi?
Jeschonnek: Now, who gets to tell the Fuhrer that we’ve found the spy, and that Himmler had killed a lot of innocent men?
19 August 1940. Singapore.
The arrival of the Entente Fleet was met with great fanfare. A fleet this large hadn’t been seen in East Indies waters for a very long time. HMS Ark Royal and Illustrious along with HMS Eagle flew off their air wings to do a fly past over the fleet then over Singapore itself. Next came the battleships in a line, HMS Nelson, Malaya, Richelieu, Strasbourg, with Repulse following. Then came the cruisers: 18th Cruiser Flotilla (HMS Aurora, Belfast, Edinburgh and Sheffield), with light cruisers Calypso and Caledon. The French 2nd Cruiser Division, Colbert, Duquense and Tourville, with the light cruisers Jean De Vienne and Marseillaise followed. The French 3rd Large Destroyer Division (Guepard, Valmy and Verdun) and the 2nd Destroyer Squadron’s Second Division (Fougueux, Frondeur and L’Adroit) followed the cruisers. The Royal Navy’s HMS Fame, Firedrake, Foresight, Fortune, Bedouin, Eskimo, Punjabi and Tartar brought up the rear.
To complete the review the RN’s East Indies’ 4th Cruiser squadron (HMS Gloucester, Manchester and Liverpool) and China Stations’ 5th Cruiser squadron (HMS Kent, Dorsetshire, Cornwall, and Birmingham) were joined by the French Indo-China station’s cruisers Suffren and Lamotte Picquett. These along with 21st Destroyer Flotilla welcomed the new arrivals.
After a decent run ashore, a series of gruelling exercises and flag flying visits were planned, taking the fleet to Saigon, Manila and Hong Kong.
After all the fanfare was over, in the next few days and weeks various other vessels arrived, some deliberately under the cover of darkness. The 4th Submarine Flotilla was already a strong force based between Singapore and Hong Kong. HMS Rorqual, Grampus, Regent, Rover, Parthian, Olympus, Proteus, Regulus, Rainbow, Phoenix, Perseus, Pandora, Odin, Otus and Orpheus were good long range patrol boats, but the O class were starting to show their age. Three new T class boats would replace the O class boats which would return to Home Fleet. There their crews would be used to man the new diesel-electric submarines that were being completed. It was planned that more of the improved T class and follow-on boats would be used in the East Indies fleet.
A few merchant ships arrived too. For the Royal Navy one had a consignment of Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft guns and mounts. These were destined for HMS Malaya. As she would become the East Indies flag ship, it was intended that the Singapore facilities should be able to upgrade her AAA ability. There were also some radar sets for both the Malaya and a couple of the cruisers. More Bofors and radars would be delivered as they became available. Another ship carried extra ammunition for the base, both for the ships and the shore batteries. These included a number of HE shells as well as AP. The survey that had been carried out of ammunition stocks had found some deterioration, and work was being done to prevent this from recurring.
The RAF were the recipients of the cargo of some of the other merchant vessels that arrived. With only 84 “first line” aircraft the need for such reinforcement was dire. One carried two squadron’s worth of crated Hurricanes that had been replaced in service by the newer models. Work would have to be done to them to make them fit for work in a tropical climate. Nos 11 and 34 Squadron would transition onto them from their Blenheims. There were also three of the new mobile radar stations. While this wouldn’t give much in the way of coverage beyond Singapore itself initially. It was felt important that the pilots of RAF Far East command should get practice in making ground-controlled interceptions. As 1941 progressed more of radar sets would arrive to provide an adequate early warning system, along with more single engine fighters. Among the passengers were some veteran pilots from the air war in France and Belgium. These men needed a rest, some recovering from injuries, but they would also be able to share some of the lessons with their new squadron mates. A number of Blenheim crews would go back with HMS Eagle to be trained on Beaufighters.
It was planned that when HMS Eagle returned to Home Fleet that she would leave most of her planes in Singapore to add to the air strength. While 18 Swordfish weren’t going to make a huge difference, the Swordfish were an improvement over the Vickers Wildebeests that two squadrons were equipped with. Once production was satisfactory, Beaufighters would start to replace the Blenheims in the other Far East Squadrons. With the increased production of Sunderland flying boats, some of these would start replacing the Short Singapores in Ceylon and Singapore in late 1940.
For the army a consignment of tanks arrived. Four Matilda IIs and four A10s, which had all been recovered from the battlefield and patched up, but not satisfactorily enough for going into action again. The plan was for the various infantry units to have tanks to work with, learning the techniques of cooperation. Likewise, their crews were made up of men who had been wounded, for whom the change to the Far East was judged to be beneficial. It was planned that an armoured brigade would be in place by June 1941.
As well as the tanks, there were also a battery’s worth of new 3.7inch anti-aircraft guns that would increase the defences of one of the new RAF bases. An anti-tank regiments worth of 2-pdrs were also delivered with some Royal Artillery instructors. One of the Indian Army’s battalions would have to learn how to use them, becoming an anti-tank regiment. Two more Indian Army Brigades (6th & 8th) were due to arrive in October, allowing the creation of a full Division. It still fell far short of the estimated minimum of three divisions that would be needed to defend the Malayan coastline. The Australian government was asking that one of the two divisions of the AIF currently in the Middle East, might be reassigned to Singapore. This was being considered, but the need for troops in Belgium and Holland was more keenly felt at the moment.
18 August 1940. Middle East Command. Egypt.
General Wavell thought very carefully how to phrase the next few lines in his letter to General Dill, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Since January he had lost the core of regular troops from his command, replaced by new, mostly green Indians, Australians and New Zealanders. Now he had lost Jumbo Wilson to Second Army, and he was feeling quite aggrieved, especially as the War Office wanted Wilson replaced by Bernard Freyberg. It was important that his letter didn’t convey exactly what he was feeling, the paper would probably combust if he did.
His argument was that the Italians, for all they didn’t look terribly aggressive at the moment, had very strong forces in both Libya and Abyssinia. The British forces in the Middle East should be an effective deterrent to such aggression. If Middle East Command was simply a training command that deterrent was less clear cut. Secondly the Middle East was not really a satisfactory place for training for a war on continental Europe. If Empire troops were to be brought from all corners of the world, would it not be better for them to be shipped directly to Britain or France where mating them with their equipment would be more straightforward?
Thirdly the situation with the RAF was becoming very difficult. Obviously, the losses in air crew at the front was a terrible cause for concern, but substituting experienced pilots and observers from Middle East Command for barely trained replacements meant that his command’s already weak air contingent was even weaker now. Fourthly, while Bernard Freyberg was a hero and fine man, he was too inexperienced to be given command of all British troops in Egypt. It would be better to leave him as Divisional commander of the New Zealanders and send out someone more experienced from Britain.
Wavell looked over what he had written to see if it could be phrased more delicately, but short of offering his resignation if Freyberg was appointed, there was little else he could say.
20 August 1940. War Office. London, England.
Official 1: So we’re agreed that 54th (East Anglian) Division, will join 43rd (Wessex) Division and the 2nd Canadian Division to become VII Corps?
Official 2: Yes, and that only leaves 55th (West Lancs) Division, as the last first line Territorial division. All the others are already in play.
Official 3: No, you’ve forgotten the Cavalry Division. They aren’t assigned anywhere.
Official 1: Well, what are we meant to do with them? The obvious thing is mechanise them, but we won’t have the tanks to do that for some time yet.
Official 2: Why not send them off to the Middle East?
Official 3: Wavell’s already at the end of his tether, as I understand it. If we transfer the ANZACs to Belgium, and replace them with a Cavalry Division, he’ll go through the roof.
Official 2: Wavell’s blood pressure isn’t our concern. We need three armies in Belgium, which is nine Corps, 27 Divisions, plus all the divisional troops. We so far have six Corps. O the two new Corps, VI are at Arras and will be operational in a month or so. VII Corps will be ready by November. The ANZACs joining in would make that a third army. Ready before Christmas.
Official 1: But there is no armoured Division in that army. How is the 3rd Armoured Division doing?
Official 3: It is proposed that it should be made up of the six Royal Tank Regiments which were converted from infantry territorials, so that would be: 21st Armoured Brigade: 40th (The King's) 41st (Oldham), and 42nd Royal Tank Regiments. Then 22nd Armoured Brigade: 43rd, 44th and 45th (Leeds Rifles) Royal Tank Regiments. So far, the lack of tanks is the hampering factor.
Official 2: They’ll need an infantry Brigade too, probably need to be one of the new Mechanised too.
Official 1: 6 Tank battalions will need the best part of 400 tanks. What’s the current tank production running at?
Official 3: Last month was the first where it got over 200. This month the same, next month should be 250, and that should rise again to about 350 by December. Two thirds will be Cruiser tanks and one third Infantry Tanks are the proportions for those figures.
Official 2: That’s not bad. Presuming that 21st Armoured Brigade are equipped with this month’s production, the 22nd Armoured Brigade should be equipped at the end of September. That means they should be deployable November.
Official 1: We still need Mechanised Infantry to round it out to an Armoured Division.
Official 3: Why not split up 55th (West Lancs) Division? They already were training as motorised infantry. If their brigades were mechanised then they could join 3rd and presumably 4th Armoured when it comes along?
Official 2: 56th Division is getting priority for all the armoured trucks at the moment, but it would be sensible to make 55th next in line. 4th Armoured Division will be who?
Official 1: Why not the Cavalry Division? If they get October and November’s tank production, then they will be ready to deploy in the new year.
Official 3: That is all presuming that the artillery and engineers are keeping pace with expansion. To say nothing of all the other equipment needed.
Official 2: The Territorials are coming on well. As each Territorial Division has its own assigned territorial gunners, engineers, transport etc. Like everything else it has been a rush getting them all equipped, but so far that has gone well.
Official 1: I suppose the next question is the second line territorials. There are twelve of them, though a few are already in Belgium.
Official 3: Yes, 15th, 23rd and 46th were line of communications troops, but have been mustered and equipped as V Corps under Alexander and seem to be doing well. We’ve earmarked 9th (Highland), 12th (Scottish) and 47th (London) as Line of Communications troops and they’re getting ready to move. They’ll fulfil their duties while continuing training and coming up to full strength equipment wise.
Official 2: Two of them, with 4th Armoured will presumably become VIII Corps, which should be the basis of 4th Army. I think we’re to get another Canadian Division, possibly armoured, and they’ll probably want to create a Canadian Corps, so there will have to be some readjustment in the future.
Official 1: I can see 4th Army being an Empire army. I Canadian Corps, ANZACs and an Indian Corps. Aussies, Maoris and Gurkhas, with some Canadian Scots bagpipers. That would be some combination!
Officials 2 & 3: (gulp)
20 August 1940. The Royal Palace. Bucharest. Romania.
Gheorghe Tătărescu, Prime Minister of Romania, entered the room and paid his respects to King Carol II. He was accompanied by Mihail Moruzov, the head of the Romanian Secret Service, who likewise honoured his king. King Carol listened to their report of the attempts to keep Romania out of the war, and not antagonise either side too much. Basically, King Carol was pro-Entente, and the Entente had guaranteed his country’s neutrality. With the Germans over the borders with Poland and the country formerly known as Czechoslovakia on one side. The Soviet Union being on the other side, he was somewhat hemmed in. While the continued fighting on the Western Front made it less likely that the Germans would invade, there was a fairly serious threat implied in the last missive he had received from Berlin.
The supply of oil products was of course the subject of this communication. In the first three months of 1940 the British and French had bought four times the amount of oil from Romania than had been supplied to Germany (428343 tons v 103821 tons). In March, the Germans had signed a new agreement for 130000 tons per month, at a slightly increased price. The British offered Romania credits to not to increase this amount. At the beginning of May, Herman Neubacher, the German chargé d’affairs in economic matters with the Romanian Legation, had attempted to renegotiate the price and quantity. The Romanians, claiming that they did not have the facility to increase the delivery, bought some time. Now however the latest communication from Berlin noted that each month there had been a shortfall in delivery of the agreed tonnage, and sought both an increase in delivery and a decrease in price, in fact, they were looking to half the price they paid. The oil would be paid for by armaments (mostly captured Polish equipment) for the Romanian army. The subsequent implied threat was not very subtle.
