A Life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham: A Twentieth-century Naval Leader (Naval Policy and History Series)

A LIFE OF ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET ANDREW CUNNINGHAM

Frontispiece: Cunningham by Karsh of Ottawa, 1944 (Imperial War Museum, London).

A LIFE OF ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET ANDREW CUNNINGHAM A Twentieth-Century Naval Leader MICHAEL SIMPSON

FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR

First published in 2004 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate London N14 5BP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, Oregon, 97213–3786 Website: http://www.frankcass.com/ Copyright © 2004 M.Simpson British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Simpson, Michael (Michael A.) A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham: a twentiethcentury naval leader.—(Cass series. Naval policy and history; 25) 1. Cunningham, Andrew Browne Cunningham, Viscount, 1883–1963 2. Great Britain. Royal Navy—Officers—Biography 3. Great Britain. Royal Navy—History—20th century 4. Admirals— Great Britain—Biography I. Title 359′.0092 ISBN 0-203-50496-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-7146-5197-4 (Print Edition) (cloth) ISSN 1366-9478 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Simpson, Michael (Michael A.) 7A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham: a twentiethcentury naval leader/Michael Simpson. p. cm.—(Cass series—naval policy and history, ISSN 1366–9478; 25) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7146-5197-4 (cloth)— ISBN 0-7146-8460-0 (paper) 1. Cunningham of Hyndhope, Andrew Browne Cunningham, Viscount, 1883–1963. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, British. 3. Admirals—Great Britain—Biography. 4. Great Britain—History, Naval—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. DA89.1.C8S56 2004 940.54′5941′092–dc22 2003061314 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

Contents List of Illustrations

vii

List of Maps

viii

Series Editor’s Preface

x

Acknowledgements

xii

List of Abbreviations

xiv

1. Apprenticed to the Queen’s Navy, 1883–1908

1

2. Cunningham, Destroyers and the Mediterranean: A Symbiotic Relationship, 1908–18 3. Cowan’s Protégé, 1919–33

5 13

4. The Mediterranean: Challenges and Crises, 1934–39

22

5. The Finest Appointment: The Mediterranean Fleet, June 1939–June 1940

32

6. Mussolini’s War, June–December 1940

44

7. Triumph into Tragedy, January–May 1941

59

8. The Caged Tiger, June 1941–April 1942

80

9. King and the King’s Navy, June–October 1942

95

10. Return to North Africa, October 1942–May 1943

100

11. The Invasion of Sicily, May–August 1943

117

12. The Invasion of Italy, September–October 1943

126

13. Becoming First Sea Lord, October 1943–June 1944

139

14. The Pinnacle of a Career, June 1944–May 1946

150

15. Facing the Future, January 1945–June 1946

166

16. The Long Ebb Tide, June 1946–June 1963

174

Notes

181

Bibliography

244

Index

259

Illustrations

Between pages 166 and 167

1.

A Beagle-class destroyer leaving Valletta harbour, c. 1915.

2.

Nona Cunningham, née Byatt, about the time of her marriage, December 1929.

3.

Cunningham and his brother, Lt-Gen. Sir Alan, Western Desert, late 1941.

4.

Cunningham broadcasting from Queen Elizabeth, 1942.

5.

Cunningham at a Mediterranean C-in-Cs’ meeting, Cairo 1942.

6.

Plaque to memory of Cunningham, St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, Valletta.

7.

Cunningham and Admiral H.K.Hewitt, US Navy, Tunis, May 1943.

8.

Vice-Admiral Willis, General Eisenhower, and Cunningham, 1943.

9.

HMS Warspite entering Grand Harbour, Malta, 1943.

10. Cunningham and Admiral H.R.Stark, US Navy, Dorchester Hotel, London, May 1942. 11. Churchill and Cunningham aboard HMS Renown, November 1943. 12. Cunningham and Somerville, Valletta, January 1945.

Maps

1.

The Mediterranean, June 1939.

xix

2.

Action off Calabria, July 1940.

xix

3.

Taranto Harbour, November 1940.

xx

4.

Battle of Cape Matapan, March 1941.

xx

5.

The Eastern Mediterranean, 1941–42.

xxi

6.

Greece and Crete, April–May 1941.

xxi

7.

Landings in the Mediterranean, 1942–43.

xxii

8.

The ‘Husky’ Landings, Sicily, July–August 1943.

xxii

9.

The Salerno Landings, Italy, September 1943.

xxiii

10. The Pacific, 1942–45.

xxiii

All maps were drawn by Tim Fearnside, senior cartographer at the University of Wales, Swansea.

Series Editor’s Preface

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham was the Royal Navy’s leading sailor of the Second World War. The Navy knew him by his initials—‘ABC’—and he is remembered and commemorated still. His principal theatre of operations was in the Mediterranean, where in the early days he held the line against a strategic situation that was much worse than pre-war planners could ever have imagined possible. This was best exemplified by the role of the Royal Navy in conducting a fighting withdrawal against terrible odds from Crete in March 1941. Cunningham was aware that not only the fate of the British expeditionary force, but also the reputation of the Navy itself was at stake, and was resolute in his support for the operation. He held out, too, against Winston Churchill’s incessant demands for more offensive action than the strategic circumstances demanded or Cunningham’s resources made possible. This was a different kind of battle—continual, semi-covert, and highly political—but if he had lost it the consequences might have been as terrible. Thanks not merely to good fortune, but to his skill as a commander and to the professional efficiency and devotion of his people, ABC presided over the slow but steady triumph of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean until it was finally able to assure the safe and timely arrival of supplies and reinforcements to allied forces in the theatre, to provide the conditions for a full-scale invasion, first, of North Africa and then of Sicily and the Italian mainland, until he was able to send that memorable signal back to London to the effect that the enemy’s remaining ships were now safely moored at Malta, under the guns of the British fleet. After this all-important maritime victory, Cunningham was recalled to London, where he was honoured at Paddington Station by being met by the entire Admiralty board. Despite their many differences Churchill was proud of this successful fighting British sailor and sent him off to Washington to impress the Americans. With some reservations, Churchill then accepted the strong-minded Cunningham as First Sea Lord. This chairbound task was not to Cunningham’s taste—he was no Whitehall warrior, but he conceived it to be his duty to accept the post, if only to continue as a resolute defender of the Navy’s interest and success against the continuing and sometimes unreasonable demands to be expected from Churchill. Cunningham was not in the Nelson mode. He inspired respect bordering on awe, and sometimes fear rather than adulation. He was not a people person. But for all his faults (and, as we shall see, he had some) he was amongst the greatest of the Royal Navy’s twentieth-century sailors. ABC’s career spanned both the operational and the policy side

of British naval history in this period. In this book, readers will find a rounded, and where necessary critical, biography that is fully worthy of its subject. Geoffrey Till Series Editor

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the Department of History and the Research Support Fund of the University of Wales Swansea, the British Academy, the Scouloudi Foundation, and the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation for research funding. Crown Copyright material in the Public Record Office is reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office; other material has been used by kind permission of the British Library, the National Maritime Museum, the Imperial War Museum, and the Churchill Archives Centre, and, in the United States, the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, the Operational Archives and the Naval Historical Center at the Washington Navy Yard, the National Archives at College Park, MD, the Naval War College at Newport, RI, and the Franklin D.Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY. I must thank in particular the staffs of the PRO, the Western Manuscripts Department at the British Library, the archivists and librarians of the National Maritime Museum, Mr Roderick Suddaby, Keeper of the Archives at the Imperial War Museum, Mr Corelli Barnett and Dr Piers Brendon and the staff of the Churchill Archives Centre for their prompt and amiable assistance. I owe a debt also to the Librarian of Christ Church, Oxford, and his staff, who graciously made available the papers of Marshal of the RAF Lord Portal. Dr Vincent Orange, of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, generously made available the papers of Marshal of the RAF Lord Tedder. Miss Betsy Barnard kindly allowed me to use extracts from the papers of Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Barnard. I acknowledge also the kind gift of Dr Reynolds Salerno’s Yale thesis. I have received warm hospitality and much information from members of Lord Cunningham’s family: Sir Hugh and Lady Fiona Byatt, Mr Robin Byatt, Mr David Byatt, Mrs Hilda Mackendrick, Miss Mary Cunningham, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jock Slater, and the late Professor Colin Matthew. I wish to acknowledge also the kind hospitality and ready assistance of Captain Hugh Lee, RN, John Somerville, and Alan and Ginny Lovell, of the Palace House, Bishop’s Waltham. My colleagues Professors Richard Shannon, Muriel Chamberlain, Ralph Griffiths, David Eastwood, Noel Thompson, and Julian Jackson, Dr Eleanor Breuning, and Dr David Gill, have been an unfailing source of support, encouragement and information. Mr Tim Fearnside kindly drew the maps and Mr Roger Davies cheerfully reproduced some of the photographs. Dr Richard Alford, Martin Jones, Dr James Levy, Stan May and Simon Rofe, research students, have provided much stimulus and many insights. Fellow members of the Navy Records Society and the Society for Nautical Research have been most helpful, notably Mr Robin Brodhurst, Dr Evan Davies, Lt-Cdr Jock Gardner, Dr Eric Grove, Professor John Hattendorf, Professor Andrew Lambert, Captain Hugh Owen, RN, Lt-Cdr Lawrie Phillips, and Professor David

Syrett. Ex-Leading Seaman Stan Pope has given invaluable advice on the ‘lower deck’. I am particularly grateful to Professor Geoffrey Till, the series editor, and Andrew Humphrys, my editor at Frank Cass, not only for their considerable editorial services, but also for their patience and goodwill when illness engulfed me. I would like to thank John and Ann Charrington, Neil and Alison Smith, and Alasteir Smith for their generous hospitality, and Richard Simpson for keeping my computing on course, and Laura Simpson for her cheerfulness. My nieces Lynn and Kate Charrington, my grandchildren Brenna and Catrin Simpson and Harry Smith have provided welcome diversions. Fitzwilliam College kindly housed me while researching in Cambridge. My wife Sue, long inured to life as an author’s wife, has once again lovingly and loyally supported my research and writing; without her aid, it would have not been possible.

Abbreviations AA

Anti-Aircraft

AB

Able-bodied Seaman

ABC

Andrew Browne Cunningham

ACM

Air Chief Marshal

ACNS (A)

Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Administration)

ACNS (F)

Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Foreign)

ACNS (H)

Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Home)

ACNS (UT)

Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (U-boat Warfare and Trade)

ACNS (W)

Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Weapons)

Adm

Admiral

Ady Sec

Admiralty Secretary

Air Cdre

Air Commodore

AoF

Admiral of the Fleet

ALUSNA

All US Navy

AM

Air Marshal

ANCXF

Allied Naval Commander Expeditionary Force

AOC-in-C

Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief

AoF

Admiral of the Fleet

AS

anti-submarine

ASV

Air-to-Surface Vessel (radar)

ASW

Anti-Submarine Warfare

BAD

British Admiralty Delegation

BPF

British Pacific Fleet

Brig

Brigadier

Brig-Gen

Brigadier-General

BRNC

Britannia Royal Naval College

BS

Battle Squadron

Capt

Captain

Capt (D)

Captain (Destroyer [flotilla])

CAS

Chief of the Air Staff

CCS

Combined Chiefs of Staff

Cdr

Commander

Cdre

Commodore

Cdre (D)

Commodore (Destroyers)

CID

Committee of Imperial Defence

C-in-C

Commander-in-Chief

CIGS

Chief of the Imperial General Staff

CNO

Chief of Naval Operations [US]

CO

Combined Operations

Col

Colonel

COMNAVEU

Commander Navy Europe [US]

COPP

Combined Operations Pilotage Party

COS

Chiefs of Staff

CS

Cruiser Squadron

Cttee

Committee

CYS

Chief Yeoman of Signals

DCNS

Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff

DCOS

Deputy Chief of Staff

Dept

Department

Div

Division

DNAD

Director of Naval Air Division

DOps

Director of Operations

DP

Director of Plans

DSC

Distinguished Service Cross

DSM

Distinguished Service Medal [US]

DSO

Distinguished Service Order

DUKW

D=model year; U=amphibian; K=all-wheel drive; W=dual rear axles

E-boat

Enemy Motor Torpedo Boat

EF

Eastern Fleet

ETF

Eastern Task Force

FAA

Fleet Air Arm

F-M

Field-Marshal

FO

Foreign Office

FSL

First Sea Lord

GCB

Grand Cross of the Bath

Gen

General

Govr

Governor

HACS

High Angle Control System

HF/DF

High Frequency/Direction Finding

HMS

His Majesty’s Ship

IDC

Imperial Defence College

INA

Institute of Naval Architects

JCS

Joint Chiefs of Staff [US]

JIC

Joint Intelligence Committee

JIS

Joint Intelligence Staff

JPS

Joint Planning Staff

JSM

Joint Staff Mission

KBE

Knight of the British Empire

KCB

Knight Grand Cross of the Bath

KT

Knight of the Thistle

LC

Landing Craft

LCI

Landing Craft (Infantry)

LCT

Landing Craft (Tank)

Lieut

Lieutenant

LSI

Landing Ship (Infantry)

LST

Landing Ship (Tank)

Lt-Cdr

Lieutenant-Commander

Lt-Gen

Lieutenant-General

M of the RAF

Marshal of the Royal Air Force

Maj-Gen

Major-General

ME

Middle East

Med

Mediterranean

MF

Mediterranean Fleet

MNBDO

Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation

MT

Motor Transport

MTB

Motor Torpedo Boat

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

NID

Naval Intelligence Division

NLO

Naval Liaison Officer

OA

Operational Archives [US]

OM

Order of Merit

ONO

Office of Naval Operations [US]

OOD

Officer of the Day

PM

Prime Minister

POW

Prisoner of War

R-Adm

Rear-Admiral

RA (D)

Rear-Admiral (Destroyers)

RAF

Royal Air Force

RAN

Royal Australian Navy

RCN

Royal Canadian Navy

RIN

Royal Indian Navy

RM

Royal Marines

RN

Royal Navy

RNR

Royal Naval Reserve

RNVR

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

RNZN

Royal New Zealand Navy

RoP

Report of Proceedings

SACSEA

Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia

SEAC

South East Asia Command

Sigint

Signals Intelligence

SL

Sea Lords

SO

Staff Officer

SO (P)

Staff Officer (Plans)

Sqdn

Squadron

Sub-Lieut

Sub-Lieutenant

SWPA

South West Pacific Area

TB

Torpedo Boat

TSR

Torpedo Spotter Reconnaissance (aircraft)

U-boat

German submarine

UN

United Nations

USA

United States Army

U-Sec

Under-Secretary

USMC

United States Marine Corps

USN

United States Navy

USNR

United States Naval Reserve

V-Adm

Vice-Admiral

VC

Victoria Cross

VCNS

Vice-Chief of Naval Staff

VE-Day

Victory in Europe Day

VIP

Very Important Person

VJ-Day

Victory over Japan Day

WO

War Office

WRNS

Women’s Royal Naval Service

WTF

Western Task Force

Journals BJIS

British Journal of International Studies

D&S

Diplomacy & Statecraft

EHR

English Historical Review

HJ

Historical Journal

IHR

International History Review

JMH

Journal of Modern History

JSS

Journal of Strategic Studies

MA

Military Affairs

MM

The Mariner’s Mirror

NH

Naval History

NR

The Naval Review

NWCR

Naval War College Review

PBA

Proceedings of the British Academy

RUSIJ

Royal United Service Institute Journal

USNIP

US Naval Institute Proceedings

W&S

War & Society

Map 1: The Mediterranean, June 1939.