For the Romanians, the threat was taken seriously. There was no direct way for the Entente powers to come to their aid if the Germans did invade, and the Romanian army would struggle to resist for very long. With Turkey remaining neutral, an Entente military force would be unlikely to be able to enter the Black Sea to come to their aid that way. The nature of the war in the West was such that even with the best of intentions, very little aid would be available to help the Romanians hold out.
To add to their worries, King Carol had also received notification from Moscow that they wanted to take back the former Russian territories which had been given to Romania at the Treaty of Versailles, namely Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The fact that both the German and Soviet communications had come within days of one another was understood to be part of the threat. Like Poland, if they resisted a German attack, they could well face a Soviet knife in the back too. It seemed that their ability to remain neutral was undermined by the presence of their oil industry. Without it they would probably be left alone.
To discuss these matters, the King ordered an aide to bring the British and French ambassadors into the meeting. Sir Reginald Hoare and Adrien Thierry were well known in the palace and by the Prime Minister. They were accompanied by their military attachés, who were clearly representing the SIS and Deuxième Bureau, both men knew Mihail Moruzov very well. Having paid their respects to King Carol, the quandary that the Romanians found themselves in was communicated quite clearly.
The situation was not unlike the Swedish problem with iron ore. The Romanians continued to ship oil to the Entente through the Black Sea. Britain and France were prepared to make a commercial deal to buy the entire spare Romanian output for above market value. Surely a neutral country would be better off selling its produce for a better price, in hard currency, which the Germans were less than willing to do. The only counter to the German threat, and here the two ambassadors were honest enough not to promise military aid, was to do again in 1940 what was done in 1916. At that point in the Great War, as part of the total blockade of Germany by the Western powers, 1600 oil derricks, 26 refineries, oil tanks and over 800000 tons of oil derivatives were destroyed. The Romanian government went along with this, and the German occupiers had to spend a great deal of effort to get production going again. However, in the post-war period the promised compensation wasn’t as forthcoming as Britain and France had agreed, eventually Romanian debt was cancelled in its place.
This time however, both Britain and France were in a better financial position than they had been in 1918. The ambassadors also presented letters from the main oil companies promising that they would take up the task of putting the Romanian oil industry back on its feet after any such destruction.
Moruzov was aware that a French mission, under Leon Wenger (an engineer who had worked with the British in 1916) and Captain Pierre Angot (Deuxième Bureau) had examined the Romanian oil industry. They had then formulated a complete plan for blocking traffic on the Danube to Germany (such as sinking a couple of concrete filled barges at the Iron Gate) and the destruction of the oil producing and refining capacity of Romania. Moruzov was also aware of the German Abwehr’s plans to form an “oil protection” detail to counter such a plan.
This was Romania’s only counter-threat. If the Germans (and/or Soviets) invaded, then Romania could follow a scorched earth policy that would make such an invasion counter-productive.
Hoare and Thierry’s Attachés also gave King Carol an up-to-date assessment of the war in France and Belgium and of the problems that the German failure to knock France out of the war quickly had caused. The fundamental weakness of Germany was its economy. It just wasn’t ready for an extended war. And the weakest point of the German economy was its lack of oil. If Romania would either stop selling oil altogether to Germany, or keep its levels below the 130000 tons needed per month, it would not be long until the whole German war machine came to a grinding halt.
King Carol, as a cousin of King George, and his half-Jewish mistress, were also offered asylum in Great Britain, or any of its territories, in the event of Romania falling under German domination. The King thanked the emissaries, and continued the discussions with his advisors alone.
21 August 1940. Office of First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound. Admiralty. London
Pound looked up from the report he was reading and looked at the author, Captain Hugo White, who later described the look as “withering”. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Operation Catherine, by any chance?”
In fact most people in the Royal Navy in the 1980’s knew of Churchill’s “fantasy” of putting a strong fleet into the Baltic. He also knew that Pound had resisted it with every fibre of his being. “Actually, we studied the plan at Dartmouth, it was part of the curriculum.” Pound’s mouth was slightly agape for a moment or two while he processed that piece of information, “What exactly did you learn from that particular study?” White started to feel a little like a midshipman hauled up before the Captain to answer to some terrible crime.
“Operation Catherine was an example of an unrealistic solution to a particular problem. It also lacked specific objectives, it was going to try to do too many things, and by going after too many it would probably fail in all of them. It would have been disastrous if implemented. The use of air power over capital ships wasn’t understood in 1939, so even if the frankly unbelievable changes had been made to the three battleships, they simply would not have survived in the confined waters of the Baltic or its approaches. While it is good to have an offensive mind-set, this should not overwhelm reason.” White was quite pleased with his answer, he thought he had remembered the lessons quite well.
Pound saw the opening. “In that case, Captain White, perhaps you might assess your own plan with that in mind. First what exactly is the objective? Second, what cost do you suppose your plan will be in terms of ships and men? Third, how can you describe this plan as reasonable?”
White had spent some time in the plans department of the Admiralty, looking at defending the shipping lanes of the Atlantic from a vast host of Soviet submarines. He was no fool, and he knew it was important to communicate that to his new boss.
“Well Sir, firstly the objective is to degrade the German fleet to the point that it either cannot leave port or ceases to exist, in other words to own them. If we succeed in that objective then the Baltic will be part of the overall blockade of Germany. Secondly, the cost in lives and vessels is likely to heavy. Of the ten submarines we have tried to get into the Baltic, five have been lost and two damaged, only three were unscathed. My calculations are that our losses will be less than this, possibly 33% of submarines taking part, and the losses in aircraft might be similar.
Thirdly, the differences between Operation Catherine and this are multiple. The vessels we propose to use are designed for this very type of warfare, with all the advantages that brings, no turning battleships into turtles. This is pure offensive, sinking every German boat in range. In my history their U boats nearly strangled us and the battle of the Atlantic was a close-run thing. Operation Nelson will do unto them as they wish to do unto us.”
Pound leaned back in his chair. “I admire your enthusiasm, Captain, I really do. But this just seems too…radical.” “Sir, we have successfully put the German fleet on the back foot. If we can hit them one more time, a decisive blow in their backyard, then the Royal Navy will have taken the Kriegsmarine out of the war entirely, in less than a year, and a proportionately low cost.” White could feel his enthusiasm getting the better of him, so he deliberately took a few deep breaths. Pound could see that White’s plan was at least well developed and had merit. He also knew if Churchill got hold of it, it’d be an “action this day” order. “Operation Nelson, I see, a reference to Copenhagen?” White was ready for that one, “Yes, hopefully as successful and hard fought, but with a clear signal to withdraw at discretion.” “And I suppose any submarine officer who’s got a clue about this can’t wait to get into it?” White smiled slightly, “Yes sir, a bigger bunch of pirates never sailed the seven seas. I thought destroyer captains were aggressive, but the dolphins would be better called great white sharks.”
Pound turned to Vice Admiral Max Horton, commander of the Submarine fleet. “You took your submarine into the Baltic in the Great War, didn’t you Max?” “I did indeed sir, the old E9.” Pound nodded, one of the bars on the DSO ribbon Horton was wearing was awarded for that. Pound asked him, “So you agree with this plan, Max, do you think it will shorten the war?” “I think it could sink a lot of German ships, whether that will shorten the war, I’m not sure. My two concerns are mines and Sweden. A large part of the German defences relies on mines, and submarines don’t do well against mines. It would be better if we had the Onyx’s sophisticated mine avoidance sonar in our boats, but that’s too far off. Even with that, I believe the mines are thick enough at some points that there is no avoiding them.
The other question is Sweden. There is a real possibility of entering their territorial waters, and we don’t want to upset them. While I have no particular fears about their anti-submarine capacity, they’re probably even worse than the Germans, we can’t have our subs sinking neutral ships, causing all sorts of diplomatic repercussions.”
Pound turned to White, “So what do you say to that?” White had already had this discussion with Horton, “Regarding mines, there is little we could do. To clear paths we would need to bring surface ships, minesweepers, into a hostile environment. Then we would need bigger ships to protect the little ships and before you know it, we’re back of Operation Catherine. The Wellingtons with the magnetic mine exploders, the DWIs, from Coastal Command will try to knock off any magnetic mines. But otherwise, there isn’t much we can do. Obviously, the Fleet Air Arm and RAF will need to provide a lot of support, and while I’m sure of the FAA, crab air might be more of a problem.
As for Swedish neutrality, we’ll just have to order the captains to do their best. If they have any sense, when they see German ships being torpedoed all over the place, then they’ll stay away. A friendly word of warning that something is happening in their neighbourhood probably won’t go amiss.”
Pound frowned. The desire to do something made it very tempting to do anything. The choice was to do nothing, living with the idea that the Germans were boxed in the Baltic. Or risk the largest part of the submarine service to possibly remove them from the board entirely. White and Horton looked at one another, Pound was obviously giving it serious consideration. “Right. I’ve thought about it, and the answer’s ‘no’. If the German navy want to lock themselves away in the Baltic, they can wither there on the vine. By all means increase surveillance in the Skagerrak to make sure they don’t try to break out, but I don’t think we should try to break in. If you’re right about the Bismark coming out of Hamburg and heading for the Kiel Canal, then yes, that’s worth an attempt, but otherwise, no to Nelson. Sorry.”
23 August 1940. Air Ministry. London, England.
Official 1: There is a proposal here to transfer the defence of all airfields to the RAF: “In the light of German attacks on Norwegian and Danish airfields by paratroopers to capture them for enemy use, a force formed from the RAF, should have responsibility for the protection of their own airfields.”
Official 2: Does that include anti-aircraft artillery?
Official 1: No, just the physical defences from possible saboteurs, or paratroopers, or in case of invasion.
Official 3: Invasion? How on earth would the Germans manage that?
Official 2: I suppose the chaps in France and Belgium would be more worried about that kind of thing.
Official 1: Sounds like the War Office trying to shift some of their budget onto ours. If the RAF has to train ground pounders to look after our airfields that will cost us money rather than the army doing it for us.
Official 3: On the other hand, some of the regiments that are currently “defending” our airfields spend more time trying to chat up the WAAFs than anything else. I’m not sure just how well they’d manage if push came to shove.
Official 2: I suppose the RAF armoured car companies in the Middle East set a precedent.
Official 1: There’s precedent, and there’s taking liberties.
Official 2: I suppose having RAF men with the right attitude looking after our aircraft makes more sense, at least they could be trained to understand priorities in terms of air operations.
Official 3: For the new drafts of men we can’t place in technical schemes or such like, could be trained in infantry skills and having gone through an RAF induction they would be RAF-minded.
Official 1: But some ground pounder would need to train them up to the appropriate level.
Official 2: If they’re going to be taken seriously, they’ll need to have a training course better than the infantry. Why not use the Royal Marines, at least they have an idea of what it is like being an auxiliary of the brown jobs?
Official 3: If it has to be the brown jobs, maybe the brigade of Guards?
Official 1: The Marines provide defence of naval ports and such, they at least would have a clue for that kind of thing.
Official 2: Do you mean ask them to do an improved marine course, without the boat bits?
Official 3: I suppose so. I still think we should start thinking about AA defence too, maybe light AA initially.
Official 1: We could put that into our recommendation. Now what shall we call this outfit?
Official 2: The Defenders of the RAF?
Official 3: The RAF Defence Regiment?
Official 1: Maybe just the RAF Regiment?
Official 2: That sounds about right.
Official 1: Right you are, The RAF Regiment.
25 August 1940. Castle Bromwich. Birmingham. England.
Man from the Air Ministry: So all the bombs missed?
Manager: Yes the nearest fell about 500 yards away. But it was a bit of a close-run thing. A fair bit of production was lost in the night shift with the workers taking cover in the shelters. Even after the ‘all clear’, it took a while to get everybody back to work. Some of the women were quite frightened.
Man from the Air Ministry: Yours wasn’t the only one. There were raids on Rolls Royce’s Derby plant and Supermarine in Southampton too. No direct hits anywhere. We think the Germans lost six or seven planes in the raid here, and a good few in the other places too. Though how they got so close during the night is a worry.
Manager: Do you think there’s somebody shining a light or making some other kind of signal for them?
Man from the Air Ministry: It can’t be ruled out, and I believe the police are investigating that possibility. The Army are bringing another anti-aircraft battery and searchlight unit to add to what’s already here. The night fighter squadrons are also going on higher alert, one is probably going to be brought back from France.
Manager: They said before the war that the bomber will always get through, I just never thought they would get through to here.
Man from the Air Ministry: Well, to be honest, I think they’re getting pretty desperate. They’ve seen your Spitfires in operation and want to stop them being built. It is almost a complement.
Manager: They keep that compliment to themselves. Anyway, I suppose you want the latest figures?
Man from the Air Ministry: Yes actually, that’s why I came. The changeover to the Mark II in May took you down a good bit. But June and July’s numbers please, and the expectation for August.
Manager: Well, June was 45, it was lower because we were still getting up to speed in the first week. Then July was 62, and subject to more raids, we’re on course for 66 in August.
Man from the Air Ministry: I remember when Lord Nuffield promised we’d have sixty a week from here! We really need you to get to over 100 per month as quickly as possible. To help with that we’ll keep the Mark II exactly as it is until the Mark III is ready for production. No changing of specs or tweaking this or that. Just build them as fast as you can. Now there’s another thing. The RAF have been complaining that there’s a shortage of spare parts. We need you to increase aircraft production, but don’t do it artificially by reducing the production of spare parts, otherwise they’ll have to cannibalise some fighters to keep others in the air.
Manager: Well, that’s a change. All we’ve been getting pressure on was production of finished aircraft. If you want the full range of spares, it will affect the monthly total, maybe as much as 10%. If you want us to get to over 100 aircraft a month, I can’t see that happening until January. We’ve been increasing the workforce, and that is going well, but there is still the occasional hiccup while we’re waiting for deliveries from sub-contractors.
Man from the Air Ministry: Some of my colleagues are dealing with that as we speak.
Manager: Are there any contingencies for dispersal if there are more raids?
Man from the Air Ministry: I can’t see the Luftwaffe taking the kind of losses they did last night for long. I don’t think we have to worry overmuch at this stage. As for dispersal, for here, there’s not really much of a plan at the moment. But we’ve brought forward a lot of new capacity in the south of England to increase production. These are spread out and being brought to two new assembly factories at Salisbury and Trowbridge. If the Eastleigh plant in Southampton is damaged, these will be the dispersal centres, with another at Reading if need be.
Manager: Well, I suppose I ought to get back to work.
Man from the Air Ministry: Pass on a ‘well done’ to your workforce, they deserve it. But, please add a ‘Let’s do even better’.
26 August 1940. RAF Bentley Priory.
Air Marshall Hugh Dowding: That’s two nights running there have been large raids. All aimed at our aircraft industry. What have we learned?
Air Vice Marshall Sholto Douglas: We picked up the German beams coming from Cleves and near the Danish border, just as predicted.
Professor R V Jones: We added the counter measures which meant that all the bombs missed the targets. Though I think there were some civilian casualties?
Dowding: I’m afraid so, but that is the German’s fault entirely, please do not take any burden upon yourself. Most of their bombs fell on farmland.
Douglas: We have four night-fighter squadrons, 600, 604, 219, and 29. The first three are all on a mix of Beaufighters and Blenheims and they brought down twenty Heinkels the first night and fifteen last night. Nearly all by the Beaufighters in those squadrons. You can see the difference, 29 Squadron are still in Blenheims and only got one and two. As far as we can tell, four enemy bombers were brought down by AA fire. That means that 42 bombers were shot down out of something like 400, which is going to hurt Fat Herman pretty hard. We lost three, one Beaufighter and two Blenheims, but these seem to have been accidents rather than enemy action.
Jones: We’ve been trying to get the AA guns radar controlled but that is progressing too slowly. We just can’t produce enough radar sets fast enough. Also, the proximity fuzes will help with that, but while Pye is making good progress we won’t see mass production for some time.
Dowding: The Beaufighter really is a godsend. I believe 29 Squadron are due to transition next. The high success rate seems to be down to having two bites at the cherry, attacking on the way to the target and again as Jerry was withdrawing. A Flight Lieutenant John Cunningham of 604 squadron got three himself. We must keep an eye on him. The fact that they went for the Midlands and Southampton helped extend their time in range.
Douglas: I think the fact that the transition to the Beaufighters has been done by flights, rather than taking the whole squadron out at any one time, certainly helped. By the end of September all four squadrons will completely on Beaus.
Dowding: We will need a good few more squadrons of them too, if Jerry keeps trying night attacks. I wouldn’t be surprised if he attempts to do to London what he did to Paris. We must keep the pain threshold too high for him. I sincerely hope they don’t go back to daylight bombing. So many of our home-based squadrons are full of new, untried, pilots, or worse, are at below par manning levels. We really need more pilots.
Douglas: The first class of the Air Training Plan have got their wings in Canada and are being shipped over to join OTUs in September. We should see an improvement shortly.
Jones: I thought the Poles and Danes and others were helping?
Dowding: Yes, they are. But if the Luftwaffe are starting to go on the offensive again, we can be sure that our casualty rate will increase.
Late August-early September 1940. South and East China Seas.
The Entente Fleet had sailed up from Singapore and conducted exercises off French Indo-China. The French warships entering Saigon with great fanfare. After a suitable run ashore, the fleet had sailed to Hong Kong, where the 2nd Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders, along with 5th Battalion of 2nd Punjab regiment practiced reinforcing the Hong Kong garrison. The Hong Kong Brigade was made up of 2nd Battalion Royal Scots, 2nd Bn Middlesex Regiment, 1st Kumoan Rifles, 19th Hyderabad Regiment. The two newly arrived Battalions were used to test the defences of the Gin Drinkers Line of defences. Progress was watched very carefully from a distance by the local Japanese occupation troops, who noted the difficulty that the attackers had. The close cooperation with the naval aircraft working off the three carriers was also rehearsed.
While these exercises were taking place the troop ships that had brought the two battalions sailed to Shanghai with a strong naval presence. It had been decided that the two regular battalions (1st Seaforth Highlanders & 2nd East Surrey), along with all other military personnel, would be withdrawn from the Shanghai International Settlement. The French troops would also be withdrawn and redeployed to Indochina.
The Americans, on being informed of, this decided to keep the Marine Corps detachment where it was. The offer to European settlers in Shanghai to be relocated away from the Sino-Japanese war was only taken up by a small number. The two British battalions would join the Hong Kong Brigade, along with 5th Battalion of 2nd Punjab Regiment to create a Kowloon Brigade. Plans to upgrade the anti-aircraft regiments and artillery were in place and more reinforcements would arrive over the next year. Likewise, the RAF would also improve its position as things in Malaya improved.
From Hong Kong the fleet sailed south to fly the flag in the Philippines. The American Asiatic Fleet sailed out to exercise with the Entente Fleet, treating it as if it were an invasion fleet. Admiral Hart’s defence plan relied on using his submarines to whittle down the invasion fleet. They found the British anti-submarine defences stronger than they presumed, and the presence of the Swordfish flying from the three carriers further hampered submarine operations. The three carriers also provided air cover for the fleet from Filipino/American Army Air Force assets flying from Clark Air Force Base. A force of Martin B10s from 20th Bomb Squadron, escorted by 3rd Pursuit Squadron’s P26 Peashooters, attempted to intercept the Entente Fleet but found themselves outclassed by the Fulmars and Sea Hurricanes of HMS Illustrious and Ark Royal.
The exercises continued for a few days with the Americans sorely outclassed, a full report of which was sent back urgently to Washington. During the run ashore the Gordon Highlanders with French and Royal Marines provided an opposition force that also showed up glaring deficiencies in the preparedness of the Filipino and American forces.
Leaving the Philippines, the Entente fleet sailed south to exercise with the Dutch East Indies forces. Reinforced by some elements of the fleet that had escaped from home waters when the Germans invaded, the Dutch fleet put up a creditable performance, particularly its submarine force. The weakness of the Dutch airpower was manifest, and the Dutch were looking at improving this as quickly as they could.
The Entente Fleet then sailed back to Singapore. HMS Malaya (which became the Flagship) was accepted as part of the East Indies fleet along with three cruisers (Aurora, Belfast and Calypso) and four destroyers (Foresight, Fortune, Bedouin, Eskimo). HMS Illustrious and Ark Royal, with the majority of the fleet, set sail for home. They would make a morale boosting visit to Australia and then cross the Pacific via the Hawaiian Islands and the Panama Canal. HMS Illustrious would return to Singapore after exercising with the American Pacific fleet at Honolulu. Meanwhile HMS Eagle, with a small escort would make a quicker journey back through the Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea for home and a much-needed refit.
29 August 1940. Meaux-Esbly Airbase.
Groupes de Chasse de Nuit GCN III/l and II/4, equipped with Potez 631s had been struggling against the Luftwaffe night attacks. While they had practiced some Ground Controlled Interceptions, they had never really mastered it. The plane itself was, like the RAF’s Blenheim nightfighter variant, not really suitable for the role. It was quite slow and was armed only with two forward firing machine guns. On the few occasions when an interception had taken place, the German bombers had been peppered with machine guns bullets, but never actually shot down. The plan to replace the two machine guns with 20mm canons was progressing, and some were having a further six machine guns added in pods under their wings.
Today the French pilots were being shown the Beaufighter with a mark IV AI radar and heavy armament. Only two flights of Beaufighters were available in Belgium and France, and they had been far more successful than the French. Bristol could hardly produce enough Beaufighters for the RAF, so the chance of the French buying some was remote. Building the radar was possible and a spare was being fitted to a Potez for trials. Coupled with further efforts at GCI, it was hoped to put a larger dent in the Luftwaffe efforts.
30 August 1940. Aérodrome Cuers-Pierrefeu.
The French had ordered 81 G36As (Grumman F4Fs) for their two new carriers (Joffre and Painlevé). Having been delivered they were now assembled and armed with 6x 7.5mm machine guns. The Aéronavale squadrons, once they had familiarised themselves with the new type, would take them into battle.
Pierre Lacroix, commander of all Aeronavale Fighter squadrons decided to be the first to take the new aircraft for its test flight. He walked around the aircraft. It was blunt nosed, square tipped and reminded Lacroix of an angry bee.
He strapped himself in, noting it was only a lap belt, a full safety harness would be better. As he increased speed along the runway and took off, he was conscious of having to correct a severe swing, something which would need to be looked at, especially if it repeated itself on landing. For fifteen minutes he put it through its paces. He found her tough, fiery and a beautiful little aeroplane. Its maximum speed was just a little above 500km/h. On landing Lacroix found the same swing. He had a word with the ground crew about it. One of them suggested making changes to the tail wheel that would bring the rudder into the slipstream which would help cure the swing. Along with the recommendation for adding a shoulder harness to the lap belt, he was happy to start showing his men how to make the most of this new fighter. It was going to be a long time till they would be flying off carriers, but there were plenty of Luftwaffe aircraft to battle with, and this G36 would be an improvement over most of the aircraft that the French Fleet Air Arm were used to.
31 August 1940. Bletchley Park. England.
Commander Alastair Denniston: The extra rotor hadn’t caused quite as much of a fuss as we had feared.
Alan Turing: Only because we expected they would do it and already had worked on a bombe to overcome it.
Denniston: The problem now is that there is a worryingly high degree of care being taken by the users to avoid the kind of mistakes that gave us access previously.
Turing: Yes, but the computing power that we now have is overcoming that. My own problem with this, is that if they think we have the ability to read their mail they will either go to a completely new system that we won’t be able to break, or use the system to feed us false information.
Denniston: It does seem that our giving a general alert when they changed the system seemed to warn them that something was up.