Map 2: Action off Calabria, July 1940.

Map 3: Taranto Harbour, November 1940.

Map 4: Battle of Cape Matapan, March 1941.

Map 5: The Eastern Mediterranean, 1941–42.

Map 6: Greece and Crete, April–May 1941.

Map 7: Landings in the Mediterranean, 1942–43.

Map 8: The ‘Husky’ Landings, Sicily, July–August 1943.

Map 9: The Salerno Landings, Italy, September 1943.

Map 10: The Pacific, 1942–45.

1 Apprenticed to the Queen’s Navy

1883–1908 On the warm but breezy afternoon of 27 June 1897 the royal yacht steamed through 30 miles of ships, celebrating Victoria’s diamond jubilee. The Royal Navy symbolised the Pax Britannica; as The Times correspondent remarked: Whether Englishmen, colonialists or Indians, all are citizens of the same Empire, with common interests bound together by the steel bounds signified in the long lines of battleships and cruisers in sight. No man or woman could gaze on that scene without having the national instinct awakened and the pride of citizenship aroused.1 Among the junior cadets watching from the ‘special service vessel’ Wye was Andrew Browne Cunningham, aged 14 and about six months into his 15-month course at Dartmouth and he well recalled ‘a sight they will remember all their lives’.2 The third of five children of Professor Daniel Cunningham and his wife Elizabeth, he was born at Dublin on 7 January 1883. His father, a distinguished professor of anatomy at Trinity College Dublin, was appointed to the chair at Edinburgh in 1903. The Cunninghams were Scots with a strong intellectual and clerical tradition. Andrew’s mother also came from clerical stock and he was named after his maternal grandfather, the Rev. Andrew Browne. Both families had risen into the middle class by stern adherence to the Protestant ethic. Though Andrew, by his own admission, was slow to imbibe the doctrine of unremitting toil, the family tradition drove his career. He appears to have been an alert, energetic and mischievous youngster. Cunningham’s mother oversaw most of his upbringing and he had a warm and close relationship with her. Most of his earlier years were spent with governesses and domestic servants. After a short introduction to schooling in Dublin, he was sent briefly to Edinburgh Academy, lodging with his aunts Doodles and Connie May.3 Cunningham acknowledged that he ‘found the Academy pretty tough going at first’.4 As he was bright, this may have arisen from a different accent, a slightly less than average size and joining a form of older boys. These circumstances may have stimulated belligerence and his love of a scrap. At the age of 10, he was startled to receive a telegram from his father asking, ‘Would you like to go into the Navy?’ It may be that Daniel considered his boisterous second son unsuited to an intellectual training. The family had no maritime connections and Andrew

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

2

had only a vague interest in the sea. Nevertheless, he replied, ‘Yes. I should like to be an Admiral.’5 He was then sent to a school specialising in cramming boys for the Dartmouth entrance examinations. Andrew, who had done well at school, passed them comfortably, being particularly strong in mathematics though uninterested in the humanities.6 Cunningham joined the training ship Britannia in January 1897, among 65 cadets, the sons of peers, gentlemen, business or professional men. Terms, under a Lieutenant, were housed aboard the hulk Hindustan, connected to Britannia. Cadets had a sea chest with a hammock slung above; each group of six shared a personal servant. Discipline was strict, though punishment was rare.7 While the education, recently reformed, was rigorous, it promoted mechanical learning, and ‘a repressive mental process commenced in Her Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Britannia and the gunrooms of HM ships during the most formative years of cadets’ lives’.8 Instruction was in mathematics, trigonometry, navigation, steam engineering and seamanship, with physics, astronomy, geography, French, drawing, scripture and naval history. Cunningham lacked enthusiasm for field sports, though he became a keen golfer, and spent most of his spare time ‘simply messing about in boats’. The sail-and-steam sloop Racer provided sea-going experience. He appears to have settled quickly to cadet life, though rarely extending himself in his studies. He rapidly acquired a reputation for pugilism—and the nickname ‘Meat Phaz’. Towards the end of his course, he seems to have been anxious to seek adventure at sea; consequently, he committed numerous minor misdemeanours, but still obtained a ‘very good’ for conduct. He passed out tenth in April 1898, with first-class marks in mathematics and seamanship.9 The Royal Navy consisted of several hundred ships, two dozen bases and a strength of 90,000, while the naval estimates of over £20 million constituted about a quarter of government expenditure. Deployed worldwide, notably in powerful Channel and Mediterranean battle fleets, ‘The fleet of England is her all-in-all’ and upheld imperial interests.10 The Times trusted that foreigners had taken the review’s ‘lessons to heart’ and observed that ‘supremacy at sea belongs to Great Britain and…she has no intention of abandoning it’. It concluded smugly, ‘A powerful British Navy is the best guarantee of the peace of the world.’11 Despite modern, advanced warships, long-serving, capable and well-trained crews, the confidence of almost total invincibility, and Nelsonian inspiration, the essence of Nelson’s success had been forgotten. Where he had inculcated initiative and independence among his officers, a long period of peace had encouraged ‘very senior officer veneration’. Moreover, exercises were perfunctory, staff work ill-organised and the study of war neglected. ‘During the nineties’, wrote Admiral of the Fleet Lord Chatfield, ‘the struggle was always going on between the mind of the old seaman and the young technician’.12 Discipline remained ferociously harsh, food and accommodation spartan. Pay was poor and amenities few. Officers indulged in heavy drinking, hunting, shooting and fishing, regattas and balls. Their principal ambition was to keep their ships pristine. ‘Competitive drill and smartness of the ships’, noted Chatfield, ‘was the test of efficiency, rather than technical effort in gunnery and kindred matters.’13 ‘The British Navy’, wrote Marder, ‘had run in a rut for nearly a century.’14 For the Royal Navy, the diamond jubilee review represented a last hurrah of a vanishing age. Midshipman Cunningham knew little of these shortcomings. He applied for an appointment on the Cape station and served in the light cruisers Fox and Doris, luckily

Apprenticed to the Queen's Navy

3

meeting sub-lieutenants who were strict but fair. Sea time offered experience in navigation and commanding ships’ boats and Cunningham enjoyed and excelled in these duties. Excitement came in the Boer War of 1899–1902, the enterprising Cunningham securing attachment to a naval artillery brigade. Though he saw little action, he found ample opportunity to ride a horse and develop his stamina and resourcefulness. He learned to command men appreciably older and to understand army life. He gleefully told his mother of scrapes from which he had emerged unharmed and the exhilaration of dodging enemy fire. However, after several wearying months, Cunningham’s mind was focused on returning to a naval career and, offered the chance to return home in October 1900, he seized it.15 Denied an early promotion, almost certainly because of the favour shown to him by Field Marshal Roberts, an old friend of his father, he began the metamorphosis into a sub-lieutenant. He served in the Channel Squadron, honing his ship and boat-handling skills in often difficult conditions before taking courses at Greenwich, followed by others at Whale Island and HMS Vernon. Cunningham’s relative lack of sea time, resentment at injustice, harsh treatment at ‘Whaley’, his incorrigible rebelliousness, and the natural desire of a 19-year-old to enjoy London ensured that he passed his examinations adequately but without the distinction to earn early promotion. He was commissioned a sub-lieutenant in March 1903 and appointed to the Mediteranean Fleet battleship Implacable, ‘considered a crack ship’.16 His personality and ambitions ran counter to big ships and their somewhat rigid officers and he found too little to occupy him and enjoyed no real responsibility However, learning that there was a vacancy in the destroyer Locust (300 tons, 30 knots, coal-fired, two torpedo tubes and a handful of small guns), he boldly applied for a transfer to her and ‘So began my long years in destroyers.’17 Cunningham joined Locust in September 1903; with a crew of 58, she was extremely cramped. Her captain was Lieutenant A.B.S. Dutton, renowned for his zeal for cleanliness, efficiency and hard driving, which had led to the abrupt departure of previous sub-lieutenants. Cunningham was responsible for smartness, efficiency and the discipline of the crew. He now had an unforgiving captain, abundant responsibility, scope for initiative, opportunity to refine his seamanship, and a chance to shape a weapons system still rapidly evolving. That Cunningham revelled in these opportunities is clear from his account of a night attack on the battleships anchored in a defended harbour on the Greek coast. The exercise had excitement, boldness, instant decisions, hazardous manoeuvres, teamwork and determined action. He engaged in regattas in both Locust and Orwell, of the same class, to which he was appointed in December 1903.18 Promoted Lieutenant in March 1904, he abhorred specialisms and preferred being a ‘salthorse’. To advance, he had to display outstanding qualities of organisation, seamanship, command, energy, determination and resourcefulness—preferably in a command. However, between June 1904 and May 1908, he served in cruiser appointments, in which he undertook the instruction of recruits as well as more normal watch-keeping and divisional duties. He clearly enjoyed the tutorial role, clarifying his own views on training, discipline, efficiency, and command. After a training voyage to the West Indies, he spent further time in the Mediterranean, in the cruiser Suffolk, commanded by a future First Sea Lord, the urbane and courteous Captain Rosslyn Wemyss. He gained a priceless knowledge of the harbours, channels, sea conditions, and weather of the Mediterranean and compiled an unmatched record of regatta victories.19

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

4

When Cunningham returned home in April 1908, he found a widespread naval revolution in progress. Discontent with the complacency, narrow-mindedness, rigidity and superficiality of naval education and strategic thought emerged in the 1870s but only became widespread following the publications of the American Captain A.T.Mahan in the 1890s. He created an audience for Professor Sir John Knox Laughton, principal founder of the Navy Records Society (1893), an institution dedicated to providing a sound historical basis for naval strategy Sir Julian Corbett taught on the newlyestablished war course and promoted the eternal verities of maritime warfare,20 Herbert Richmond, a protégé, created The Naval Review (1913), ‘an instrument for reform through education…by the exchange of ideas’.21 The revolution is associated, however, mainly with Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher (First Sea Lord, 1904–10 and 1914–15), influenced by Corbett and mentor of Richmond. A man who ‘thought in large brush strokes and primary colours’, Fisher had the ‘capacity to think the unthinkable’.22 He was primarily responsible for the introduction of destroyers in 1892 and influenced the development of the submarine. He instituted realistic training, fostered naval intelligence and gathered round him a group of junior officers keen to modernise the navy in fighting efficiency, equipment and techniques. Fisher effected reforms in officer recruitment, service conditions and the manning of ships. Slow to acknowledge Germany as the most likely enemy, he was nevertheless insistent on maintaining the navy at a high pitch and desired to maximise cost efficiency, rationalising deployments on the grounds, ‘We cannot have everything or be strong everywhere.’23 Associated principally with dreadnoughts, ‘What Jacky actually wanted…was the creation of a more flexible system for protecting Britain’s overseas territorial and trading interests.’24 More interested in battlecruisers and leaving the Mediterranean to flotilla defence, he was opinionated and controversial. Though the Edwardian era would have seen great changes, he gave them a major fillip and made Winston Churchill (First Lord, 1911–15) a disciple. Nevertheless, in 1914 the Royal Navy was still more technically minded than intellectually questioning; it was not until after the disappointments of the Great War that the reformers were heeded. Cunningham was listed as a member of the Naval Review after the war but he was far from being a ‘Young Turk’; indeed, he termed the movement ‘subversive’ and challenged authority only on a practical, personal basis.25 He was more directly influenced by Fisher’s creation of destroyers, for destroyers made Cunningham.26

2 Cunningham, Destroyers and the Mediterranean: A Symbiotic Relationship

1908–18 Lieutenant Cunningham, aged 25, was appointed to the command of Torpedo Boat (TB) No. 14, attached to the Reserve Fleet at Portsmouth, in May 1908. She was a relatively new vessel (270 tons, two 12-pounders, three 18-inch torpedo tubes, 26 knots) and was originally designated as a ‘coastal destroyer’.1 Cunningham’s 18 months in TB 14 were spent in almost ceaseless gun and torpedo exercises. He progressed to the 30-knot destroyer Vulture in January 1910—scarcely larger than TB 14, coal-burning and obsolescent—not to Cunningham’s taste. He complained to Captain (D), the able and formidable Reginald Tyrwhitt, who ‘was rather annoyed’ at the young man’s presumption.2 Fortunately, an exchange of destroyers between Devonport and Portsmouth enabled him to transfer, in August 1910, to Roebuck, a newer coal-burner and a much better ship. She was more habitable, had greater endurance, and was faster; Cunningham characteristically described her as ‘handy’ but boiler trouble caused her to be paid off. Cunningham was exceedingly lucky to be appointed to another destroyer, Scorpion, in which he was to make his name over the next seven years. Scorpion, three months into her first commission, was typical of the destroyers with which the fleet went to war (945 tons, one 4-inch gun, three 12-pounders, two 18-inch torpedo tubes, 27.5 knots). Somewhat slow, under-armed and inadequately equipped but relatively robust, her main defect was that she had coalfired turbines, ‘an extraordinarily bad mixture’.3 Flotilla tactics quickly became more sophisticated, involving the defence of the battle fleet and counter-attacks, including night engagements. At sea much more often than big ships and the navy’s maids-of-all-work, they were grossly overworked in wartime. Destroyers offered the opportunity to exercise one’s own judgement, take initiatives, operate independently, assume total responsibility for a vessel and its company, engage in David-and-Goliath encounters with big ships and close quarter scraps with light craft and shore defences. They made ship handling a work of art while daring appealed to young captains of zeal, determination, coolness, self-confidence and unflagging energy. Command meant training a ship’s company to a high pitch, a gift for leadership, an instinctive grasp of the ways of the sea and ships and a fine eye for opportunities. Chatfield once observed, ‘In all affairs of the sea rapid, nay instant, decision is vital.’4 No one exemplified these qualities more than Cunningham.