Chief Petty Officer Bill Mars (formerly of HMS Bristol): We have to use the Ultra system again. That means very few people have access to the intelligence. We have to allow some things to happen that if we took action would let them know that we know. We put better reconnaissance assets over the things we do want to attack so that they presume that is where the information we are getting is coming from. I think there was some statistical system for working out what would appear coincidental and what would give the impression that we knew something specific.
Turing: I can do that analysis easily.
Denniston: I need to take this to No 10 and let them know. But at least we’re reading the traffic again.
31 August 1940. Charleroi.
André-Gaston Prételat, the new French First Army Group was standing with General Henri Giraud, commander of French Seventh Army, watching as General Picard’s 1st Light Mechanised Division (1re DLM) exercising against the reconstructed 2nd Light Cavalry Division (2 DLC). Giraud had changed things around after the advance on Brussels in May. In the last couple of months French industry had increased production of armoured vehicles. While most of them were still suffering from the same faults identified in earlier models, the fact was that most of the losses in May been made up for.
The four Light Cavalry Divisions had slowed the German advance through the Ardennes in May and had paid dearly doing so. The remnants of the four DLCs had been reorganised into two, the First and Second. 1re DLC had been assigned to First Army, while 2e DLC had been given to 7th Army. Both DLCs now had two Armoured Car regiments, the Panhard 178s were effective reconnaissance vehicles.
The armoured regiments of Seventh Army were receiving all the new Renault R40s and Somua 40s, making them the best equipped in the French order of battle. Part of the reason for this exercise was to make sure that the integration of the new chars was well advanced as well as rehearsing for the counter-attack. Seventh Army now consisted of First Motorised Corps: 25th Motorised Infantry Division (25e DIM) and First Light Mechanised Division (1re DLM). 16th Motorised Corps consisted of 9e DIM and 21e DIM.
21e DIM had been an infantry division in May, but had been motorised over the last few months. As part of its reorganisation, it had integrated the Char Brigade (GBC 510) with its 90 R40s. One of its Infantry Regiments (48e) had also been equipped with the Lorraine VBCP (Véhicule Blindé de Chasseurs Portés or Armoured Personnel Carrier). This experiment, to have three infantry regiments with integral armour was being examined as a way forward. The Seventh Army’s reserve of two infantry Divisions (4e and 60e) were still having to march as there weren’t enough trucks for them. The 2e DLC provided the reconnaissance capability for the army.
First Army had likewise been changed somewhat. The 3e and 5e North African Infantry Divisons (DINAs) had been reassigned to Second Army. It now consisted of III Corps (2e DLM (80 S35s and 80 H39s) and 1re DIM), IV Corps (3e DLM (80 S35s and 80 H39s) and 15e DIM) and V Corps (1re DCr and 12e DIM). 1re DCr (Division Cuirassee) had 70 Char B1s and 90 H35s. With only one integral Infantry Battalion it had been linked with 12e DIM to provide the Corps with a better mix of chars and infantry. The units under direct Army command were 1re DLC as the reconnaissance unit, with the 32e DI and GBC 515 (45 H35s and 45 R35s) as Army reserves.
The formation of two further DCrs (2e and 3e) were continuing but the number of chars required still fell short of the expected table of organisation and equipment. These were still part of the GQG reserves based at Chalons-sur-Marne. It was hoped that by Spring 1941 these would be the core of a new army.
Prételat asked Giraud the all-important question, “Are they ready?” “Oui!” was the answer. Prételat nodded, “They’d better be.”
No 78 Squadron, part of Bomber Command’s No 4 Group, had been primarily used for the training of newly formed crews prior to posting on to operational squadrons. Over the few months that process had been stopped and the Whitley bombers had been traded in for Wellingtons. Having made the transition, the squadron was declared operational and tonight would be their first big raid.
No 4 Group had been in the thick of the fighting since May, and the arrival of a fresh squadron was greeted with relief. Part of their training was an attempt to increase the accuracy of their bombing. The Pathfinders from No 3 Group had been using a version of OBOE introduced in April. Now No 78 Squadron would be the new Pathfinder squadron for 4 Group. They were trialling a new type of ground mapping radar. While the historical H2S was known about, and although it was still being used by the RAF, the naval personnel were unfamiliar with it. What they did know was marine Type 978 navigational radar and the Blue Fox radar on the Sea Harriers, one of which was on the Olna. The radar technicians had been working with the team at Worth Matavers, the Ministry of Aircraft Production Research Establishment (MAPRE).
With the newly developed cavity magnetron and a great deal of trial and error, a working radar was produced and tested. Using the I band width, which the Harrier’s Blue Fox used, between 8-10 Htz, a 3cm wavelength, it proved as effective as what would have been known as the H2X system. No one seemed to know what H2S actually stood for, so this system was called type 301 radar.
Over the last week the crews of No 78 Squadron had been practicing over the east coast of Scotland and had very good bombing results, even on cloudly nights. Tonight, would be the first trial sortie over Germany, the target being Kreigsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven where the Tirpitz was being fitted out. With the particular shape of the fitting out basin and the other clearly visible waterfront, it was hoped that this target would show up clearly on the television type screen. As an exercise in precision bombing, the docks would be the target, but it was hoped that they might get a lucky hit on the Tirpitz. To maximise the damage all twelve aircraft were carrying two of the specially made 2000lb Armour Piercing bombs. These were 15-inch shells taken from Admiralty stocks and fitted out aerodynamically for dropping from aircraft.
It was thought that German air defences were still very primitive as attacks on German radar installations were a regular occurrence, so the small raid would hopefully find its target and withdraw before the Germans could mobilise any nightfighters. Six AI radar equipped Beaufighters would arrive over the target at the same time to give the bombers extra protection. There was very little that could be done about flak defences.
Flying over the North Sea at 15000 feet they followed the Oboe path that would bring them along the Frisian Island chain, which then showed up clearly on the type 301 radar picture. This allowed the navigators to descend to the attacking height of 6000 feet and turn south as they passed Wangerooge and up the Jade estuary to Wilhelmshaven.
The searchlights came on, trying to pinpoint the aircraft they could clearly hear, but the low cloud cover worked against them. Meanwhile the twelve Wellingtons were flying at 6000 feet in a very precise formation, four groups long of three aircraft wide, a little closer to one another than was completely comfortable for the pilots, but one that should provide the best hope of having a tight pattern of bombs.
With Flak shells bursting all around them the bomb aimers squeezed the release mechanism and twenty-four bombs fell to earth. The weight of the bombs meant that they penetrated down into the earth and concrete before exploding. While the explosive charges weren’t strong it was enough to produce big craters and seriously damage the infrastructure of the dockyard.
Only one bomb actually struck the Tirpitz. It hit the port forward secondary armament 15cm turret. Penetrating the 40mm top armour it destroyed the turret and badly damaged its mounting.
Behind the Wellingtons was a force of Hampdens which sowed the Jade estuary with magnetic mines, in the hope that if the decision was taken to move the Tirpitz that she would run into a mine and be further disabled.
Two Wellingtons were damaged by flak, one of which had to ditch in the North Sea. Part of the Beaufighters’ task was in the case of a 301 equipped bomber was lost the heavy fighter should attempt to make sure that the whole aircraft did not fall into enemy hands. The pilot of the Beaufighter circled the stricken aircraft, calling for an air-sea rescue boat to come and pick up the crew. Once he saw the bomber’s crew were safely removed from the bomber, he hastened it demise with a long burst of 2omm shells. In fact, the navigator of the Wellington was awarded a posthumous Air Force Medal for destroying the equipment as the plane was ditching. One Beaufighter shot down a Me110 that had been sent up to intercept, without radar of its own, it was a sitting duck for the Beaufighter pilot. A further two Hampdens failed to return to base.
Work on repairing the dockyard and Tirpitz would add a few extra months to its delivery date. It was decided to leave it where it was as the mining had been spotted and the Germans had no easy countermeasures for dealing with magnetic mines.
13 August 1940. Copenhagen. Denmark.
King Christian X rode his horse through the streets of his capital city, as he did every day. Without guards it was a sign of normalcy, and in some kind of way a sign of resistance. The people had been no great lovers of their king, but now something as simple as this, brought them consolation.
With the liberation of most of Belgium and parts of Holland had held out some hope that Denmark itself would be liberated. The loss of exports to Britain hurt the economy, and while the Germans were increasing their orders for Danish produce they were paying in Reichmarks rather than sterling. Danish farmers were also less inclined to work as hard to send off their produce to a country that had invaded and was occupying them.
So far Denmark had had very little damage from the war. The main place where there had been significant conflict was around the air base at Aalborg. Attempts to repair it and use it against Norway were hampered as it was regularly attacked from bases in Norway, whose air force recognised the danger of an airfield that close.
Norway had taken delivery of a number of new aircraft from the United States of America, these included Curtis Hawk 75s and Lockheed Hudsons (which the British had passed on to them). The Fleet Air Arm were also transitioning some squadrons through to support as much they could. What was making a difference was the arrival of some mobile radar units that allowed the Norwegian defences be better prepared for German attacks. Over the summer months a few satellite airstrips were prepared to provide the ability to disperse the aircraft better.
The remnant of the Danish Army/Navy Air Corps had fled first to Norway, then went to England for retraining, along with some Czechs and Poles. The Dutch and Belgians were flying over their home countries, and the Danes, Czechs and Poles were now flying over Norway mostly in Hurricanes. With the Spitfire Mk II now being produced a number of ex-RAF Spitfire Is were now becoming available. One Danish pilot flew his Spitfire, clearly marked in Danish colours across Copenhagen at low level to show his countrymen that the war continued. The fact that he was later reprimanded for pulling a stunt like that didn’t bother him too much.
The Luftwaffe had been so busy over Belgium and France that if very rarely attacked Norway anymore, expect if there were raids on Berlin or other German cities, and then revenge attacks were made. It was something of a stalemate over the Skagerrak.
14 August 1940. Military Engineering Experimental Establishment (MEXE). Christchurch, Dorset. England.
Colonel Thompson of the Royal Engineers had supervised the development of the Bailey Bridge and today was the trial of the first prototype, which was going to go over Mother Siller's Channel which cuts through the Stanpit Marshes at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Stour. The pieces of the flat truss bridge had been fabricated in Chepstow by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering, a firm already confident with welding techniques. Some of their engineers were here, along with 274th Field Company of the Royal Engineers. Belonging to the 9th Highland Division, a TA division that was still gearing up for war, this company had been chosen to see how an ordinary unit would cope with the new bridge. They had been trained on the Inglis bridge and it would be interesting to get their feedback on using this new bridge.
After a morning’s instruction from both civilian and military engineers, the 274th Field Company waited for the whistle that would signal their exercise. They very quickly got the hang of the way it was designed to be put together, urged on by their officers they also got into a simple rhythm. While it was heavy work in the sunshine the bridge took shape quickly enough. In two hours, they completed a 40-foot span. Looking at their achievement, they were clear that with practice, the time could be improved upon.
The men from the ministry of supply were suitably impressed and a contract for was placed immediately with Fairfields to produce this bridging equipment. A number of other companies would also be approached. To ensure the interchangeability of the parts, each company would build a bridge, to which the new parts were added, then the older parts dismantled, and sent off for delivery. Efforts were made to interest other countries in this British invention. The Dutch government in exile and the Belgians were particularly keen, since so many of their country’s bridges were already destroyed. The Dutch in fact had already made a significant investment in the design costs. In an unusual innovation, a couple of American Army engineers had been invited to Dorset for the prototype build. They were keen to have it, if a deal could be done to allow American firms to build it under license.
14 August 1940. Cherbourg. France.
Another convoy had arrived safely from Halifax, Nova Scotia. The ships were now being unloaded both here and in St Nazaire. As well as grain and other foodstuffs, the main cargo was motor transport. The Ford and Chevrolet factories had been producing trucks at a prodigious rate for the last few months, and these ships carried the first batch. These Canadian Military Pattern trucks, built with right hand drive were in various forms, but the most important were the three-ton trucks. When the BEF had been mobilised and shipped to France it had taken up a great deal of its motor transport from civilian stocks, and so butchers’ and grocers’ trucks had received a coat of green paint and used by the army.