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

6

The arrival of a new weapons platform, the need to develop it rapidly, the growing threat of war and the persistence of an exacting, autocratic, uncompromising (though often petty and pointless) higher command meant that Cunningham was driven relentlessly and was equally demanding of his ships’ companies. Service in light craft brought officers and men closer together. The constant sea-going and exercises ‘cultivated a quick-thinking brain, initiative and anticipation’.5 Moreover, he was prepared to tackle superiors to engineer desirable appointments; flotilla commanders used their influence at the Admiralty to enable him to command destroyers for over 11 successive years.6 None was stricter than Robert Arbuthnot, Commodore (D), Home Fleet.7 Cunningham evidently met Arbuthnot’s severe criteria, for he enjoyed the Commodore’s protection in avoiding potentially embarrassing retrospective examinations. His own reputation for strict discipline and intolerance of inefficiency owed as much to Arbuthnot’s example as to Cunningham’s inherent Calvinistic sternness. Cunningham was noted for having had 11 First Lieutenants in seven years commanding Scorpion; however, two of these were temporary appointments and the remainder survived for between seven and 24 months— hardly an indication of Cunningham’s displeasure with their conduct.8 Arbuthnot drilled his flotillas in all sea conditions, at night, and without lights. As a result, ‘there was little that any of us did not know about the North Sea in all its moods’—and precious little that Cunningham did not know about the capabilities of his craft.9 Exercises replicating war conditions, in the roughest of seas, were likely to carry with them serious risks and Scorpion ran down a sailing vessel in the Channel. Cunningham escaped condemnation, the officer of the watch being held responsible. He was similarly fortunate on other occasions when errors were committed or officialdom disdainfully treated. Moreover, he was fully alive to ruses by which his ship might benefit and his own freedom of action be enlarged. A principle evident as a fleet commander emerged early in his captaincy—the man on the spot is likely to know best.10 The flotilla sailed to the Mediterranean in the autumn of 1913. Cunningham looked forward to returning but the Mediterranean had become a backwater for the Royal Navy. Fisher, who had commanded the Mediterranean Fleet at its largest, and his disciple, Churchill, were determined to maintain a 60 per cent margin over Germany. No dreadnoughts could be spared for the Mediterranean, and in any case Fisher and Churchill believed that the advent of submarines and torpedo craft had rendered its narrow waters untenable for them. Churchill was forced by a rapidly deteriorating international situation to station three battlecruisers there, but was still compelled to let the French defend Britain’s considerable Mediterranean interests. Russia coveted a warm-water access, which Britain, despite the entente of 1907, was determined to deny her. The Italians and the Austrians, supposedly allied, were building battle fleets against each other. The smaller Balkan powers had fallen first upon the decaying Turkish empire and then upon one another. Wilhelmine Germany was the source of much turbulence, provoking a second Moroccan crisis in 1911, promoting a Berlin-Baghdad railway, allying with Austria and Italy, and suborning Turkey from its historic allegiance to Britain, as well as stationing major naval units in the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean had its delights, however, chiefly golf and sailing for Cunningham, but the accent was clearly on preparation for war. Cunningham renewed his acquaintance with the eastern basin,

Cunningham, destroyers and the Mediterranean

7

especially the Aegean, and the flotilla was worked up to a high level of efficiency by Captain (D) C.P.R.Coode.11 By the time Britain declared war (4 August 1914), the flotilla was ready for operations, Scorpion’s log stating laconically, ‘Prepared for war. Cleared ship for action.’12 After several days patrolling off Malta and in the mouth of the Adriatic, ships of the 5th Flotilla were ordered to join Rear-Admiral Troubridge’s armoured cruiser squadron in pursuit of the German battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau. The destroyers, running short of coal, joined Troubridge at dawn on 7 August but within a few hours most had dropped out, Scorpion and two others remaining ultimately coaled from the cruisers at Zante after Troubridge called off the pursuit. The German ships made their way to Turkey, arriving at the Dardanelles on 11 August. The First Sea Lord, Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg, minuted, ‘The escape of the Goeben ever remains a shameful episode in the war.’13 The memory of the Royal Navy’s failure influenced Churchill and the First Sea Lord, Admiral Pound, in the Second World War, when senior officers were hounded if they did not display sufficient aggression and engage the enemy at every opportunity.14 Scorpion’s flotilla then joined a predominantly French force in an unrewarding offensive sweep against Austrian blockading ships off the Montenegrin coast. They were then ordered to patrol off the Dardanelles, searching for contraband, though Turkey was still neutral. During the autumn of 1914, the destroyers suffered the rigours of open anchorages in the neighbouring islands, bad weather and poor food, though their depot ship Blenheim offered them good support.15 The arrival of the German ships in Turkish waters led ultimately to Turkey’s belligerence on the side of the Central Powers, Britain declaring war on Turkey on 5 November 1914. On 1 November, however, the first subdivision, Wolverine (Commander Osmond Prentis) and Scorpion, was ordered to search the Gulf of Smyrna for suspected minelayers. The destroyers discovered a converted yacht and an old gunboat moored alongside a jetty in Vourlah Bay; they were set on fire by their crews, the destroyers assisting with gunfire until both vessels were sunk. This cutting out expedition was one for which destroyers—fast, well-armed, manoeuvrable, and of relatively shallow draft—were well suited and their commanding officers seized on this welcome relief. For the remainder of 1914, nevertheless, monotonous patrolling was the lot of Cunningham, frequently in severe gales and blizzards, a gruelling test of endurance and morale punctuated by brief spells at Lemnos and a pre-Christmas break at Malta.16 In 1915, Churchill quickly became the chief protagonist of an attempt by the fleet to force the Straits, so eliminating Turkey, succouring Russia and relieving the Western Front’s stalemate. Britain and France were anxious to shore up Serbia against Austria, persuade Italy to remain neutral or join the Allies, and impress the wavering Balkan states. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of their naval strength was underemployed. It was essential to remove the Turkish threat to Middle East oil supplies and to the Suez Canal. Moreover, imperial statesmen feared a Turkish propaganda campaign among the Empire’s millions of Muslim subjects. Turkey was, however, described as the ‘soft underbelly’ of the Central Powers and Vice-Admiral Carden, the fleet’s commander, stated that a long and careful operation might just succeed.17 It was all the encouragement the ebullient First Lord needed and he persuaded the War Cabinet to approve the operation.18 Fisher, recalled as First Sea Lord, uttered only ‘ineffective manifestations of

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

8

dissent’, though believing that 200,000 troops should be landed.19 Carden’s brief bombardment on 3 November did relatively little damage but it strengthened Turkish resolve while it alerted them to the possibility of further Allied attacks. A substantial Anglo-French bombarding squadron was assembled to destroy each battery in a kind of creeping barrage. Once inside the Straits, it was intended to sweep the minefields and be in Istanbul within a month or so. Initial bombardments, beginning on 19 February 1915, silenced the outer forts, but in the Straits room for manoeuvre was limited, currents were fierce, there were both moored and floating mines, and, worst of all, the Turkish batteries were well hidden and often mobile. Failure to locate all the mines resulted in the loss of three old battleships. This setback convinced the Allies to make a series of landings, conducted between April and August 1915. The naval assault may well have been on the point of success, for the Turkish guns were short of ammunition. However, the naval forces also suffered further loss from submarines and torpedo boats and Churchill, the scapegoat, was forced from office.20 Destroyers patrolled and accompanied heavy ships into the Straits, firing at Turkish guns when their presence was revealed, landing demolition parties and recovering them under heavy fire, but their main function was to escort the unarmed minesweeping trawlers, generally at night. However, the trawlers’ fishermen crews were subjected to fierce fire, aided by an efficient searchlight network, and they were also too slow. The ‘River’ and ‘Beagle’ class destroyers were then equipped with sweeps and quickly trained in using them, at which they proved extremely successful. ‘The Wolverine and the Scorpion were always the best and most reliable pair.’21 From early April they swept in the Straits two or three times a day, operating in units of eight, three pairs abreast and one pair astern, at 12–18 knots. It was difficult to maintain station against the current, especially at night and under severe fire. One officer described the destroyers’ experience as ‘twenty-five per cent danger, seventy-five per cent boredom’.22 On the night of 12/13 May, however, the old battleship Goliath was torpedoed. Wolverine and Scorpion sought to cut off the Turkish torpedo boat’s retreat but they were hampered by poor visibility and searchlight-assisted fire, which forced them to retire. The destroyers now nosed close inshore at night to disrupt the enemy’s work on his defences, but by the spring of 1915, German U-boats had arrived and torpedoed two old battleships. It was acknowledged that ‘so far no efficient means has been devised’ of catching them and submarines remained ‘our most pressing danger’.23 The destroyers could do little but pick up survivors and make fruitless searches for periscopes. The landings (25 April–7 August 1915), ill-organised and bloody, were a matter of ‘hope and guesswork’ and ‘an unrelieved shambles’.24 Once ashore, attempts to press inland were largely repulsed by skilful and determined resistance. The destroyers provided effective close support for the landings, halting Turkish counter-attacks, though suffering casualties. The army expressed its ‘great appreciation’ for the destroyers’ accurate fire, the Wolverine and the Scorpion both ‘doing exceptionally good work on several occasions’.25 The fleet’s unofficial newspaper, The Peninsula Press, remarked, ‘These operations reflect great credit on the vigilance and accurate shooting of HMS Scorpion.’26 One division was stationed off Anzac Cove and another off Helles. Relieved every 48 hours, they sailed for Mudros harbour on Lemnos to coal, clean, repair and reammunition. Cunningham also escorted heavy ships and ferried about generals and their staffs and parties of troops. However, following the failure of the landings at Suvla in

Cunningham, destroyers and the Mediterranean

9

August to gain more than a toehold, the Gallipoli expedition had turned into an expensive stalemate; by the end of 1915, an evacuation was under way.27 Despite severe weather, the evacuations, carried out between 19 December 1915 and 9 January 1916, passed off without loss, though Commodore Roger Keyes termed them ‘a disgraceful page in our history’.28 The general strategic concept—the principle of using sea power to launch an expedition against the apparently vulnerable flanks of one’s enemy—was sound but the Dardanelles catastrophe embraced everything wrong about the navy. As one of the founders of the Naval Review, Admiral Dewar, pointed out, ‘The source… must be sought in naval methods of command, administration and training.’29 Maurice Hankey, secretary of the War Cabinet, observed that the disaster ‘illustrated once more the weakness of our supreme command in those days’.30 Forcing the Dardanelles might have succeeded but ‘its strategic possibilities were thrown away by the truly appalling way in which the operation was conducted’.31 As Dewar stressed, ‘The fundamental error lay in the conception of a purely naval enterprise which sent the Navy in to attack before the Army was ready.’32 Little thought appears to have been given as to how the force would sustain itself without a substantial fleet train or impose peace without military support. An earlier decision to use destroyers as sweepers might have led to success but much of the naval fire was ineffective, the trajectories being too flat and the spotting inadequate. Later, there was insufficient cooperation between the services and little appreciation of the hazards of opposed landings. Turkish resistance, assisted by German advice, was unexpectedly stiff, and, even if the army and the navy succeeded in reaching Istanbul, it was unlikely that they would have capitulated.33 It has been claimed that the official enquiry into the fiasco ‘acted as a spur to senior officers to speak their minds during the Second World War’.34 When amphibious assaults became necessary after 1940, it was evident that many lessons had been learned since 1915—the need for adequate intelligence, beach reconnaissance, minesweeping forces, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft protection, interservice planning and co-ordination, protected landing craft, and a well organised naval bombardment serviced by accurate spotting, and aerial protection of the landings.35 The destroyers, one of the few successes at the Dardanelles, demonstrated a great measure of adaptability and were in constant service. Though Cunningham’s autobiography downplays his own bravery, coolness, energy, dedication and professionalism, there is no doubt that he made Scorpion one of the outstanding ships on the station. She was regularly top of the league in coaling ship; her effectiveness as a minesweeper and bombarding vessel was several times remarked upon; members of her ship’s company followed their captain’s example in aggressiveness, efficiency and endurance and were much decorated; while Cunningham was rewarded for his leadership under fire and in other trying conditions with promotion to Commander (a leap of 250 places on the list) and appointment to the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). There is little indication from his own story that he learned great lessons from the adventure. What he took from it was how to perform tasks unanticipated in peacetime, how to remain resolute under fire, how to improvise in action, the rudiments of co-operation with military forces—and how, for the most part, life at sea was dreary, even in a war zone.36 Scorpion continued to be employed in the Aegean on a sort of roving commission, based on the Greek island of Leros, keeping Turkish coast defences on their toes,