The CMP trucks, although built by the two rival firms, were in fact largely interchangeable. The three tonners were in both long and short wheel bases, and had good reliable engines. They also came in a variety of forms, such as general service, water and petrol tankers, artillery tractors and vehicle recovery (tow trucks). Members of the Royal Army Service Corps had been transported to the docks, and these helped the get the vehicles roadworthy. In due course they drove them off to their depots, with a very reasonable chance of arriving without breaking down, and that made them happy men. To make things even better each truck had carried a certain number of spare parts in it as it crossed the Atlantic, meaning that if anything did go wrong, the army would have parts to fix them.
15 August 1940. Flugplatz Maldegem. Belgium.
The roar of Merlin engines was well known at this forward airbase, and today two new squadrons of Spitfire IIs arrived to take up residence. It had been upgraded since May. Concrete had replaced the grass strips. Revetments were dotted around, and a light anti-aircraft regiment were present to defend it. The burnt out remains of some Hurricanes and Gladiators at the side of the airfield a constant reminder to be on guard against German air attacks.
No 1 and 2 Squadrons of the Royal Canadian Air Force had arrived in Greenock in May, and were among the first to be trained on the new Spitfires. Now declared operational, and renamed 401 and 402 squadrons, they were to be based here in Belgium. The Canadians, some of whom wore Eagle badges on their arms and aircraft, would be sharing this particular air field with a Belgian ground attack squadron flying Hurribombers.
More and more of the RAF’s infrastructure was being moved to France and Belgium, including elements of the Civilian Repair Operation. The earlier fighting had seen RAF squadrons departing their stations in England, fighting over France and Belgium, then landing back in England, where the planes would be repaired and maintained, before doing it all again the next day. With the stability of the front line, and the hope of advances, a number of Belgian airfields were improved to be able to move whole squadrons, with their ground crew forward.
Along with Maldegem, the RAF were also using Nivelles, Wevelgem and Sint-Denijs-Westrem for their Belgian Wing. This was made up of 8 squadrons of Spitfire IIs. Altogether things were improving for the RAF. Even before the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme would provide new pilots in the autumn, the monthly average of 200 new pilots a month at the start of the year had been increased to almost 300 by June. It still wasn’t quite enough, only the Canadian and Rhodesian graduates would make up the shortfall when they started to arrive in numbers.
Getting more pilots through the training programme hadn’t been easy. The severe winter weather had taken a toll on the days available for flying. A streamlined system was put in place, with new pilots being kept back in Britain out of the front-line squadrons to give them more experience in Operational Training Units. After further instruction by veterans who were being rested after a time on the front line. Once they had acquired enough hours on the aircraft, and shown improvements in tactics and better gunnery essential for combat, the new pilots were moved to squadrons as replacements for casualties.
The lull in the last couple of months had allowed the RAF to introduce the upgraded Spitfire. The Hurribomber now in production had the improved Merlin, and crucially better armoured protection from ground fire. Numbers for both these aircraft were building up again, but the aircraft production was greater than newly trained pilots, leading to an increase in available aircraft in reserve. To help with numbers the RAF accepted the transfer of three Polish Squadrons from the AdA.
The AdA had taken on only a tenth of the Polish pilots who had arrived before May, at that point their lack of aircraft was a liability. The 150 they had taken were given poor aircraft, but had shown willing to fight. The survivors were now moving to better aircraft. The others, many of whom had been bomber pilots had either been spread out in reserve squadrons or acting as ground crew. The Poles were keen to get into the fight and the RAF had aircraft that were available. There had been some resistance to the idea, some officers would have preferred to have allocated the Polish pilots among a number of RAF squadrons. But the Poles wanted to fight together, to be the seed of an independent Polish air force. This was granted, though they had to accept some RAF officers to help with communication, such as "Shut up! Silence - in Polish!"
17 August 1940. RAF Bichester. England.
The second prototype Halifax bomber was getting ready for its first flight. The first prototype had flown on 25 October 1939, but a series of changes were ordered for the second prototype. The first was for improved power. The original Merlin engine was replaced with the Hercules III, producing 1650 HP, which were now being built.
The wing had been expanded to 104 feet 2 inches, which increased the service ceiling. The fuselage had been stressed to allow it carry more fuel, extending its range. The tail rudder shape was changed to a rectangular shape as the first prototype had problems with directional stability. The overall length was increased by the fitting of a new nose, without a forward firing turret. The decision to reduce the aircraft’s defensive armament was the subject to much debate. The facility to place a single gun in the nose was added, but not on this prototype. There was also discussion about using a ventral turret, but it wasn’t felt that the bomber would be better protected and that the weight saving in speed and height would be better.
The main change was internal to its bomb bay. Its bomb load was still 12000lbs, but as originally designed, it wouldn’t take large diameter bombs. The wing bomb cells were removed to increase the fuel storage. The top turret had been removed so that the bomb bay could be deepened so that it could carry the proposed 4000lb cookie bomb satisfactorily.
Taking to the skies the second prototype out performed its predecessor dramatically, and the Air Ministry were confident enough in it to order 400.
17 August 1940 Ravenstein, The Netherlands.
Lieutenant Edward Kilbane, now commanding A Squadron, 5th Royal Innisikilling Dragoon Guards was watching the Germans on the far side of the river Meuse (known as the Mass in this part of the Netherlands). Accompanied by Sergeant McNaughton they had crept forward out of sight to this observation post and were examining the enemy positions through the set of binoculars he had taken off a German Reconnaissance officer back in May. The optics were much better than the ones he had been issued with, and he liked the idea of using them against their makers and former owners.
Things were pretty quiet in this sector, a live and let live attitude had grown up between the troops on opposite sides of the river. That wasn’t to say that some idiot wouldn’t take it upon themselves to start sniping or starting something up, so Kilbane and McNaughton kept their heads down and their voices hushed. There was no great sign of any changes from the last time they had done this, perhaps some evidence of the Germans digging in deeper and it looked like they had done a bit of work with camouflage.
After marking everything they noted on a map, they made their way back to their own positions, where their light tanks were themselves heavily camouflaged. When they were out of sight of the enemy, they carried on the debate which seemed to be the topic of conversation throughout the army. McNaughton was of the opinion that having another phoney war wasn’t helping anyone but the Germans. They had been thrown back on their heels and it made no sense to stop here on this river. If the advance had carried on, they could well be on the Rhine by now.
Kilbane couldn’t help but agree that sitting here was frustrating. But he argued there were a number of issues that halting the advance was necessary. Logistics was a big part of it. There was a need to resupply the army that had moved further and further from its base of operations in France. It took longer for rations and ammunition, fuel and everything else to be brought forward. Supplies were now being built up in Belgium, so when the next big push kicked off, they have all they needed at hand. Secondly the French had taken a beating at Sedan, but had held on. Now that the Germans had taken the pressure off, the French were getting themselves sorted out, but it would probably take a while before they were ready to go on the offensive. Likewise, the Belgians were having to rebuild their army.
As for the BEF, as most of the men still called it, it was much stronger now. Auchinleck and Wilson the two new army commanders were in place now, and getting to know their units. The fact that there was now a full armoured division in each army, meant that when they did attack there would be a better armoured punch. More and more new equipment was arriving, they themselves had just got a better radio, were all signs that when they did attack it would be better coordinated and powerful.
McNaughton replied with the fact it was giving the Germans time to build up their stuff too. When the attack went in, it was likely that the Germans would be better organised, and probably better equipped, there wouldn’t be as many of the light panzers as there had been. Also, if they didn’t get going soon, it would soon be autumn, and that would just slow things down.
18 August 1940. Meeting of senior members of the OKH. Berlin. Germany.
Chief of the Naval General Staff, Admiral Otto Schniewind: So having moved to the four rotor system on our enigma we moved a number of units around, which should have been tempting targets for the British, but they didn’t bite.
Chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff, General Franz Halder: We moved an entire panzer corps and all we saw was increased reconnaissance by French and British planes until they found them.
Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff GeneralOberst Hans Jeschonnek: Likewise we made a number of changes and it seems that “the British Spy” wasn’t able to alert the RAF of them. Our own reconnaissance seemed to show an increased alert all along the Maas front from August 6th when we all started using the new enigma rotor. It would seem that Himmler was looking the wrong place all this time.
Halder: And too many good officers have died for no reason.
Schniewind: So, they were reading our codes after all. Do you think the new enigma will work for long?
Jeschonnek: My cryptographers say it is unbreakable. But they said that about the last one too.
Halder: We’ll have to replace Fritz Boetzel as director of OKW/Chiffrierabteilung. He should have had some idea that the enigma system wasn’t completely safe. I think his deputy was executed by Himmler’s goons. We’ll need to get someone better. Maybe from your department Otto, after all it was your lot that suspected the leak was here.
Schniewind: I’ll look into it and recommend someone later. But I’d be happier moving to a different system altogether. But that will take some research. Perhaps that should be the first order of business for the new director of OKW/Chi?
Jeschonnek: Now, who gets to tell the Fuhrer that we’ve found the spy, and that Himmler had killed a lot of innocent men?
19 August 1940. Singapore.
The arrival of the Entente Fleet was met with great fanfare. A fleet this large hadn’t been seen in East Indies waters for a very long time. HMS Ark Royal and Illustrious along with HMS Eagle flew off their air wings to do a fly past over the fleet then over Singapore itself. Next came the battleships in a line, HMS Nelson, Malaya, Richelieu, Strasbourg, with Repulse following. Then came the cruisers: 18th Cruiser Flotilla (HMS Aurora, Belfast, Edinburgh and Sheffield), with light cruisers Calypso and Caledon. The French 2nd Cruiser Division, Colbert, Duquense and Tourville, with the light cruisers Jean De Vienne and Marseillaise followed. The French 3rd Large Destroyer Division (Guepard, Valmy and Verdun) and the 2nd Destroyer Squadron’s Second Division (Fougueux, Frondeur and L’Adroit) followed the cruisers. The Royal Navy’s HMS Fame, Firedrake, Foresight, Fortune, Bedouin, Eskimo, Punjabi and Tartar brought up the rear.
To complete the review the RN’s East Indies’ 4th Cruiser squadron (HMS Gloucester, Manchester and Liverpool) and China Stations’ 5th Cruiser squadron (HMS Kent, Dorsetshire, Cornwall, and Birmingham) were joined by the French Indo-China station’s cruisers Suffren and Lamotte Picquett. These along with 21st Destroyer Flotilla welcomed the new arrivals.
After a decent run ashore, a series of gruelling exercises and flag flying visits were planned, taking the fleet to Saigon, Manila and Hong Kong.
After all the fanfare was over, in the next few days and weeks various other vessels arrived, some deliberately under the cover of darkness. The 4th Submarine Flotilla was already a strong force based between Singapore and Hong Kong. HMS Rorqual, Grampus, Regent, Rover, Parthian, Olympus, Proteus, Regulus, Rainbow, Phoenix, Perseus, Pandora, Odin, Otus and Orpheus were good long range patrol boats, but the O class were starting to show their age. Three new T class boats would replace the O class boats which would return to Home Fleet. There their crews would be used to man the new diesel-electric submarines that were being completed. It was planned that more of the improved T class and follow-on boats would be used in the East Indies fleet.
A few merchant ships arrived too. For the Royal Navy one had a consignment of Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft guns and mounts. These were destined for HMS Malaya. As she would become the East Indies flag ship, it was intended that the Singapore facilities should be able to upgrade her AAA ability. There were also some radar sets for both the Malaya and a couple of the cruisers. More Bofors and radars would be delivered as they became available. Another ship carried extra ammunition for the base, both for the ships and the shore batteries. These included a number of HE shells as well as AP. The survey that had been carried out of ammunition stocks had found some deterioration, and work was being done to prevent this from recurring.
The RAF were the recipients of the cargo of some of the other merchant vessels that arrived. With only 84 “first line” aircraft the need for such reinforcement was dire. One carried two squadron’s worth of crated Hurricanes that had been replaced in service by the newer models. Work would have to be done to them to make them fit for work in a tropical climate. Nos 11 and 34 Squadron would transition onto them from their Blenheims. There were also three of the new mobile radar stations. While this wouldn’t give much in the way of coverage beyond Singapore itself initially. It was felt important that the pilots of RAF Far East command should get practice in making ground-controlled interceptions. As 1941 progressed more of radar sets would arrive to provide an adequate early warning system, along with more single engine fighters. Among the passengers were some veteran pilots from the air war in France and Belgium. These men needed a rest, some recovering from injuries, but they would also be able to share some of the lessons with their new squadron mates. A number of Blenheim crews would go back with HMS Eagle to be trained on Beaufighters.
It was planned that when HMS Eagle returned to Home Fleet that she would leave most of her planes in Singapore to add to the air strength. While 18 Swordfish weren’t going to make a huge difference, the Swordfish were an improvement over the Vickers Wildebeests that two squadrons were equipped with. Once production was satisfactory, Beaufighters would start to replace the Blenheims in the other Far East Squadrons. With the increased production of Sunderland flying boats, some of these would start replacing the Short Singapores in Ceylon and Singapore in late 1940.
For the army a consignment of tanks arrived. Four Matilda IIs and four A10s, which had all been recovered from the battlefield and patched up, but not satisfactorily enough for going into action again. The plan was for the various infantry units to have tanks to work with, learning the techniques of cooperation. Likewise, their crews were made up of men who had been wounded, for whom the change to the Far East was judged to be beneficial. It was planned that an armoured brigade would be in place by June 1941.
As well as the tanks, there were also a battery’s worth of new 3.7inch anti-aircraft guns that would increase the defences of one of the new RAF bases. An anti-tank regiments worth of 2-pdrs were also delivered with some Royal Artillery instructors. One of the Indian Army’s battalions would have to learn how to use them, becoming an anti-tank regiment. Two more Indian Army Brigades (6th & 8th) were due to arrive in October, allowing the creation of a full Division. It still fell far short of the estimated minimum of three divisions that would be needed to defend the Malayan coastline. The Australian government was asking that one of the two divisions of the AIF currently in the Middle East, might be reassigned to Singapore. This was being considered, but the need for troops in Belgium and Holland was more keenly felt at the moment.
18 August 1940. Middle East Command. Egypt.
General Wavell thought very carefully how to phrase the next few lines in his letter to General Dill, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Since January he had lost the core of regular troops from his command, replaced by new, mostly green Indians, Australians and New Zealanders. Now he had lost Jumbo Wilson to Second Army, and he was feeling quite aggrieved, especially as the War Office wanted Wilson replaced by Bernard Freyberg. It was important that his letter didn’t convey exactly what he was feeling, the paper would probably combust if he did.
His argument was that the Italians, for all they didn’t look terribly aggressive at the moment, had very strong forces in both Libya and Abyssinia. The British forces in the Middle East should be an effective deterrent to such aggression. If Middle East Command was simply a training command that deterrent was less clear cut. Secondly the Middle East was not really a satisfactory place for training for a war on continental Europe. If Empire troops were to be brought from all corners of the world, would it not be better for them to be shipped directly to Britain or France where mating them with their equipment would be more straightforward?
Thirdly the situation with the RAF was becoming very difficult. Obviously, the losses in air crew at the front was a terrible cause for concern, but substituting experienced pilots and observers from Middle East Command for barely trained replacements meant that his command’s already weak air contingent was even weaker now. Fourthly, while Bernard Freyberg was a hero and fine man, he was too inexperienced to be given command of all British troops in Egypt. It would be better to leave him as Divisional commander of the New Zealanders and send out someone more experienced from Britain.
Wavell looked over what he had written to see if it could be phrased more delicately, but short of offering his resignation if Freyberg was appointed, there was little else he could say.
20 August 1940. War Office. London, England.
Official 1: So we’re agreed that 54th (East Anglian) Division, will join 43rd (Wessex) Division and the 2nd Canadian Division to become VII Corps?
Official 2: Yes, and that only leaves 55th (West Lancs) Division, as the last first line Territorial division. All the others are already in play.
Official 3: No, you’ve forgotten the Cavalry Division. They aren’t assigned anywhere.
Official 1: Well, what are we meant to do with them? The obvious thing is mechanise them, but we won’t have the tanks to do that for some time yet.
Official 2: Why not send them off to the Middle East?
Official 3: Wavell’s already at the end of his tether, as I understand it. If we transfer the ANZACs to Belgium, and replace them with a Cavalry Division, he’ll go through the roof.
Official 2: Wavell’s blood pressure isn’t our concern. We need three armies in Belgium, which is nine Corps, 27 Divisions, plus all the divisional troops. We so far have six Corps. O the two new Corps, VI are at Arras and will be operational in a month or so. VII Corps will be ready by November. The ANZACs joining in would make that a third army. Ready before Christmas.
Official 1: But there is no armoured Division in that army. How is the 3rd Armoured Division doing?
Official 3: It is proposed that it should be made up of the six Royal Tank Regiments which were converted from infantry territorials, so that would be: 21st Armoured Brigade: 40th (The King's) 41st (Oldham), and 42nd Royal Tank Regiments. Then 22nd Armoured Brigade: 43rd, 44th and 45th (Leeds Rifles) Royal Tank Regiments. So far, the lack of tanks is the hampering factor.
Official 2: They’ll need an infantry Brigade too, probably need to be one of the new Mechanised too.
Official 1: 6 Tank battalions will need the best part of 400 tanks. What’s the current tank production running at?
Official 3: Last month was the first where it got over 200. This month the same, next month should be 250, and that should rise again to about 350 by December. Two thirds will be Cruiser tanks and one third Infantry Tanks are the proportions for those figures.
Official 2: That’s not bad. Presuming that 21st Armoured Brigade are equipped with this month’s production, the 22nd Armoured Brigade should be equipped at the end of September. That means they should be deployable November.
Official 1: We still need Mechanised Infantry to round it out to an Armoured Division.
Official 3: Why not split up 55th (West Lancs) Division? They already were training as motorised infantry. If their brigades were mechanised then they could join 3rd and presumably 4th Armoured when it comes along?
Official 2: 56th Division is getting priority for all the armoured trucks at the moment, but it would be sensible to make 55th next in line. 4th Armoured Division will be who?
Official 1: Why not the Cavalry Division? If they get October and November’s tank production, then they will be ready to deploy in the new year.
Official 3: That is all presuming that the artillery and engineers are keeping pace with expansion. To say nothing of all the other equipment needed.
Official 2: The Territorials are coming on well. As each Territorial Division has its own assigned territorial gunners, engineers, transport etc. Like everything else it has been a rush getting them all equipped, but so far that has gone well.
Official 1: I suppose the next question is the second line territorials. There are twelve of them, though a few are already in Belgium.
Official 3: Yes, 15th, 23rd and 46th were line of communications troops, but have been mustered and equipped as V Corps under Alexander and seem to be doing well. We’ve earmarked 9th (Highland), 12th (Scottish) and 47th (London) as Line of Communications troops and they’re getting ready to move. They’ll fulfil their duties while continuing training and coming up to full strength equipment wise.
Official 2: Two of them, with 4th Armoured will presumably become VIII Corps, which should be the basis of 4th Army. I think we’re to get another Canadian Division, possibly armoured, and they’ll probably want to create a Canadian Corps, so there will have to be some readjustment in the future.
Official 1: I can see 4th Army being an Empire army. I Canadian Corps, ANZACs and an Indian Corps. Aussies, Maoris and Gurkhas, with some Canadian Scots bagpipers. That would be some combination!
Officials 2 & 3: (gulp)
20 August 1940. The Royal Palace. Bucharest. Romania.
Gheorghe Tătărescu, Prime Minister of Romania, entered the room and paid his respects to King Carol II. He was accompanied by Mihail Moruzov, the head of the Romanian Secret Service, who likewise honoured his king. King Carol listened to their report of the attempts to keep Romania out of the war, and not antagonise either side too much. Basically, King Carol was pro-Entente, and the Entente had guaranteed his country’s neutrality. With the Germans over the borders with Poland and the country formerly known as Czechoslovakia on one side. The Soviet Union being on the other side, he was somewhat hemmed in. While the continued fighting on the Western Front made it less likely that the Germans would invade, there was a fairly serious threat implied in the last missive he had received from Berlin.
The supply of oil products was of course the subject of this communication. In the first three months of 1940 the British and French had bought four times the amount of oil from Romania than had been supplied to Germany (428343 tons v 103821 tons). In March, the Germans had signed a new agreement for 130000 tons per month, at a slightly increased price. The British offered Romania credits to not to increase this amount. At the beginning of May, Herman Neubacher, the German chargé d’affairs in economic matters with the Romanian Legation, had attempted to renegotiate the price and quantity. The Romanians, claiming that they did not have the facility to increase the delivery, bought some time. Now however the latest communication from Berlin noted that each month there had been a shortfall in delivery of the agreed tonnage, and sought both an increase in delivery and a decrease in price, in fact, they were looking to half the price they paid. The oil would be paid for by armaments (mostly captured Polish equipment) for the Romanian army. The subsequent implied threat was not very subtle.
For the Romanians, the threat was taken seriously. There was no direct way for the Entente powers to come to their aid if the Germans did invade, and the Romanian army would struggle to resist for very long. With Turkey remaining neutral, an Entente military force would be unlikely to be able to enter the Black Sea to come to their aid that way. The nature of the war in the West was such that even with the best of intentions, very little aid would be available to help the Romanians hold out.
To add to their worries, King Carol had also received notification from Moscow that they wanted to take back the former Russian territories which had been given to Romania at the Treaty of Versailles, namely Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The fact that both the German and Soviet communications had come within days of one another was understood to be part of the threat. Like Poland, if they resisted a German attack, they could well face a Soviet knife in the back too. It seemed that their ability to remain neutral was undermined by the presence of their oil industry. Without it they would probably be left alone.
To discuss these matters, the King ordered an aide to bring the British and French ambassadors into the meeting. Sir Reginald Hoare and Adrien Thierry were well known in the palace and by the Prime Minister. They were accompanied by their military attachés, who were clearly representing the SIS and Deuxième Bureau, both men knew Mihail Moruzov very well. Having paid their respects to King Carol, the quandary that the Romanians found themselves in was communicated quite clearly.
The situation was not unlike the Swedish problem with iron ore. The Romanians continued to ship oil to the Entente through the Black Sea. Britain and France were prepared to make a commercial deal to buy the entire spare Romanian output for above market value. Surely a neutral country would be better off selling its produce for a better price, in hard currency, which the Germans were less than willing to do. The only counter to the German threat, and here the two ambassadors were honest enough not to promise military aid, was to do again in 1940 what was done in 1916. At that point in the Great War, as part of the total blockade of Germany by the Western powers, 1600 oil derricks, 26 refineries, oil tanks and over 800000 tons of oil derivatives were destroyed. The Romanian government went along with this, and the German occupiers had to spend a great deal of effort to get production going again. However, in the post-war period the promised compensation wasn’t as forthcoming as Britain and France had agreed, eventually Romanian debt was cancelled in its place.
This time however, both Britain and France were in a better financial position than they had been in 1918. The ambassadors also presented letters from the main oil companies promising that they would take up the task of putting the Romanian oil industry back on its feet after any such destruction.
Moruzov was aware that a French mission, under Leon Wenger (an engineer who had worked with the British in 1916) and Captain Pierre Angot (Deuxième Bureau) had examined the Romanian oil industry. They had then formulated a complete plan for blocking traffic on the Danube to Germany (such as sinking a couple of concrete filled barges at the Iron Gate) and the destruction of the oil producing and refining capacity of Romania. Moruzov was also aware of the German Abwehr’s plans to form an “oil protection” detail to counter such a plan.
This was Romania’s only counter-threat. If the Germans (and/or Soviets) invaded, then Romania could follow a scorched earth policy that would make such an invasion counter-productive.
Hoare and Thierry’s Attachés also gave King Carol an up-to-date assessment of the war in France and Belgium and of the problems that the German failure to knock France out of the war quickly had caused. The fundamental weakness of Germany was its economy. It just wasn’t ready for an extended war. And the weakest point of the German economy was its lack of oil. If Romania would either stop selling oil altogether to Germany, or keep its levels below the 130000 tons needed per month, it would not be long until the whole German war machine came to a grinding halt.