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

10

intercepting enemy coastwise shipping, obtaining supplies for the fleet (often by irregular ‘commando’ raids of dubious legitimacy), gathering intelligence, patrolling and escorting individual valuable ships. Among the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) officers who helped was Lieutenant-Commander J.L.Myres, Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, but then better known as the ‘Blackbeard of the Aegean’—an intelligence officer, cattle-raid organiser and a bold, adventurous spirit like Cunningham; it is no surprise that they became close friends and operated together. It was hazardous work, the ships being frequently under fire and suffering a number of casualties, though navigation in confined waters, denuded of lights, and in the biting north-east squalls, was equally dangerous. Cunningham had under his wing Wolverine and a handful of smaller patrol craft and was responsible for the organisation of the base and its supplies, diplomatic relations with the Greek and Italian officials of the islands, the operating efficiency of his motley squadron, the planning of operations and the management of the trawlers’ and drifters’ crews. It gave a good indication of his potential for higher command. Not surprisingly, Cunningham led by example, engaging in duels with the Turkish defenders of small ports as he cut out caiques, a reprise of inshore operations in the Nelsonian era. In July 1916, Scorpion sailed for the United Kingdom for a refit and Cunningham moved to a sister ship, Rattlesnake, until Scorpion returned in October.37 During his brief spell in Rattlesnake, Cunningham took part in an Anglo-French expedition to seize the Greek fleet at the Piraeus. Greece, though ostensibly neutral, was in a volatile political state and the king was pro-German. Cunningham, now commanding a division of four destroyer-minesweepers, swept the harbour ahead of the mainly French battle squadron. Though Cunningham afterwards returned to Scorpion, he had to break in a new ship’s company, few of whom were regulars. There followed an uneventful spell on patrol off the Dardanelles, enlivened only by Wolverine ramming Scorpion from astern, necessitating a month in Malta dockyard. On return to service in late 1916, Scorpion was engaged in even more mundane operations—escorting convoys, on which Cunningham spent a frustrating year.37 Nevertheless, he applied himself to the task of guarding slow merchantmen of several nationalities and commanding mixed bags of escorts from the French, Italian, Japanese and British navies, contributing to fleet orders the advice that a convoy’s safety lay principally in exact station-keeping by the escorts. Even so, Cunningham was temperamentally unsuited to such patient, vital service. He appears to have had no contact with the U-boats, wreaking as much havoc in the Mediterranean as in the Atlantic. ‘The immunity of my convoys’, he observed, ‘was probably due to sheer luck.’38 Convoy, introduced in the Mediterranean generally from the spring of 1917, had been advocated by Rear-Admiral Ballard as early as October 1916, on the grounds that ‘it does at least ensure that the enemy encounters difficulty in locating the object of his attack and formidable opposition in delivering it’.39 It was the elusiveness of convoys that was their principal defence rather than the rudimentary escorting of the day. Instituted on a comprehensive basis early in 1918, shipping losses fell steadily and mostly with regularity. Flotilla defence in 1917–18 therefore meant something markedly different from Fisher’s conception. Most officers, however, saw convoy as merely ‘defensive’. In the next war, many senior officers, including Pound and Cunningham, persisted with fruitless and costly hunting groups.40 Convinced that the Mediterranean now offered few offensive possibilities, Cunningham requested Captain Coode, now at the Admiralty, to engineer a transfer to

Cunningham, destroyers and the Mediterranean

11

one of the two most active destroyer commands, the Harwich force under Tyrwhitt, or the Dover Patrol, shortly to come under Keyes, both officers of boldness and courage, admired by Cunningham, in turn respected by them. In December 1917 Scorpion sailed for home. She paid off on 21 January 1918. Cunningham had been in command of her for seven years and three weeks, establishing an intimate relationship with her and turning her into one of the finest destroyers. He had made his reputation as a first-class seaman, a fighting sailor and a captain of resource, determination, authority and distinction. A destroyer was the perfect vehicle for Cunningham at that stage of his career and the Mediterranean was the ideal proving ground.41 His first wartime home command, the Ophelia, of the 14th Flotilla in the Grand Fleet, and which he joined on 11 February 1918, was unkempt, slack and ill-organised. Cunningham spent only six weeks in her but her crew felt his firm hand and she was a far more efficient unit when he left her, after a handful of operations escorting the heavy ships that formed distant cover for the Norwegian convoys.42 Vice-Admiral Keyes, however, was able to offer him a command in the Dover Patrol. He was appointed to Termagant (1,100 tons, 32–34 knots, five four-inch guns, four 21-inch torpedo tubes), a large destroyer being built for Turkey in 1914 but taken over by the Admiralty. Heavy armament and high speed would be a boon in the regular night fighting against German light forces. Keyes wanted a higher degree of aggression and sharpness. To Cunningham’s unconcealed delight, Termagant actually spent most of her time at Dunkirk, where she was more likely to see action, but he was disappointed to have no more than a distant supporting role in the Zeebrugge raid (23 April 1918) and his vessel was undergoing boiler cleaning when the blocking of Ostend (10/11 May) took place. Much of Cunningham’s time was spent on routine patrol or escorting cross-channel traffic but there were some night-time clashes with German flotillas. Early one summer evening, Cunningham’s division sighted four enemy destroyers off the Belgian coast, steering north-east; the enemy opened fire at 16–18,000 yards, beyond the range of the British weapons. Cunningham closed the enemy at 15 knots, reporting his intention to the senior officer in the monitor Terror. She signalled, ‘Am supporting. Do not get cut off’, and additional warships were summoned; subsequent signals ordering Cunningham to retire were ignored, which is not surprising as it was his bold leadership which had earned him the appointment. At 1845, ten minutes after the first sighting report, four or five more German destroyers were seen at 14,000 yards. Cunningham increased speed to 28 knots, opening fire at 12,000 yards. The range came down rapidly to 8–9,000 yards and the enemy fire was heavy but not particularly accurate; the Germans were bunched and offered a better target, but Cunningham’s ship scored only one hit and all four torpedoes appeared to have missed. At 1912, opposed by between 11 and 13 ships, Cunningham ‘considered the odds were then too heavy, so turned the 8th Division 8 points together and retired’. The action was an exasperating experience for Cunningham but it illustrated both the strengths and weaknesses of destroyers. They were so versatile and handy that they were always ‘multitasked’. They were at sea so constantly that they had insufficient time to practise their supposed primary tasks—to engage similar enemy vessels. Moreover, in a seaway, destroyer gunnery was unlikely to be accurate. Commodore Larken at Dunkirk, a long-standing mentor, and Keyes were highly impressed by Cunningham’s ‘most praise-worthy dash, combined with good judgement’ and he was successfully recommended for a bar to the DSO.43 Cunningham’s frequent

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

12

requests to be in the van of future blocking operations bore fruit when he was invited by Keyes to command the pre-dreadnought Swiftsure in a further attempt to block Ostend, a U-boat and destroyer nest, in June 1918. Cunningham, who was fully aware that it was likely to be a ‘death-or-glory’ enterprise, set to work to ensure his ship was manned by the best officers and men, all volunteers, and was meticulously prepared for the operation. Much to his chagrin, the action was called off at the eleventh hour. After that, there was little for Cunningham to do except ferry VIPs to and from the continent. There is no doubt that he valued his time under Keyes, who was utterly fearless, a leader by example, to whom the offensive was the only tolerable means of carrying on war. Cunningham, equally aggressive and courageous, had found a leader after his own heart.44 Cunningham had had a good war. He had received accelerated promotion and one of the highest military awards; he had enjoyed the responsibility of a more or less independent squadron command; he had remained in destroyers throughout the war, latterly in command of a division; and he spent most of the war in his favoured sea, the Mediterranean. Though most of his time had been passed in dull routines, he had seen more action than most, much of it at very close quarters. To a reputation for stern discipline, high efficiency and superb professional skills was added a name for bold and fearless operations, adaptability, a capacity for organisation, and an unsuspected ability to consider the fundamentals of his craft. When he defied authority, he did so in the confident (and correct) belief that either it would be seen that he had done the right thing or that he would hear no more of it. He was sufficiently canny and flexible to be a good team player. Cunningham’s war record was a result of his inherent Calvinistic dedication to duty, his willingness to learn from bold senior officers, a native shrewdness, and an intuitive gift that made him a born seaman. However, it was likely that the peace dividend would be paid out generously, and it was questionable as to how much of the Royal Navy would survive amid the dreams of everlasting peace.

3 Cowan’s Protégé

1919–33 It was said that Rear-Admiral Walter Cowan, commanding the First Light Cruiser Squadron, was ‘the only officer in the Grand Fleet who was sorry that the war was over’.1 Rugged and fearless, he was an inspiring leader and an outstanding seaman. He commanded the battlecruiser Princess Royal at Jutland and later led sweeps against the enemy, characteristically desiring to close with them.2 When the disruptive effects of the Russian Revolution produced a chaotic situation in the Baltic, Britain and other western powers intervened. On 1 January 1919, Cowan was ordered to relieve Rear-Admiral Alexander-Sinclair. He was informed, ‘The primary object of your visit is to show the British flag and to support British policy as circumstances may dictate.’ British policy was ‘to prevent the destruction of the Estonian and Latvian provinces by external aggression’, and he was authorised ‘to assist forces fighting Bolshevism with Materiel and supplies, but not to take an active part in hostilities’. He was also to ensure that the considerable German forces withdrew gradually, and was under the strictest constraints not to land except under ‘Very exceptional circumstances’. He was not to visit Riga or Reval without Admiralty permission, not deal with German forces, and not interfere in local politics, or favour any party. He was warned about ice and mine dangers and to treat Bolshevik ships as hostile.3 Cowan was temperamental, hasty, aggressive, highly strung and lacked judgement but proved himself a tactful but forceful diplomat and his mission succeeded in its aims.4 Having been told he was bound for China, Commander Cunningham, in the new destroyer Seafire (1,000 tons, three 4-inch guns, four torpedo tubes, 33–35 knots), of which he thought highly, was sent with four others of the ‘S’ class to the Baltic in March 1919.5 He was soon pitchforked into a tense and complex situation at Libau, whence he had been ordered by Cowan to protect a cargo of British arms threatened by German troops. Cunningham, in company with Scotsman, extricated the merchantman safely and was then ordered to return to the North Harbour to keep a number of German armed tugs under observation. The Germans erected a fence to prevent this but Cunningham outmanoeuvred them. The German policy was to stage coups, seize ministers and military leaders of the republics and install representatives of their allies, the Baltic Barons. Cunningham acted throughout with tact, fine judgement, decisiveness and self-control; he

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

14

was fully supported by Cowan, who eventually persuaded the Germans to desist from their political interference. Cunningham’s conduct earned him Cowan’s approbation: The destroyers Seafire (Commander A.B.Cunningham, DSO) and Scotsman (Lieutenant Commander D.J.D.Noble), under the command of Commander Cunningham, have given most correct and valuable service to me during this crisis, at the beginning of which I sent them in to lie alongside the town. Commander Cunningham has on one occasion after another acted with unfailing promptitude and decision, and has proved himself an Officer of exceptional valour and unerring resolution.6 Cowan expected high standards from his subordinate officers, notably alertness and responsibility. He had enjoined his cruiser captains to ‘be constantly watching for officers who shine in emergencies and come well up to scratch under difficult circumstances’; promising officers should be ‘brought to the notice of the Admiralty and every effort made to advance them in the Service’.7 Cowan’s reports did much to mark Cunningham as a potential flag officer. He remarked that Cunningham was ‘as good an officer as I can remember’.8 Accompanied by Cowan, Cunningham also visited Windau, Reval and Helsingfors. Cowan held exercises to meet a possible Soviet sortie—typically close quarter, highspeed gun and torpedo combat. After several weeks of intense drama in war-ravaged locations, effecting impromptu relief, with an under-strength ship’s company, Seafire was recalled, avoiding later personnel problems in the Baltic but spending the remainder of 1919 on humdrum communication duties, based on Harwich.9 Cunningham’s outstanding service earned him not only a second bar to the DSO but also accelerated promotion to Captain in December 1919, at the early age of 36. Though he knew Cowan from Boer War days, Cunningham probably learned little from his mentor, since he was mature, shrewd, a sound judge and self-contained. His paeans to ‘fighting admirals’ like Cowan, Keyes and Tyrwhitt reflected the fact that they were kindred spirits, though Cunningham was more circumspect, reflective, wise and deliberate than Keyes and Cowan.10 Cunningham languished on half pay until September 1920, when he supervised the demolition of the fortress of Heligoland on behalf of the Naval Inter-Allied Commission of Control but was thankful to return home after a year. A further spell of half pay was relieved only by a Senior Officers’ Technical Course in February 1922 but he was better pleased to be whisked out of the course on appointment as Captain (D) of the 6th Destroyer Flotilla in April 1922.11 Cunningham’s flotilla was attached to the Reserve Fleet, its ships scattered round the three southern dockyards. He set about finding sufficient temporary hands to enable the ships to steam to the destroyer base at Port Edgar. In conjunction with the other reserve flotilla, Cunningham, in the leader Shakespeare, endeavoured to send a flotilla to join the Atlantic Fleet on exercises, while he managed to keep other ships in practice despite shortages of men and fuel.12 In the Great War, the Royal Navy had performed its principal tasks of denying the seas to the enemy while ensuring the transportation of vast numbers of men and a great volume of military supplies. However, the public and the politicians (including Churchill, who should have known better) focused on the grave disappointment of Jutland and the apparent helplessness of the Admiralty in the face of the unrestricted U-boat campaign of

Cunningham, destroyers and the Mediterranean

15

1917, leading the allies to the brink of starvation and defeat. The convoy system adopted by a reluctant Admiralty gradually reduced merchant sinkings to a tolerable level.13 The post-war conundrum for British statesmen, supported by a public that placed great faith in the new world order of the League of Nations and wanted a sizeable and immediate ‘peace dividend’, was to defend more with less. As a Foreign Office paper noted, ‘Our sole object is to keep what we have and live in peace.’14 The advent of the Royal Air Force (RAF) also squeezed the budgets and undermined the rationale of the army and the navy. The navy, many of whose ships were obsolescent or suffered from arduous war service, also found ship numbers, sizes, armaments and replacements curbed by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1921.15 The navy also suffered personnel losses; not only were many highly trained and experienced ratings discharged but also one-third of the captains and 550 lieutenants. Cunningham was fortunate to survive; of the 57 of his term that served in the war, 12 were retired in 1922 and 35 rose no higher than commander.16 Personnel problems were a major headache for the Admiralty for a dozen years after the war, which had acted as a locomotive of reform rather than of revolution (senior officers were unwontedly fearful of ‘red’ propaganda on the lower deck) and had given ratings a broader horizon, more political nous and greater leverage. Men were increasingly unwilling to tolerate Victorian discipline and Nelsonian conditions but ‘the Navy tended to lag a generation behind the standards of civilised society’.17 Moreover, no marriage allowance was payable to officers and promotion was slow.18 Efforts were made to learn from the war and embrace new technology. Beatty (First Sea Lord, 1919–27) and his coterie adopted more flexible methods of handling fleets. Nelsonian responsibility and initiative were restored, reformers defining the desirable qualities in a commander as courage, determination, resolution, energy, physical fitness, perseverance, self-control, tact, good temper, decisiveness, the capacity to inspire and instruct subordinates, sympathy, intelligent thought and the ability to be self-critical and to tolerate criticism. (With the possible exceptions of good temper and the ability to tolerate criticism, Cunningham was a template for the ideal commander.) The post-war Naval Review helped to make the navy more analytical, articulate and focused and its progenitors were now reaching positions of influence. The navy instituted a modern staff structure and training and special subjects were better taught. After Jutland, steps were taken to eradicate deficiencies in armour, munitions, gunnery and damage control, and ensure prompt, accurate and informative signals. Limited progress was made in night fighting. Asdic (sonar) was regarded as a sovereign remedy against submarines and naval officers, British and foreign, were convinced unrestricted submarine warfare would not re-occur. An apparently effective system of anti-aircraft (AA) gunnery control, High Angle Control System (HACS), was adopted. British carrier aviation was numerically, technically and tactically in advance of its rivals. The Chiefs of Staff (COS) began meeting from 1924. Moreover, the tireless Beatty, able to talk to politicians in their own terms, probably secured greater funds than was likely, while the ‘Ten Year Rule’, the government’s rolling, rough guide to defence spending that, rightly, assumed no major conflict for a decade, prevented the navy from constructing a large number of obsolescent ships.19 However, it was claimed that ‘the twenties were in general a period of tactical sterility’.20 Asdic was far from perfect, while the High Angle Control System, the offspring of complacency and economy, was inferior to the tachymetric system adopted

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

16

by the Americans and Germans. Inter-service co-operation remained rudimentary, little development taking place in combined operations, in part because of the Dardanelles trauma, and partly because neither sailors nor soldiers regarded it as a core subject. Even the COS failed to function with authority, cohesiveness and effectiveness until the Abyssinian crisis of 1935 forced them to confront an unsustainable three-front war.21 Naval culture remained somewhat insular and the Board of Admiralty still presided indifferently over a rambling bureaucracy, to which new functions were added piecemeal. Staffs failed to gain universal acceptance and senior officers were still inclined to attend to too much detail. In vain reformers argued, ‘The object of the staff is to facilitate the making of correct decisions by the Command in person.’22 The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) was divided unsatisfactorily between the RAF and the navy—the source of constant squabbles and a hindrance to its efficiency, growth, tactical development and high-level influence. A Cinderella sub-service, its aircraft remained ancillary to the battle fleet. A shortage of planes, the necessity of designing them for multiple roles, and the modest effect of their bombs and torpedoes, meant that that carrier strike forces were tasked only to slow down an enemy and bring it within gun range of the (generally slower) British battle squadron. However, the Naval Review was inclined to overrate the current capability of aircraft, stating flatly that ‘surface craft are practically helpless when faced with aerial attack’.23 In the 1930s, however, the FAA’s general performance was in stark contrast to the larger, bolder, well-led American and Japanese naval air arms.24 Cunningham had the good fortune to be appointed to the First Flotilla, in the Atlantic Fleet, at the end of 1922, when it was temporarily attached to the Mediterranean Fleet as a consequence of the turbulent situation in Turkey. After repulsing a Greek attack, the new Atatürk regime seemed likely to go to war with the Allies. The British were anxious to safeguard their new suzerainty over the oil-rich Middle East and to bolster Turkey against Bolshevism. Cunningham, in the leader Wallace (1,480 tons, four 4-inch guns, six 21-inch torpedo tubes, 31 knots), exercised the flotilla in night attacks and in frustrating possible Turkish attempts to cross the Bosphorus.25 The flotilla rejoined the Atlantic Fleet in March 1923, heralding a varied and intensive programme of exercises. These included anti-submarine defence of the battle fleet (before asdics had been fitted), gunnery and torpedo firings, and most notably massed torpedo attacks against the battle line by day and night. Even more demanding were the annual exercises with the Mediterranean Fleet. Cunningham was fortunate in having a manageable flotilla (a leader and eight boats) and ‘V & W’ destroyers (1,100 tons, four guns, six tubes, 34 knots), handy and of robust construction.26 He was relieved in May 1924 but not before he had markedly improved the flotilla’s efficiency, morale, smartness—and discipline, which he always considered a principal requirement.27 As one of the junior officers remarked, ‘We viewed his arrival with some trepidation as he had the reputation of being a tiger.’ On informing Cunningham that he was officer of the day (OOD), Lieutenant Brewer was told, ‘Why, you’re not even ornamental!’ The Captain (D)’s expectations were exactly those of 1914: On Sunday mornings at nine a.m. ABC would be on the quarterdeck with his telescope, the CYS at his side, the signals would go to various ships of the flotilla—‘Your ensign halliards are slack’, ‘You have a rope’s end over the side’, ‘The appearance of your motorboat is a disgrace’, etc., etc.

Cunningham, destroyers and the Mediterranean

17

It was not long before such signals were considerably reduced in number but ABC had an eagle eye and in Wallace as flotilla leader we of course had to set an example. Brewer recalled that Cunningham had ‘three favourite phrases, frequently repeated’. The first, unremarkable but stemming no doubt from his strict Calvinistic background, was ‘Duty is the first business of a sea officer’. The second, equally characteristic, was the gnomic ‘NDBGZ—No Difficulty Baffles Great Zeal’. Finally, there was ‘Let intelligent anticipation be your watchword’. They reflect Cunningham’s shrewd, terse, practical, nononsense approach to his profession. Above all, Cunningham was a master mariner and this was exemplified at Scapa in a full gale. All ships were at two anchors and had steam for slow speed. Warwick, the destroyer astern of Wallace, dragged her anchors and went ashore. Brewer related, I was on the quarter-deck as was ABC. He turned to me and said ‘Get up on the foc’sle and start weighing’. In almost less time than it takes to tell we had weighed, steamed round, anchored close ahead of Warwick, got a wire out to her, hove in our cable and off she came. We were rewarded by a signal from RA (D): ‘That is one of the finest bits of seamanship I have ever seen’.28 Cunningham’s long experience in command, his familiarity with rough and narrow waters, and his almost unique flair for seizing up a situation, issuing prompt and clear orders and handling his ships with finesse and precision, were all evident in this cameo. He also perfected a dramatic and daring ‘party piece’: When conditions permitted our approach to the anchorage would be spectacular. The flotilla would be formed up in three columns of three ships each in close order. We would approach at 12 knots and at the two yard-arms the signals ‘Stop engines’ and ‘Anchor instantly’. At the appropriate moment both signals would be hauled down together. The cables would roar out of the hawse pipes, a flurry of wake from the sterns as the engines went half speed astern, and all ships would be brought up standing with the customary four shackles of cable out. It was a sight to delight anybody, professional and layman alike, and many were the signals ‘Manoeuvre well executed’ we received from Senior Officers.29 By the time he was 40, Cunningham had completed his personal development. A dedicated officer, wedded to the Royal Navy, orthodox in his zeal for strict discipline, orderliness, smartness and efficiency, he was capable of turning a blind eye to unwelcome orders. He was solicitous of his men’s welfare and there were many who found him hard but warm and he gained their loyalty and affection. Boisterous and occasionally bawdy, he had an acute if somewhat boyish sense of humour. An accomplished fisherman, he was also an ardent golfer. Unmarried, he was in fact a real family man and in the 1920s he was fortunate to be frequently within easy reach of his relations in Edinburgh; with his family, he genuinely relaxed, teasing unmercifully and

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

18

playing vigorous if unorthodox party games. As ‘Uncle Ned’ he was the best of uncles. In October 1924, Cunningham took over the destroyer base at Port Edgar. He had little to do for 18 months, other than take charge of the advanced training of some 500 boy recruits. While recovering from an operation to remove his appendix in March 1926, his mother died. She was evidently a welcome foil to Cunningham’s rather august and austere father, a woman of sweet nature and good humour.30 Cunningham was summoned from the torpor of Port Edgar by Vice-Admiral Sir Walter Cowan, the newly-appointed Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the North America and West Indies Station. Cowan invited him to become Flag captain and chief staff officer. The opportunity to go to sea again, to re-visit the West Indies, which had charmed him in 1905, and to serve under one of his mentors, was irresistible.31 He left for Bermuda in May 1926 aboard the light cruiser Calcutta (4,200 tons, five 6-inch guns, eight 21-inch torpedo tubes, 29 knots). She was hardly suited either to long ocean voyages or to service as a flagship, and in November 1927 she sailed for Chatham, where Cunningham and the ship’s company transferred to the roomier Despatch (4,850 tons, six 6-inch, 12 tubes, 29 knots).32 The station comprised all the Western Hemisphere, both Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The squadron, which consisted of four small cruisers and a couple of sloops, showed the flag in the interests of good relations and of fostering British trade. Cunningham found the ceaseless round of engagements most wearing. He was convinced nevertheless that showing the flag paid good dividends in maintaining respect for Britain, cementing good relations with the Latin American nations, raising the morale and profile of British communities, and perhaps in stimulating trade. Of particular interest were the visits to the United States, where the US Navy showed itself to be a most generous, good-humoured and enthusiastic host, engaging in some good-natured historical backchat. Cunningham visited Washington, including the White House and the Navy Department and several navy yards—useful experiences to be drawn on when he returned in 1942 as head of the British Admiralty Delegation.33 As might be expected, there was little opportunity to exercise, other than a couple of days and nights of gunnery and torpedo encounters. Cowan found Calcutta’s ship’s company ‘well drilled and happy’—but the temptations of Canada and the United States encouraged desertions.34 Cunningham was reminded forcibly of the power of the sea on three occasions. The new heavy cruiser Raleigh had gone ashore on the coast of Labrador in 1922, becoming a visible and embarrassing total loss. In July 1927, Cunningham was ordered to destroy the wreck with depth charges and succeeded in making a thorough job of the demolition, once again earning Cowan’s praise. The following July, he was informed that Despatch’s sister ship, Dauntless, was aground and badly holed off Halifax and he towed her off, considerably lightened and assisted by two tugs, a taxing feat but successfully accomplished. Much more nerve-wracking was his experience of a hurricane in Bermuda harbour in October 1926. Calcutta’s wires carried away in the furious winds and high seas and she was only just saved by her anchor holding and with her engines going full ahead until some gallant work by a shore party secured her in winds of 130 miles an hour. The log only states laconically, ‘All securing lines parted. Passed wires to coaling jetty.’35 One of Calcutta’s calls was at Trinidad, where the Governor was Sir Horace Byatt. Before his recent marriage, Sir Horace’s sister Nona had acted as his hostess and ran the