King Carol, as a cousin of King George, and his half-Jewish mistress, were also offered asylum in Great Britain, or any of its territories, in the event of Romania falling under German domination. The King thanked the emissaries, and continued the discussions with his advisors alone.
21 August 1940. Office of First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound. Admiralty. London
Pound looked up from the report he was reading and looked at the author, Captain Hugo White, who later described the look as “withering”. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Operation Catherine, by any chance?”
In fact most people in the Royal Navy in the 1980’s knew of Churchill’s “fantasy” of putting a strong fleet into the Baltic. He also knew that Pound had resisted it with every fibre of his being. “Actually, we studied the plan at Dartmouth, it was part of the curriculum.” Pound’s mouth was slightly agape for a moment or two while he processed that piece of information, “What exactly did you learn from that particular study?” White started to feel a little like a midshipman hauled up before the Captain to answer to some terrible crime.
“Operation Catherine was an example of an unrealistic solution to a particular problem. It also lacked specific objectives, it was going to try to do too many things, and by going after too many it would probably fail in all of them. It would have been disastrous if implemented. The use of air power over capital ships wasn’t understood in 1939, so even if the frankly unbelievable changes had been made to the three battleships, they simply would not have survived in the confined waters of the Baltic or its approaches. While it is good to have an offensive mind-set, this should not overwhelm reason.” White was quite pleased with his answer, he thought he had remembered the lessons quite well.
Pound saw the opening. “In that case, Captain White, perhaps you might assess your own plan with that in mind. First what exactly is the objective? Second, what cost do you suppose your plan will be in terms of ships and men? Third, how can you describe this plan as reasonable?”
White had spent some time in the plans department of the Admiralty, looking at defending the shipping lanes of the Atlantic from a vast host of Soviet submarines. He was no fool, and he knew it was important to communicate that to his new boss.
“Well Sir, firstly the objective is to degrade the German fleet to the point that it either cannot leave port or ceases to exist, in other words to own them. If we succeed in that objective then the Baltic will be part of the overall blockade of Germany. Secondly, the cost in lives and vessels is likely to heavy. Of the ten submarines we have tried to get into the Baltic, five have been lost and two damaged, only three were unscathed. My calculations are that our losses will be less than this, possibly 33% of submarines taking part, and the losses in aircraft might be similar.
Thirdly, the differences between Operation Catherine and this are multiple. The vessels we propose to use are designed for this very type of warfare, with all the advantages that brings, no turning battleships into turtles. This is pure offensive, sinking every German boat in range. In my history their U boats nearly strangled us and the battle of the Atlantic was a close-run thing. Operation Nelson will do unto them as they wish to do unto us.”
Pound leaned back in his chair. “I admire your enthusiasm, Captain, I really do. But this just seems too…radical.” “Sir, we have successfully put the German fleet on the back foot. If we can hit them one more time, a decisive blow in their backyard, then the Royal Navy will have taken the Kriegsmarine out of the war entirely, in less than a year, and a proportionately low cost.” White could feel his enthusiasm getting the better of him, so he deliberately took a few deep breaths. Pound could see that White’s plan was at least well developed and had merit. He also knew if Churchill got hold of it, it’d be an “action this day” order. “Operation Nelson, I see, a reference to Copenhagen?” White was ready for that one, “Yes, hopefully as successful and hard fought, but with a clear signal to withdraw at discretion.” “And I suppose any submarine officer who’s got a clue about this can’t wait to get into it?” White smiled slightly, “Yes sir, a bigger bunch of pirates never sailed the seven seas. I thought destroyer captains were aggressive, but the dolphins would be better called great white sharks.”
Pound turned to Vice Admiral Max Horton, commander of the Submarine fleet. “You took your submarine into the Baltic in the Great War, didn’t you Max?” “I did indeed sir, the old E9.” Pound nodded, one of the bars on the DSO ribbon Horton was wearing was awarded for that. Pound asked him, “So you agree with this plan, Max, do you think it will shorten the war?” “I think it could sink a lot of German ships, whether that will shorten the war, I’m not sure. My two concerns are mines and Sweden. A large part of the German defences relies on mines, and submarines don’t do well against mines. It would be better if we had the Onyx’s sophisticated mine avoidance sonar in our boats, but that’s too far off. Even with that, I believe the mines are thick enough at some points that there is no avoiding them.
The other question is Sweden. There is a real possibility of entering their territorial waters, and we don’t want to upset them. While I have no particular fears about their anti-submarine capacity, they’re probably even worse than the Germans, we can’t have our subs sinking neutral ships, causing all sorts of diplomatic repercussions.”
Pound turned to White, “So what do you say to that?” White had already had this discussion with Horton, “Regarding mines, there is little we could do. To clear paths we would need to bring surface ships, minesweepers, into a hostile environment. Then we would need bigger ships to protect the little ships and before you know it, we’re back of Operation Catherine. The Wellingtons with the magnetic mine exploders, the DWIs, from Coastal Command will try to knock off any magnetic mines. But otherwise, there isn’t much we can do. Obviously, the Fleet Air Arm and RAF will need to provide a lot of support, and while I’m sure of the FAA, crab air might be more of a problem.
As for Swedish neutrality, we’ll just have to order the captains to do their best. If they have any sense, when they see German ships being torpedoed all over the place, then they’ll stay away. A friendly word of warning that something is happening in their neighbourhood probably won’t go amiss.”
Pound frowned. The desire to do something made it very tempting to do anything. The choice was to do nothing, living with the idea that the Germans were boxed in the Baltic. Or risk the largest part of the submarine service to possibly remove them from the board entirely. White and Horton looked at one another, Pound was obviously giving it serious consideration. “Right. I’ve thought about it, and the answer’s ‘no’. If the German navy want to lock themselves away in the Baltic, they can wither there on the vine. By all means increase surveillance in the Skagerrak to make sure they don’t try to break out, but I don’t think we should try to break in. If you’re right about the Bismark coming out of Hamburg and heading for the Kiel Canal, then yes, that’s worth an attempt, but otherwise, no to Nelson. Sorry.”
23 August 1940. Air Ministry. London, England.
Official 1: There is a proposal here to transfer the defence of all airfields to the RAF: “In the light of German attacks on Norwegian and Danish airfields by paratroopers to capture them for enemy use, a force formed from the RAF, should have responsibility for the protection of their own airfields.”
Official 2: Does that include anti-aircraft artillery?
Official 1: No, just the physical defences from possible saboteurs, or paratroopers, or in case of invasion.
Official 3: Invasion? How on earth would the Germans manage that?
Official 2: I suppose the chaps in France and Belgium would be more worried about that kind of thing.
Official 1: Sounds like the War Office trying to shift some of their budget onto ours. If the RAF has to train ground pounders to look after our airfields that will cost us money rather than the army doing it for us.
Official 3: On the other hand, some of the regiments that are currently “defending” our airfields spend more time trying to chat up the WAAFs than anything else. I’m not sure just how well they’d manage if push came to shove.
Official 2: I suppose the RAF armoured car companies in the Middle East set a precedent.
Official 1: There’s precedent, and there’s taking liberties.
Official 2: I suppose having RAF men with the right attitude looking after our aircraft makes more sense, at least they could be trained to understand priorities in terms of air operations.
Official 3: For the new drafts of men we can’t place in technical schemes or such like, could be trained in infantry skills and having gone through an RAF induction they would be RAF-minded.
Official 1: But some ground pounder would need to train them up to the appropriate level.
Official 2: If they’re going to be taken seriously, they’ll need to have a training course better than the infantry. Why not use the Royal Marines, at least they have an idea of what it is like being an auxiliary of the brown jobs?
Official 3: If it has to be the brown jobs, maybe the brigade of Guards?
Official 1: The Marines provide defence of naval ports and such, they at least would have a clue for that kind of thing.
Official 2: Do you mean ask them to do an improved marine course, without the boat bits?
Official 3: I suppose so. I still think we should start thinking about AA defence too, maybe light AA initially.
Official 1: We could put that into our recommendation. Now what shall we call this outfit?
Official 2: The Defenders of the RAF?
Official 3: The RAF Defence Regiment?
Official 1: Maybe just the RAF Regiment?
Official 2: That sounds about right.
Official 1: Right you are, The RAF Regiment.
25 August 1940. Castle Bromwich. Birmingham. England.
Man from the Air Ministry: So all the bombs missed?
Manager: Yes the nearest fell about 500 yards away. But it was a bit of a close-run thing. A fair bit of production was lost in the night shift with the workers taking cover in the shelters. Even after the ‘all clear’, it took a while to get everybody back to work. Some of the women were quite frightened.
Man from the Air Ministry: Yours wasn’t the only one. There were raids on Rolls Royce’s Derby plant and Supermarine in Southampton too. No direct hits anywhere. We think the Germans lost six or seven planes in the raid here, and a good few in the other places too. Though how they got so close during the night is a worry.
Manager: Do you think there’s somebody shining a light or making some other kind of signal for them?
Man from the Air Ministry: It can’t be ruled out, and I believe the police are investigating that possibility. The Army are bringing another anti-aircraft battery and searchlight unit to add to what’s already here. The night fighter squadrons are also going on higher alert, one is probably going to be brought back from France.
Manager: They said before the war that the bomber will always get through, I just never thought they would get through to here.
Man from the Air Ministry: Well, to be honest, I think they’re getting pretty desperate. They’ve seen your Spitfires in operation and want to stop them being built. It is almost a complement.
Manager: They keep that compliment to themselves. Anyway, I suppose you want the latest figures?
Man from the Air Ministry: Yes actually, that’s why I came. The changeover to the Mark II in May took you down a good bit. But June and July’s numbers please, and the expectation for August.
Manager: Well, June was 45, it was lower because we were still getting up to speed in the first week. Then July was 62, and subject to more raids, we’re on course for 66 in August.
Man from the Air Ministry: I remember when Lord Nuffield promised we’d have sixty a week from here! We really need you to get to over 100 per month as quickly as possible. To help with that we’ll keep the Mark II exactly as it is until the Mark III is ready for production. No changing of specs or tweaking this or that. Just build them as fast as you can. Now there’s another thing. The RAF have been complaining that there’s a shortage of spare parts. We need you to increase aircraft production, but don’t do it artificially by reducing the production of spare parts, otherwise they’ll have to cannibalise some fighters to keep others in the air.
Manager: Well, that’s a change. All we’ve been getting pressure on was production of finished aircraft. If you want the full range of spares, it will affect the monthly total, maybe as much as 10%. If you want us to get to over 100 aircraft a month, I can’t see that happening until January. We’ve been increasing the workforce, and that is going well, but there is still the occasional hiccup while we’re waiting for deliveries from sub-contractors.
Man from the Air Ministry: Some of my colleagues are dealing with that as we speak.
Manager: Are there any contingencies for dispersal if there are more raids?
Man from the Air Ministry: I can’t see the Luftwaffe taking the kind of losses they did last night for long. I don’t think we have to worry overmuch at this stage. As for dispersal, for here, there’s not really much of a plan at the moment. But we’ve brought forward a lot of new capacity in the south of England to increase production. These are spread out and being brought to two new assembly factories at Salisbury and Trowbridge. If the Eastleigh plant in Southampton is damaged, these will be the dispersal centres, with another at Reading if need be.
Manager: Well, I suppose I ought to get back to work.
Man from the Air Ministry: Pass on a ‘well done’ to your workforce, they deserve it. But, please add a ‘Let’s do even better’.
26 August 1940. RAF Bentley Priory.
Air Marshall Hugh Dowding: That’s two nights running there have been large raids. All aimed at our aircraft industry. What have we learned?
Air Vice Marshall Sholto Douglas: We picked up the German beams coming from Cleves and near the Danish border, just as predicted.
Professor R V Jones: We added the counter measures which meant that all the bombs missed the targets. Though I think there were some civilian casualties?
Dowding: I’m afraid so, but that is the German’s fault entirely, please do not take any burden upon yourself. Most of their bombs fell on farmland.
Douglas: We have four night-fighter squadrons, 600, 604, 219, and 29. The first three are all on a mix of Beaufighters and Blenheims and they brought down twenty Heinkels the first night and fifteen last night. Nearly all by the Beaufighters in those squadrons. You can see the difference, 29 Squadron are still in Blenheims and only got one and two. As far as we can tell, four enemy bombers were brought down by AA fire. That means that 42 bombers were shot down out of something like 400, which is going to hurt Fat Herman pretty hard. We lost three, one Beaufighter and two Blenheims, but these seem to have been accidents rather than enemy action.
Jones: We’ve been trying to get the AA guns radar controlled but that is progressing too slowly. We just can’t produce enough radar sets fast enough. Also, the proximity fuzes will help with that, but while Pye is making good progress we won’t see mass production for some time.
Dowding: The Beaufighter really is a godsend. I believe 29 Squadron are due to transition next. The high success rate seems to be down to having two bites at the cherry, attacking on the way to the target and again as Jerry was withdrawing. A Flight Lieutenant John Cunningham of 604 squadron got three himself. We must keep an eye on him. The fact that they went for the Midlands and Southampton helped extend their time in range.
Douglas: I think the fact that the transition to the Beaufighters has been done by flights, rather than taking the whole squadron out at any one time, certainly helped. By the end of September all four squadrons will completely on Beaus.
Dowding: We will need a good few more squadrons of them too, if Jerry keeps trying night attacks. I wouldn’t be surprised if he attempts to do to London what he did to Paris. We must keep the pain threshold too high for him. I sincerely hope they don’t go back to daylight bombing. So many of our home-based squadrons are full of new, untried, pilots, or worse, are at below par manning levels. We really need more pilots.
Douglas: The first class of the Air Training Plan have got their wings in Canada and are being shipped over to join OTUs in September. We should see an improvement shortly.
Jones: I thought the Poles and Danes and others were helping?
Dowding: Yes, they are. But if the Luftwaffe are starting to go on the offensive again, we can be sure that our casualty rate will increase.
Late August-early September 1940. South and East China Seas.
The Entente Fleet had sailed up from Singapore and conducted exercises off French Indo-China. The French warships entering Saigon with great fanfare. After a suitable run ashore, the fleet had sailed to Hong Kong, where the 2nd Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders, along with 5th Battalion of 2nd Punjab regiment practiced reinforcing the Hong Kong garrison. The Hong Kong Brigade was made up of 2nd Battalion Royal Scots, 2nd Bn Middlesex Regiment, 1st Kumoan Rifles, 19th Hyderabad Regiment. The two newly arrived Battalions were used to test the defences of the Gin Drinkers Line of defences. Progress was watched very carefully from a distance by the local Japanese occupation troops, who noted the difficulty that the attackers had. The close cooperation with the naval aircraft working off the three carriers was also rehearsed.
While these exercises were taking place the troop ships that had brought the two battalions sailed to Shanghai with a strong naval presence. It had been decided that the two regular battalions (1st Seaforth Highlanders & 2nd East Surrey), along with all other military personnel, would be withdrawn from the Shanghai International Settlement. The French troops would also be withdrawn and redeployed to Indochina.
The Americans, on being informed of, this decided to keep the Marine Corps detachment where it was. The offer to European settlers in Shanghai to be relocated away from the Sino-Japanese war was only taken up by a small number. The two British battalions would join the Hong Kong Brigade, along with 5th Battalion of 2nd Punjab Regiment to create a Kowloon Brigade. Plans to upgrade the anti-aircraft regiments and artillery were in place and more reinforcements would arrive over the next year. Likewise, the RAF would also improve its position as things in Malaya improved.
From Hong Kong the fleet sailed south to fly the flag in the Philippines. The American Asiatic Fleet sailed out to exercise with the Entente Fleet, treating it as if it were an invasion fleet. Admiral Hart’s defence plan relied on using his submarines to whittle down the invasion fleet. They found the British anti-submarine defences stronger than they presumed, and the presence of the Swordfish flying from the three carriers further hampered submarine operations. The three carriers also provided air cover for the fleet from Filipino/American Army Air Force assets flying from Clark Air Force Base. A force of Martin B10s from 20th Bomb Squadron, escorted by 3rd Pursuit Squadron’s P26 Peashooters, attempted to intercept the Entente Fleet but found themselves outclassed by the Fulmars and Sea Hurricanes of HMS Illustrious and Ark Royal.
The exercises continued for a few days with the Americans sorely outclassed, a full report of which was sent back urgently to Washington. During the run ashore the Gordon Highlanders with French and Royal Marines provided an opposition force that also showed up glaring deficiencies in the preparedness of the Filipino and American forces.
Leaving the Philippines, the Entente fleet sailed south to exercise with the Dutch East Indies forces. Reinforced by some elements of the fleet that had escaped from home waters when the Germans invaded, the Dutch fleet put up a creditable performance, particularly its submarine force. The weakness of the Dutch airpower was manifest, and the Dutch were looking at improving this as quickly as they could.
The Entente Fleet then sailed back to Singapore. HMS Malaya (which became the Flagship) was accepted as part of the East Indies fleet along with three cruisers (Aurora, Belfast and Calypso) and four destroyers (Foresight, Fortune, Bedouin, Eskimo). HMS Illustrious and Ark Royal, with the majority of the fleet, set sail for home. They would make a morale boosting visit to Australia and then cross the Pacific via the Hawaiian Islands and the Panama Canal. HMS Illustrious would return to Singapore after exercising with the American Pacific fleet at Honolulu. Meanwhile HMS Eagle, with a small escort would make a quicker journey back through the Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea for home and a much-needed refit.
29 August 1940. Meaux-Esbly Airbase.
Groupes de Chasse de Nuit GCN III/l and II/4, equipped with Potez 631s had been struggling against the Luftwaffe night attacks. While they had practiced some Ground Controlled Interceptions, they had never really mastered it. The plane itself was, like the RAF’s Blenheim nightfighter variant, not really suitable for the role. It was quite slow and was armed only with two forward firing machine guns. On the few occasions when an interception had taken place, the German bombers had been peppered with machine guns bullets, but never actually shot down. The plan to replace the two machine guns with 20mm canons was progressing, and some were having a further six machine guns added in pods under their wings.
Today the French pilots were being shown the Beaufighter with a mark IV AI radar and heavy armament. Only two flights of Beaufighters were available in Belgium and France, and they had been far more successful than the French. Bristol could hardly produce enough Beaufighters for the RAF, so the chance of the French buying some was remote. Building the radar was possible and a spare was being fitted to a Potez for trials. Coupled with further efforts at GCI, it was hoped to put a larger dent in the Luftwaffe efforts.
30 August 1940. Aérodrome Cuers-Pierrefeu.
The French had ordered 81 G36As (Grumman F4Fs) for their two new carriers (Joffre and Painlevé). Having been delivered they were now assembled and armed with 6x 7.5mm machine guns. The Aéronavale squadrons, once they had familiarised themselves with the new type, would take them into battle.
Pierre Lacroix, commander of all Aeronavale Fighter squadrons decided to be the first to take the new aircraft for its test flight. He walked around the aircraft. It was blunt nosed, square tipped and reminded Lacroix of an angry bee.
He strapped himself in, noting it was only a lap belt, a full safety harness would be better. As he increased speed along the runway and took off, he was conscious of having to correct a severe swing, something which would need to be looked at, especially if it repeated itself on landing. For fifteen minutes he put it through its paces. He found her tough, fiery and a beautiful little aeroplane. Its maximum speed was just a little above 500km/h. On landing Lacroix found the same swing. He had a word with the ground crew about it. One of them suggested making changes to the tail wheel that would bring the rudder into the slipstream which would help cure the swing. Along with the recommendation for adding a shoulder harness to the lap belt, he was happy to start showing his men how to make the most of this new fighter. It was going to be a long time till they would be flying off carriers, but there were plenty of Luftwaffe aircraft to battle with, and this G36 would be an improvement over most of the aircraft that the French Fleet Air Arm were used to.
31 August 1940. Bletchley Park. England.
Commander Alastair Denniston: The extra rotor hadn’t caused quite as much of a fuss as we had feared.
Alan Turing: Only because we expected they would do it and already had worked on a bombe to overcome it.
Denniston: The problem now is that there is a worryingly high degree of care being taken by the users to avoid the kind of mistakes that gave us access previously.
Turing: Yes, but the computing power that we now have is overcoming that. My own problem with this, is that if they think we have the ability to read their mail they will either go to a completely new system that we won’t be able to break, or use the system to feed us false information.
Denniston: It does seem that our giving a general alert when they changed the system seemed to warn them that something was up.
Chief Petty Officer Bill Mars (formerly of HMS Bristol): We have to use the Ultra system again. That means very few people have access to the intelligence. We have to allow some things to happen that if we took action would let them know that we know. We put better reconnaissance assets over the things we do want to attack so that they presume that is where the information we are getting is coming from. I think there was some statistical system for working out what would appear coincidental and what would give the impression that we knew something specific.
Turing: I can do that analysis easily.
Denniston: I need to take this to No 10 and let them know. But at least we’re reading the traffic again.
31 August 1940. Charleroi.
André-Gaston Prételat, the new French First Army Group was standing with General Henri Giraud, commander of French Seventh Army, watching as General Picard’s 1st Light Mechanised Division (1re DLM) exercising against the reconstructed 2nd Light Cavalry Division (2 DLC). Giraud had changed things around after the advance on Brussels in May. In the last couple of months French industry had increased production of armoured vehicles. While most of them were still suffering from the same faults identified in earlier models, the fact was that most of the losses in May been made up for.
The four Light Cavalry Divisions had slowed the German advance through the Ardennes in May and had paid dearly doing so. The remnants of the four DLCs had been reorganised into two, the First and Second. 1re DLC had been assigned to First Army, while 2e DLC had been given to 7th Army. Both DLCs now had two Armoured Car regiments, the Panhard 178s were effective reconnaissance vehicles.
The armoured regiments of Seventh Army were receiving all the new Renault R40s and Somua 40s, making them the best equipped in the French order of battle. Part of the reason for this exercise was to make sure that the integration of the new chars was well advanced as well as rehearsing for the counter-attack. Seventh Army now consisted of First Motorised Corps: 25th Motorised Infantry Division (25e DIM) and First Light Mechanised Division (1re DLM). 16th Motorised Corps consisted of 9e DIM and 21e DIM.
21e DIM had been an infantry division in May, but had been motorised over the last few months. As part of its reorganisation, it had integrated the Char Brigade (GBC 510) with its 90 R40s. One of its Infantry Regiments (48e) had also been equipped with the Lorraine VBCP (Véhicule Blindé de Chasseurs Portés or Armoured Personnel Carrier). This experiment, to have three infantry regiments with integral armour was being examined as a way forward. The Seventh Army’s reserve of two infantry Divisions (4e and 60e) were still having to march as there weren’t enough trucks for them. The 2e DLC provided the reconnaissance capability for the army.
First Army had likewise been changed somewhat. The 3e and 5e North African Infantry Divisons (DINAs) had been reassigned to Second Army. It now consisted of III Corps (2e DLM (80 S35s and 80 H39s) and 1re DIM), IV Corps (3e DLM (80 S35s and 80 H39s) and 15e DIM) and V Corps (1re DCr and 12e DIM). 1re DCr (Division Cuirassee) had 70 Char B1s and 90 H35s. With only one integral Infantry Battalion it had been linked with 12e DIM to provide the Corps with a better mix of chars and infantry. The units under direct Army command were 1re DLC as the reconnaissance unit, with the 32e DI and GBC 515 (45 H35s and 45 R35s) as Army reserves.
The formation of two further DCrs (2e and 3e) were continuing but the number of chars required still fell short of the expected table of organisation and equipment. These were still part of the GQG reserves based at Chalons-sur-Marne. It was hoped that by Spring 1941 these would be the core of a new army.
Prételat asked Giraud the all-important question, “Are they ready?” “Oui!” was the answer. Prételat nodded, “They’d better be.”