Cunningham, destroyers and the Mediterranean

19

household, and she stayed on at Government House, where Cunningham was a guest early in 1927.36 Cunningham left Despatch in July 1928 and returned home. Observing that earlier encounters with Cowan had imbued him with ‘respectful admiration’, he felt that the two years they shared in the West Indies led to a lifelong and greatly valued friendship. Cunningham found Cowan a most exacting C-in-C, imperturbable, expecting no more from any man than he was prepared to give himself, fired with Olympian ‘ideals of duty and honour’, if somewhat opinionated, insensitive and impetuous at times. ‘He taught me a lot’, he acknowledged; presumably he learnt much of the business of commanding a squadron and a station and staff duties (for which he was untrained and of which he had no experience—or liking).37 He told Captain H. T.Baillie-Grohman that the West Indies was ‘the best place I have ever been to’.38 He accepted that he was unlikely to obtain another sea-going command immediately and resigned himself to a shore appointment but no post could be offered save a course at the Army Senior Officers’ School, which he took in the autumn of 1928. He experienced again the rigours of campaigning and learnt anew the problems of battlefield logistics, coming to appreciate military difficulties. Thereafter, he was sent to the Imperial Defence College, a relatively new institution. Cunningham viewed the prospect with distaste and apprehension. He possessed little interest in intellectual matters and had no desire to augment his recent staff experience. He felt somewhat out of touch with current naval thinking and practice and he doubted his ability to meet the academic standards. However, the course was designed to prepare officers for the responsibilities of high command, in which they would have to be aware of much broader concerns.39 The ‘Young Turk’ and founder of the Naval Review, Vice-Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, was the first Commandant. He sought ‘to encourage the development of a common approach to defence policy’ and to ‘look at the problem of war as a whole’. In an age of total war, this was an eminently practical approach and badly needed in an era of ‘imperial overstretch’, when it was of vital importance to co-ordinate the Empire’s strategy and policy-making and make optimum use of its resources. Britain’s record of higher education at war colleges was inferior to that of other great powers and Richmond observed of the students that ‘the great majority is unmethodical in its thinking’.40 Cunningham quickly appreciated the great benefits of the course. It broadened his horizons, broke down inter-service barriers and made him aware of both possibilities and problems in the waging of war. In 1940, when he commanded the Mediterranean Fleet, he wrote to Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake, the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (ACNS) (Foreign), ‘I want a Captain who has been through the IDC [Imperial Defence College]. This latter qualification I think highly important.’41 During the later stages of the course, in October 1928, Cunningham became engaged to Nona Byatt and they were married in the parish church at Bishop’s Stortford on 22 December 1929. Cunningham was 47 and his wife was 40. She was the daughter of the headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School and one of a large family. Despite her experience of receptions and dinners, where she met many distinguished people, she was fundamentally shy, though she had a fine sense of humour. The Cunninghams would dearly have loved to have children but sadly never did so. They had a fondness for dogs—generally Airedales and Scotties—and were keen gardeners and enjoyed fishing.42

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

20

A week before his marriage, Cunningham assumed command of the almost new battleship Rodney, with her sister Nelson the most powerful dreadnoughts in the British fleet-33,900 tons, nine 16-inch guns, 23 knots, completed in 1927. It was a prestige appointment, generally the prelude to flag rank. Rodney was a daunting ship, slow to answer her helm and with a most peculiar arrangement of her main armament—three triple turrets mounted forward of the bridge, which was placed close to the stern. Cunningham approached Rodney with caution but, with his long experience in conning ships and his intuitive grasp of seamanship, he mastered his new leviathan without many hitches. Rodney was a part of the Atlantic Fleet, commanded at the time by Admiral Sir Ernle Chatfield, one of the great British admirals of the twentieth century. The fleet undertook numerous exercises in the Channel and the North Sea, undergoing submarine and air attacks, and visited Gibraltar, though Chatfield’s planned night encounter with the Mediterranean Fleet was aborted by the reluctance of Admiral Field to engage at night.43 Admiral Sir Geoffrey Oliver, then a Lieutenant Commander and the ship’s gunnery officer, recalled that Cunningham took the ship to the Scilly Isles to practise for the fleet regatta with the intention of beating her sister ship; in the event, Rodney’s boats won more than half the races. Cunningham proved a demanding captain: ‘He was a rare stimulus,’ observed Oliver, ‘and kept us all on our toes.’44 Cunningham left Rodney in December 1930; one-year appointments were designed to give the maximum number of officers sea time and experience of command. Promptly hospitalised for another internal operation, he was left wondering whether he would be offered further employment, since he was near the top of the captains’ list.45 Fortunately, he was appointed Commodore in command, Chatham Barracks, in July 1931. The Cunninghams had a delightful home and garden, with its own tennis court, and he was pleased to find one of his mentors, Admiral Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, as C-in-C, Nore. The Commodore’s role was principally to find crews and reliefs for ships, though Cunningham regretted that there was precious little contact with the men.46 He had scarcely taken up his post when the Royal Navy and indeed the nation was rocked by the Invergordon Mutiny, a short, sharp crack that was heard around the world. Sailors aboard major warships of the Atlantic Fleet refused duty during the fleet’s late summer sojourn at Invergordon in September 1931, having reacted strongly to notification that from 1 October the pay rates established in 1919 would be reduced to the level set for new recruits in 1925, as part of the National Government’s drive for severe economies in government spending. Suffering already from under-manning, reduced pensions and slow promotion, sailors were faced with lack of time to adjust their finances to the cuts. ‘The measures were taken by men who were largely unaware of the domestic realities of life experienced by the lower deck.’47 The protest was brief, peaceful and led generally by senior ratings who were otherwise completely loyal and honest sailors who knew that the cuts would reduce many of them to poverty. Sailors were normally conservative by background and inclination, though like most of the establishment, the Admiralty saw Communism at work. That ‘the Mutiny and its aftermath were a sorry episode mishandled from the beginning is now generally agreed’.48 Chatham had one individual incident of dissent, quickly doused, and though Tyrwhitt and Cunningham were taken by surprise by the Invergordon outbreak, they were thankful that calmness prevailed at Chatham, a situation helped by their own unflustered demeanour. In common with flag and commanding officers elsewhere, Cunningham

Cunningham, destroyers and the Mediterranean

21

moved quickly to hear grievances and some 500 men responded to his invitation. Following recommendations, some improvements were made in service conditions, the provision of housing for married men, tailoring and advice on budgeting; most importantly, the cut was reduced to 10 per cent. Cunningham sympathised with the men’s plight but did not condone their action. He felt that the navy had been guilty of ‘paying too much attention to materiel and far too little to the personnel and its welfare’.49 As a destroyerman, he was used to close contact with a ship’s company. Cunningham informed Cowan that ‘the men don’t appear in the least ashamed of it and don’t realise what they have done’.50 They had shaken the confidence of the Royal Navy and caused it to lose face with the British public and prestige in the world; Invergordon still haunted the navy in 1939. Moreover, it was a shock to strict disciplinarians like Cowan and Cunningham and a clear demonstration of the class divide. However, Cunningham otherwise experienced a largely uneventful term at Chatham, buoyed by appointment to flag rank and retained on the active list, but, there being no immediate berth for him, he remained at Chatham until February 1933. He undertook the Senior Officers’ Technical Course at Portsmouth in the spring, and followed that by the Tactical Course, directed by his contemporary and friend, Captain J.A.G.Troup, another of the ‘strict discipline’ school. Cunningham was understandably more enthused by the Tactical Course and enjoyed war gaming on the tactical table and listening to expositions on modern fleet actions, though it is unclear how much influence the course had on his later actions at sea.51 However, the course proved to be a final preparation for flag command and immediately it finished Cunningham was appointed to a sea-going berth.

4 The Mediterranean: Challenges and Crises

1934–39 Cunningham was appointed Rear-Admiral (Destroyers) (RA [D]) in the Mediterranean Fleet with effect from 1 January 1934. ‘It was’, he wrote, ‘the one appointment I would have chosen above all others.’1 Cunningham was probably the Royal Navy’s principal exponent of destroyer warfare. The RA (D), in the light cruiser Coventry, commanded three flotillas of modern destroyers, part of a substantial fleet—a battle squadron, a carrier, two cruiser squadrons, submarines and other light and auxiliary craft. Cunningham was a confirmed believer in the Mediterranean’s strategic importance but, in the event of a crisis in the Far East, the ‘main fleet’ would be despatched promptly to Singapore. Between the wars ‘the Mediterranean served as a maritime adventure playground’ and the fleet followed a routine of cruises and exercises throughout the year, with periodic visits to its main base, Malta.2 Fleet exercises embraced night engagements, massed destroyer attacks on the battle line, minesweeping practices, air strikes and anti-aircraft defence, though there was no convoy work, infrequent anti-submarine training and little participation by shore-based aircraft. The climax of the year’s work was the annual fleet problem in conjunction with the Atlantic or Home Fleet, held in the spring. Though all cruises culminated in strenuous exercises, a major element was ‘showing the flag’, which involved senior officers carrying out exhausting formal engagements and the fleet hosting numerous local visitors. The fleet also proved to be ‘an exceedingly efficient emergency imperial gendarmerie’.3 It was frequently driven hard, discipline remained tight, conditions on the lower deck were spartan, and there were constant inspections, with a premium on smartness. Much leisure time was taken up with fleet sporting competitions, notably regattas. Officers enjoyed an exclusive social round, among their families. Malta was in fact a clear demonstration of the social and cultural gulf between officers and the lower deck—and the British and the Maltese.4 The Cunninghams, who took a pleasant house, the Casa Pieta, with a sizeable garden and a tennis court, looking down on Sliema creek, were somewhat semi-detached from the hectic social whirl; they entertained modestly, especially flotilla officers, and enjoyed tennis, bathing and gardening but they were not notable party-goers. One of their favourite recreations was walking about the island and making friends with the Maltese, thus following the habit of the C-in-C himself, Admiral Sir William Fisher, a kindly, generous, thoughtful, enlightened,

The Mediterranean

23

cultivated and intellectually gifted man, who, like his predecessor, Admiral Sir Ernle Chatfield, endeared himself to local people.5 Chatfield commanded the Mediterranean station from 1930 to 1932 and for most of that time Fisher served as his second-in-command, succeeding Chatfield when Sir Ernle was appointed First Sea Lord. They were a formidable and dynamic combination, in agreement on the organisation, activities and tactics of the fleet. Both were exceptionally able and both had commanded capital ships at Jutland. With a few other senior officers, notably Admiral Sir Ernle Drax, they were determined to learn the lessons of that battle and of the naval war in general. They were assisted by the changes in naval structure and instructions. Chatfield aimed to restore the spirit of Nelson, cultivating a sense of initiative among junior flag officers. Chatfield and Fisher were adept at using their staffs efficiently and encouraged junior officers to offer suggestions. They profited from advances in director-controlled firing, refuelling at sea and the development of carrier aviation to institute realistic exercises. In particular they fostered night fighting. ‘Never again’, wrote Chatfield, ‘was it to be possible for an enemy fleet to escape destruction under cover of darkness. On the contrary, night fighting was to be our great opportunity in another war. We would surprise the enemy by our efficiency.’6 Fisher, ‘the tall Agrippa’, was characterised as ‘large in mind and body and entirely straight in both’.7 He was a stern and exacting leader but concerned to improve lower deck conditions. He made a point of constantly visiting his ships and acquainting himself with officers and men. Developing Chatfield’s tactical innovations, he concentrated forces to maximise anti-aircraft fire,8 attempted to increase warning times and refined fighter defence.9 His most notable success, however, was in night fighting. In the joint exercises with the Home Fleet of 1934, in a ferocious Atlantic storm, Fisher outwitted his opponents, surprising them with close range broadsides at dead of night, illuminated by starshell and supported by Cunningham’s destroyers, attacking from astern. The Mediterranean Fleet’s …success could not have been achieved but for a very fine performance on the part of the destroyers and submarines in a heavy Atlantic gale, or if the Commander-in-Chief had not possessed sound strategical judgement, tenacity of purpose, and tactical skill of a high order…good seamanship and determination will win success even against very material odds.10 It was scarcely surprising that Cunningham should have been influenced by Fisher in several respects. In the first place, he shared Fisher’s proclivity for delegation of responsibility to his staff and subordinate commanders, stimulating their initiative. Secondly, he reduced sea fighting to simple principles of good seamanship, professional skill and close engagement. Thirdly, he entered with the greatest enthusiasm into night fighting. He did so in part because daylight torpedo attacks were likely to prove unduly costly.11 Cunningham drove the flotillas hard and Fisher complained ‘that we were going to sea too much’.12 He was fortunate in the high quality of flotilla captains and destroyer commanders, many of them making a name for themselves in the Second World War. Cunningham’s principal aims were to cultivate a sense of initiative, speed of thought and execution, expert handling at high speed in restricted waters, and decisive action at close

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

24

quarters—especially at night and in smoke-screens.12 He emphasised that the torpedo was ‘a weapon of precision and fired to hit’.13 He took flotillas in hand for intensive asdic training, chided vessels under repair at Malta for prolonging their stays inexcusably, insisted that officers set good examples by leading their ships’ companies to church service, and argued with the Second Sea Lord’s office for fair promotion for his officers.14 He achieved his objects, but not without incident; his philosophic reaction was that realistic training was accompanied by serious but justifiable risk.15 Cunningham’s inherent thriftiness was evident in his constant endeavour to maximise efficiency; one First Lieutenant recalled, ‘He saw to it that every ton of fuel oil was used to full advantage.’16 His long-standing reputation for not suffering incompetence remained intact and he observed innocently, ‘Do you wonder that I get a little riled?’17 However, a moment of terrifying fierceness would be followed by the offer of a drink and a teasing jibe; he did not bear grudges. Cunningham took his flotillas to every coastline in the middle sea, moving his staff to later, more commodious flagships—Despatch and Galatea. At times his wife was able to join him for a few days’ leave, spent characteristically in walking and fishing. During the frequent visits to Malta, nieces from Edinburgh came out in turn; the Cunninghams always delighted in the company of the young.18 The 1935 programme began effectively with the joint manoeuvres with the Home Fleet, a ‘defence of trade’ problem which, wrote Cunningham, ‘provided plenty of opportunities for initiative on the part of junior officers’.19 The latter half of 1935, however, was consumed by the Abyssinian crisis, a dispute manufactured by Mussolini to facilitate the conquest of Ethiopia. Apparently given a ‘green light’ by the British and French, Mussolini activated plans for the invasion of Abyssinia. Leader of a would-be great power, he was especially jealous of the British and their historic domination of the Mediterranean and bore the Royal Navy a particular grudge for having forced him out of Corfu in 1923. In a pointed reference to Britain’s use of the sea as a ‘middle passage’ in its communications with its eastern possessions, he declared, ‘If for others the Mediterranean is a road, for us it is life.’ The Mediterranean was to become mare nostrum but his ultimate ambition was to extend Italian influence in ‘a march to the oceans’.20 Mussolini took few precautions against possible hostilities with Britain and France, in part because he had good intelligence that they fervently desired to avoid war and were in no state to fight one, and in part because he seized what appeared to be a golden opportunity created by the recent signature of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which indicated to him that the Royal Navy lacked the strength to intervene effectively in the Mediterranean.21 Nevertheless, Italy was ill-prepared to fight even a third-world opponent. Italian ships had inadequate armour protection, poor gunnery control and structural weaknesses, unreliable air support, and the fleet neglected night fighting and realistic exercises. A conflict with the Royal Navy would be catastrophic. Like other services, the navy had no coherent war plans.22 The French were desperate to avoid a conflict with Italy, but the British government, having been surprised by public support for the League and tough sanctions against Italy, was forced into a bellicose if wary attitude.23 ‘The policy of our Government’, wrote the Admiralty, ‘is to support the Covenant, assuming that the other… Members of the League, and notably France, also give active support.’24 However, as the Foreign Office

The Mediterranean

25

noted, ‘the odds were very long against the French being prepared to take any strong line at Geneva’.25 In the meantime, the diplomats warned the Admiralty against taking any steps ‘which might be interpreted by Italy as provocative’.26 In the appeasement of the 1930s, however, the COS were always in the van. It was becoming difficult for Britain, and the Royal Navy in particular, to defend Britain’s global interests. By 1935, Japan’s activity and ambition increasingly identified it as a likely opponent, while the stirring of Germany brought the prospect of war in Europe closer. It was unlikely that Japan would precipitate a war unless Britain was already deeply engaged in Europe. The COS were reluctant to contemplate a third theatre of war, especially over a situation that did not materially affect imperial interests. However, they were caught without war plans, as Italy had never been regarded as an opponent. Moreover, the glaring deficiencies in the Empire’s defences had only just begun to be tackled. Thus the Chiefs ‘stressed the importance of the assured military support of France…without this there is grave risk of all active measures, together with the onus which they will carry with them, falling on ourselves, with serious consequences’.27 Admiralty pressure to come to a modus vivendi with Italy persisted until the eve of war in June 1940.28 Chatfield believed that Britain could defeat Italy, but the resulting loss of capital ships might fatally compromise the ability to send the ‘main fleet’ to Singapore while leaving adequate force in home waters. The Admiralty considered that Italian submarines, light craft and bombers would reduce naval strength below an acceptable level. Moreover, it was thought that the Mediterranean would become unusable as a highway to the east; reinforcements would have to go via the time-consuming Cape route.29 However, ‘There is always the possibility of a man like Mussolini taking some extreme action of which we have no warning whatsoever.’30 The Cabinet thus adopted a ‘softly, softly’ approach, the COS noting approvingly, ‘The Foreign Office would have no objection to only relatively quiet steps being taken.’31 In August 1935 the fleet was transferred from Malta to Alexandria, which lacked facilities of all kinds; much worse, it was two days’ steaming away from the central Mediterranean. Neither base had adequate anti-aircraft protection but Malta lay within a few minutes’ flight of Sicily.32 Additional ships were drawn from the Home and China stations. By November, a month after the Italian invasion, five battleships, two carriers, 12 cruisers, three destroyer flotillas, minelayers, minesweepers and auxiliaries crowded the harbour. Cunningham, with two flotillas, was at Malta, where there were also 14 submarines. Gibraltar had two battlecruisers, there was a squadron in the Red Sea, and other ships were held ready at Singapore. The Royal Navy had a crushing superiority and the Italians were suitably impressed. However, Mussolini knew that the British were short of men and ammunition, particularly AA shells, and that they were still far more concerned about German and Japanese behaviour. He was aware, too, that the British were reluctant to enforce sanctions and indeed were too scared of the consequences that would have brought Italy’s aggression to an instant halt—shutting the Suez Canal and cutting off oil supplies.33 Not surprisingly, the redoubtable Fisher was enraged by Whitehall’s caution. Cunningham, summoned to see him before the fleet left Malta, found him ‘greatly incensed’ at the ‘pusillanimous document’ he had received from the COS.34 Fisher was also informed that the French would need British assistance in the early days of

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

26

hostilities. When Hitler took advantage of the Mediterranean imbroglio to re-militarise the Rhineland, the COS moved quickly to cool Fisher’s martial ardour.35 He replied to Chatfield, ‘All is well. Very well I think’, adding that morale was high and, ‘Every day and most nights squadrons or flotillas are at sea…. Air attacks on the Fleet in harbour and at sea day and night all days.’36 From the outset, Fisher had declared, I feel content that on receiving suitable reinforcements from the Home Fleet any situation at sea can be dealt with without the assistance of other Powers—provided that France was friendly…. Any hostile action by Italy should in my opinion be met by strongest possible counter-offensive within twenty-four hours if possible.37 He proposed night sweeps off the Italian coast by light forces (commanded by Cunningham), bombardments of the coast, carrier attacks on Port Augusta and Catania, covered by the fleet, a submarine patrol line to intercept Italian forces, and the convoying of fleet auxiliaries; it was also during the crisis that the Taranto raid of 1940 was conceived. Malta would be used as a forward offensive base, perhaps for battlecruisers. Fisher, Cunningham and other senior officers also had their terms extended.38 The crisis showed Fisher at his brilliant best, able to handle the tension, the intensive training, the enormous responsibility of a greatly enlarged fleet, and the wider diplomatic context.39 Cunningham’s first experience of fleet organisation, war planning and training as a flag officer was under Fisher, and it seems highly likely that he imbibed from him the practice of giving his flag officers substantial responsibility and encouraging them to use their own initiative. Many of the traits and practices evident in Cunningham’s command of the same fleet in 1940–42—the emphasis on morale, base facilities for the lower deck, psychological warfare, and, above all, a constant urge to take the offensive—were equally clear in Fisher’s time. Cunningham admitted, ‘I, personally, owe more to him than I can ever hope to express.’40 In December 1940, Cunningham wrote to Fisher’s biographer, Admiral Sir William James, ‘Many a time when confronted with a difficult situation I cast my mind back and ask myself what he would have done, and the answer always comes the same—to take the bold and direct course—and it pays.’41 The enlarged Mediterranean Fleet remained at war readiness throughout the winter of 1935–36. By the spring of 1936, however, the Italian campaign was virtually complete and there were substantial pressures on the British Government to acknowledge Italy’s annexation of Abyssinia and to scale down sanctions and the Mediterranean Fleet. The prolongation of the emergency might tempt Hitler and the Japanese to undertake further aggression. The continued alert was having serious effects on manpower and was also delaying normal training, leave, refits and the changeover of senior officers. By March 1936, when Fisher and Cunningham were relieved, the winding down process had begun.42 Nevertheless, the navy had gained valuable experience of wartime mobilisation and planning, and, more to the point, had become aware of serious deficiencies in supplies, munitions, anti-aircraft defence and base facilities; the pace of naval rearmament quickened. However, Mussolini had achieved his object and Fascism was encouraged to seek new fields of glory; propaganda against Britain was turned up and the army in Libya was reinforced to put pressure on the British in Egypt.43

The Mediterranean

27

Cunningham returned to a two-year spell on half pay, sweetened only by promotion to Vice-Admiral on 22 July 1936 and his move to the Palace House at Bishop’s Waltham.44 Handy for both Portsmouth and London, it was the former residence of the Bishops of Winchester, much of it in ruins; the present house dates in part from the fifteenth century but most of it is the result of successive rebuildings from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. The Cunninghams leased it initially but purchased it after the Second World War. They delighted both in the historic location and in its extensive grounds but they had little opportunity to enjoy it until Cunningham retired in 1946. Meanwhile, Cunningham endeavoured to keep in touch with naval developments and chaired a wide-ranging committee on the internal arrangements of HM ships, notably the air quality; it provided Cunningham with a rare insight into the technical aspects of menof-war.45 In July 1937 he was appointed second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet and commander of the Battle Cruiser Squadron. The man he succeeded, at first temporarily, was Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake. ‘Outstanding among his contemporaries’, Blake was envisaged as a future First Sea Lord.46 Unfortunately, he felt compelled to retire after suffering two heart attacks in Malta. Cunningham wrote warmly to his predecessor, endorsing the widespread opinion that ‘there is no one coming on who can take your place’.47 Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, who succeeded Fisher, told Blake that ‘Cunningham is very good but though he may equal you in some things there are many of the attributes that you possess and which he lacks’.48 It was agreed generally that Blake had charm, good humour, integrity, acute intelligence and decisiveness as well as a clear strategic vision. When Cunningham returned to the Mediterranean in July 1937, he found the fleet deep in another international crisis, the Spanish Civil War. Britain had but ‘two aims, to maintain an absolute impartiality between the two sides, and yet to protect all legitimate British interests from interference from either [side]’.49 When the conflict broke out in July 1936, British warships off the Spanish Mediterranean coast were ordered to the principal ports to take on board British and foreign nationals and Spanish refugees. They faced a chaotic situation but took off 11,000 civilians, about a third of them British. Destroyers in particular were very crowded, but in characteristic Royal Navy fashion, ships’ companies made them as comfortable as possible. ‘It was’, remarked ViceAdmiral Sir Peter Gretton, ‘a remarkable feat of organisation, carried out smoothly and cheerfully by all concerned.… By strict observance of neutrality, by courtesy and integrity, and by a humanity obvious to the most biased partisan, remarkable results were achieved.’50 The navy also distributed food, arranged the exchange of hostages and prisoners, and maintained contact with British diplomats. From October 1936, both sides were bombing merchant vessels, most of them British, and regular patrols had to be instituted to protect them. On the torpedoing of merchant ships without warning by ‘unknown’ submarines, widely (and correctly) believed to be Italian, the Admiralty observed that the attacks were ‘carried out with an utter and ruthless disregard for all considerations of humanity’.51 An attack on the destroyer Havock led to the Nyon convention of September 1937, resulting in international patrols, initially by the British and French navies but then ironically joined by the Italians.52 Chatfield told Pound that ‘I find the Spanish affair very worrying’, but they were agreed that it ‘has been a godsend to the Navy, as one of the factors which have

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

28

contributed to putting the Navy well on the road to the position it held before the 1931 mutiny’.53 Nevertheless, it placed a further strain on the navy’s manpower, training and refit programmes. Cunningham relieved the C-in-C at Gibraltar in October 1937, his flagship the Hood safeguarding British interests, putting pressure on local commanders of both sides to prevent air and surface attacks on legitimate trade. In January 1938 Hood returned to Palma for another month of wearisome maritime diplomacy. Cunningham ordered a destroyer sweep after the British merchantman Endymion was sunk by a submarine and registered his ‘grave concern’ with the Nationalist admiral Moreno at Palma, informing him, ‘The British Government will not tolerate interference with British shipping on the high seas.’54 In April he returned to Palma and Barcelona, carrying stores for the diplomatic staff, liaising and directing the operations of other ships, and in the summer of 1938 he paid his last visit to the region. With Franco at last getting the upper hand, the Royal Navy was anxious to wind down its very extensive commitment.55 Pound centralised command in his own hands, while his instructions were more rigid and voluminous than those of either of his predecessors—or his successor.56 He was a first-rate staff officer, Fisher commenting that ‘his orderly and logical mind is a great example to the Staff’.57 A man of enormous energy, a workaholic possessed of great powers of concentration, Pound saw issues in clear and simple terms.58 He understood the likely impact of air power and badgered the Admiralty to send him a second carrier. Like Fisher, he had great faith in the fleet’s massed anti-aircraft firepower but he reiterated Fisher’s grave concern about the lack of air defences at Malta and Alexandria. He also adopted bold and experimental methods. ‘He was always ready to take very considerable risks in order to teach his captains to handle their ships with skill and confidence. His night fighting exercises were always realistic and at times frightening.’59 Though he lacked Fisher’s charm, he was equally devoted to the welfare of his men and was an indefatigable visitor of ships and establishments.60 Cunningham found that Pound was ‘strongly of the opinion’ that his second-incommand should express his views. Cunningham ‘held exactly the same opinion’ and they appear to have had little disagreement.61 Pound reported to the First Sea Lord that ‘Cunningham has dropped into the job very easily’ and he was very loath to lose him in the summer of 1938.62 When he was not exercising unwonted patience and more characteristic firmness in Spanish waters, Cunningham spent much time showing the flag on the coasts of Greece and Yugoslavia, though innumerable speeches and functions were not to his taste. However, he had little opportunity to exercise the battle-cruisers and but one spell of three days when he commanded the fleet. ‘I kept them hard at it’, he wrote, ‘trying out several of my own ideas in the way of exercises.’63 One valuable lesson he learned from exercises was the potentially lethal power of bombers and torpedo planes; until 1935, he had not come under air attack. It served to remove any scepticism he felt about the value of carrier aviation. He learned, too, that the fleet should manoeuvre with the carrier when it was performing flying operations.64 After the Abyssinian affair, smaller nations, such as Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia, were afraid to demonstrate close friendship with Britain and France. Chatfield reiterated to Pound the view he had expressed consistently since the Abyssinian crisis developed:

The Mediterranean

29

…the Mediterranean crisis is only one of three anxieties and as we are still hopelessly weak to meet the responsibilities of all three services and so long as we cannot come to terms with either of our chief opponents, it will be better in the long run to get an agreement with Italy because we have no basic cause of enmity with that country as we have with the other two.65 Thus the Mediterranean Fleet played host at Malta to an Italian squadron in the summer of 1938, Pound observing that ‘our opinion of their efficiency…was exactly as it had been before—just second rate’.66 In August 1938, Cunningham returned home to become Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff. He told the new First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse, successor of the formidable Chatfield, he was unsuited to it, being untrained in staff work and somewhat inarticulate.67 However, it seems to have been decided that as he was likely to command an important station in the near future, he ought to have some direct experience of the Admiralty and of major policy and administrative problems.68 Cunningham was due to take up his post on 17 October but the outbreak of the Czechoslovak crisis meant that he was summoned to assist the incumbent DCNS, Admiral Sir William James, on 24 September. The crisis ended a week later with the Munich agreement but Cunningham benefited from seeing the Admiralty at work in feverish conditions. Cunningham’s duties revolved around plans and committees of one sort or another—war plans, rearmament plans, co-operation with the other services through the Deputy COS committee, and other committees which proliferated as the international situation worsened.69 Cunningham found the First Sea Lord an exasperating man with whom to work as he made little use of the staff designed to take matters of detail off his shoulders. However, Cunningham was given responsibility for the Spanish situation. With war increasingly imminent, Backhouse began to change the emphasis in new construction from larger types to light craft, badly needed and capable of earlier delivery. He consulted Cunningham on the design of new escort vessels and the latter recommended a set of requirements that were largely incorporated into the very successful ‘Hunt’ class of destroyer escorts. Backhouse’s reforms ironically contributed to decentralisation elsewhere in the Admiralty, a development to which Cunningham gave firm support.70 After the Munich crisis, Cunningham noted shortcomings in organisation, communications and equipment in many staff divisions and concluded, ‘Peacetime organisation should be more like wartime.’71 Backhouse himself observed that the crisis threw ‘far too much work on the DCNS, who cannot possibly attend to the important matters if he is constantly asked to deal with those of less importance.’72 Backhouse was cut down by a brain tumour in March 1939, from which he died in July. His illness was a further calamity for Cunningham, who had been appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Bath (KCB) in the New Year’s Honours, as the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff (DCNS) found himself shouldering his chief’s burden in addition to his own and gained some relief only when he requested the assistance of Vice-Admiral Charles Kennedy-Purvis, the President of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, who was experienced in the ways of the Admiralty and a first-rate administrator.73 In December 1938, Germany notified Britain that she intended to implement a clause in the 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement that allowed Germany, normally permitted

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

30

only 60 per cent of British submarine tonnage, to attain parity ‘in exceptional circumstances’.74 German U-boats were an emotive subject for the British, and it is hardly surprising that the government should attempt to hold the Germans to 60 per cent or, failing that, to tie the Germans to a phased expansion. The German decision was triggered by the steady deterioration in Anglo-German relations since Munich. Cunningham the diplomat, together with a small negotiating team, was sent hot foot to Berlin to persuade Hitler to retreat. The mission underlined British desperation and it was quickly apparent that Hitler was unpersuaded by Cunningham’s principal argument—that the British public would not like it—and the negotiations were completely unproductive.75 It was a signal that Hitler had now included Britain in his list of potential antagonists, but not necessarily a commitment to unrestricted submarine warfare; indeed, ‘One searches in vain for a guiding principle in the German naval construction programme at this time.’76 In April 1939, Hitler repudiated the agreement entirely in response to the hostile attitude of British public opinion to his seizure of the rump of Czechoslovakia a month earlier. By that stage British policy had become largely one of delaying war.77 It seemed sensible to eliminate first the weakest enemy…Italy. This meant retaining a major fleet in the Mediterranean and co-ordinating offensive plans with the French. Relations with France were somewhat sour in both diplomatic and military spheres. France’s overwhelming anxiety was Germany and she was unwilling to give Britain full support against Mussolini’s Abyssinian adventure. Admiral Darlan, head of the French Navy, however, wished to pursue an energetic offensive policy should war break out with Italy. French élan was predicated on a strong British fleet holding the eastern basin and a task force based on Gibraltar assisting the French to overpower the Italians in the western basin.78 Chatfield nevertheless recognised that in a three-handed global conflagration, in which the Mediterranean Fleet was expected to move to Singapore, as in 1914, Britain would have to ask France to defend the imperial interests in the Mediterranean but he identified no absolutely vital concerns in the region.79 Yet at what seemed the nadir of the Mediterranean’s fortunes as a strategic theatre, a swift change of naval thinking took place. During Cunningham’s sojourn at the Admiralty, the Mediterranean eclipsed the Far East and ranked next to the defence of the metropole and the Atlantic. Cunningham and other ‘Mediterraneanists’ viewed the wooing of Italy with total scepticism. Recognising that Italy would enter a European war only if Britain and France were being worsted, from the beginning of 1939 the COS believed the best that could be hoped for was Italian neutrality for an indefinite period.80 The dilemma has been well encapsulated by Paul Kennedy: For years the British debated whether it would be better to buy off the Italians (because of more pressing dangers elsewhere) or to stand up to them (because they would be easier to defeat than the Germans or the Japanese). Yet since there were important military, economic or political arguments against either course, a clear-cut decision was, as usual, impossible.81 In a paper for the Strategical Appreciation Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) in April 1939, Cunningham paid lip service to the hitherto sacred

The Mediterranean

31

commitment to send the ‘main fleet’ to the Far East, arguing ‘whether this could be done to the exclusion of our interests in the Mediterranean is a matter which can only be decided at the time’. He reasoned that ‘the effect of evacuation on Greece, Turkey, and on the Arab and Moslem world are political factors which make it essential that no precipitate action should be taken in that direction’. The death knell of the principal Admiralty strategy was sounded in his conclusion that ‘it is not possible to state definitely how soon after Japanese intervention a Fleet could be despatched to the Far East. Neither is it possible to enumerate precisely the size of the Fleet that we could afford to send.’82 Backhouse endorsed the new approach, believing ‘that the Mediterranean and the Middle East region was an area of growing military and economic importance exceeding that of the Far East’.83 Moreover, ‘Offensive operations in the Mediterranean against Italy offered the best prospect for speedy results and should not, therefore, be lightly broken off.’84 The new direction was taken at the time staff talks were held, belatedly, with the French, with whom it was agreed, ‘The objective would be to secure their interests in the Mediterranean and Middle East, and to knock Italy out of the war as soon as possible. This would entail offensive naval action from the outset.’85 The assumption that Italy could be eliminated within months was glib and unreal, as the Mediterranean equalled, if not outranked, the Empire east of Suez in strategic, political and economic importance. But because Chatfield was now Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, and because contemporary crises were over Czechoslovakia, Poland, Tientsin and Albania, the policy was unconfirmed. Cunningham was soon out of strategic controversy, being the fortunate beneficiary of a series of casualties in the navy’s high command. Fisher’s death in June 1937 was followed by Blake’s retirement in December. In October 1938, Rear-Admiral Bertram Ramsay, who had resigned as Backhouse’s chief of staff in December 1935, was retired. In May 1939, the Controller and Third Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson, became ill in February and died in May. Backhouse died in July and Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, C-in-C, East Indies, was retired on medical grounds in that month. This set of events revealed a dearth of flag officers of proven merit. The new First Sea Lord was Admiral Sir Dudley Pound and Cunningham was appointed to the Mediterranean command in his stead. Had Backhouse not died, Pound would have remained in the Mediterranean until May 1940, and Blake, had he stayed fit, would probably have succeeded him.86 It is possible, therefore, that Cunningham might have had to wait for a major command until 1941, when Admiral Sir Charles Forbes was due to leave the Home Fleet. However, having accepted the Mediterranean ‘with alacrity’, on 31 May 1939 he left for Alexandria.87

5 The Finest Appointment: The Mediterranean Fleet

June 1939–June 1940 Cunningham described the command of the Mediterranean Fleet as ‘the finest appointment the Royal Navy has to offer’, and he would have counted himself fortunate to achieve this goal.1 His journey to the Middle East was the happiest of homecomings; he remarked, truthfully, ‘I probably knew the Mediterranean as well as any naval officer of my generation’.2 He arrived in Alexandria on the light cruiser Penelope on 5 June, assuming command from Pound on the next day. He also took over the Pounds’ house in Alexandria. Visiting Malta early in July, he was joined there by his wife, who proceeded to refurbish the rather dowdy former auberge of the Knights of St John. The house, overshadowed by modern buildings, was an elegant if eclectic structure, but the interior was almost perfect for receptions, the rooms being light and airy, with a superb sweeping staircase, either side of which were great tablets inscribed with the names of successive Cs-in-C since 1792.3 However, more ominous shadows overhung the C-in-C’s official residence. Hitler, having seized the rump of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, now cast his eyes upon Poland, while the Japanese were about to tweak the lion’s tail in Tientsin. Mussolini, attempting to match Hitler in aggression, competed with him for domination of the Balkans. Moreover, the two Axis powers, now bound in a ‘Pact of Steel’, had ensured Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War.4 Allied policy on the eve of the Second World War could be little other than reactive.5 The British, however, were sceptical about the firmness and value of French assistance.6 Admiralty policy, therefore, was ‘to defer any Staff Conversations with the French until at least after similar conversations with the USA’—which would make no commitments.7 Britain also rejected early French requests for naval discussions ‘in view of possible adverse effects [upon Italy], at present moving into closer relations’.8 Thus the Admiralty encouraged Chamberlain to conclude a détente with Italy. Chamberlain was convinced, with some justification, that ‘if we did not quarrel with Germany…we need [not] fear any sudden attack by Italy’.9 The culmination of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Mussolini was the ‘sad, humiliating visit’ he and Halifax paid to Rome in January 1939.10 The coup de grâce to this policy was delivered by Mussolini’s attack on Albania shortly afterwards. ‘Appeasing Italy in 1935–40 was a fruitless endeavour’.11

The finest appointment

33

Chamberlain was furious at what he regarded as Italian treachery but London’s only retaliation was to issue guarantees to Greece and Romania and open negotiations with Turkey.12 Mussolini confirmed his allegiance when he signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany and Japan in October 1937 but he artfully continued to hold out the carrot of accommodation to the desperate British.13 On Cunningham’s assumption of command, therefore, the British were in a ‘strategic mess’.14 At the core were the defence of the home islands, the Atlantic sea lanes, and the Empire, plus the historic determination to prevent the domination of Europe by hostile powers …but establishing priorities and adjusting diplomacy, strategy and resources to meet the three putative foes was a major headache. The Chiefs stated flatly that a war started in any one of these three areas may extend to one or both of the other two…we cannot foresee the time when our defence forces will be strong enough to safeguard our territory, trade and vital interests against Germany, Italy and Japan simultaneously.15 Far Easterners and Mediterraneanists were agreed that there could be only one other major theatre besides western Europe, but the Far East remained the war destination of the Mediterranean Fleet, Chatfield having declared that Britain ‘might have to let the Mediterranean and Malta go for the time being’.16 The politicians, nevertheless, had seized eagerly on the hint that Italy could be defeated quickly; Churchill, the new First Lord, with far more grandiloquence than strategic acumen, had proclaimed that ‘the first battlefield is the Mediterranean’.17 The Joint Planning Staff (JPS) warned, however, ‘There are no decisive Military measures that we can take against Italy at the outset.’18 Pound, alarmed at the facile optimism that he found in London, quickly set about restoring a sense of reality. He pointed out that Italy could be defeated only on land or by a successful strategic bombing campaign. Moreover, naval operations in the Mediterranean ran severe risks from mines, submarines, torpedo boats and bombers. He compromised by earmarking only two battleships for the Far East but warned, ‘If there were no “Far East” question the loss of a battleship or two in the so-called “knocking out” of Italy would not matter much but it would matter a great deal if Japan was wobbling as to whether she would come in or not.’19 When Anglo-French talks finally got under way in 1939, therefore, the COS, while agreeing ‘to interrupt the Italian communications with Libya and at the same time…exploit our naval supremacy by attacking Italian military objects on shore, and her seaborne trade, in order to lower her morale’, warned that such successes should be obtained ‘without undue cost’.20 With the French eager to win a British commitment to a continental army and to post strong naval forces at Gibraltar and Alexandria, while the British had one eye on the Far East, vague, conflicting proposals emerged from the talks, which also occupied much of Cunningham’s time between July 1939 and the outbreak of war with Italy in June 1940.21 After Admiral Ollive’s visit to Malta in July 1939, a French Naval Liaison Officer arrived in Alexandria in August, bringing Admiral Darlan’s promise of full cooperation.22 Talks were indeed necessary for ‘The Allies…entered the Second World War in the Mediterranean without any co-ordinated strategy that envisioned…the defeat of

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

34

Italy.’23 Ollive, like Cunningham, was anxious to threaten Italy at several points, thereby forcing a dispersal of her fleet and air force. Cunningham’s next French visitor at Malta, in January 1940, was Admiral Sud, Admiral J.-P.Esteva, though the suddenness of his arrival suggested to Cunningham that the French were concerned principally to retain parity in the Mediterranean. Further talks with Esteva, at Bizerta in April 1940, were more constructive, with agreement on offensive action by light forces and the distribution of submarine forces. Cunningham grew somewhat alarmed by the wildly ambitious plans of General Weygand, the veteran commander of French forces in the Middle East. These envisaged a vast dispersal of Allied efforts, a repetition of the Great War nightmare for shipping and its protection.24 As the phoney war continued in the west, the French began to build up their forces in the Mediterranean. Cunningham, whose own fleet had shrivelled to little more than five old Australian destroyers, felt the overwhelming strength of the French forces in the theatre would lead to demands that they should hold the supreme command, though Pound assured him that he would not permit this.25 Much more to Cunningham’s satisfaction was an Allied plan to seize Crete should Italy attack Greece; he coveted the island as a forward refuelling and reconnaissance base, handy for the central Mediterranean and an acceptable substitute for Malta. It would also enable him to disrupt Italian communications with the Dodecanese and the Black Sea. Indeed, Cunningham argued for a peripheral attack on Germany via the Black Sea, designed to bolster Romania and Turkey and cut off Russian supplies to Germany.26 By the spring of 1940, however, when Mussolini had begun to stir, the Joint Planning Committee (JPC) despaired of finding sufficient reinforcements to give Cunningham a proper fleet again. They considered it ‘most unlikely that any Allied Fleet which could be concentrated in the Mediterranean at present would be strong enough to undertake an offensive naval policy’ and concluded lamely that ‘we feel the best solution would be to invite the French to undertake the naval responsibility for the whole of the Mediterranean’, admitting, ‘This implies a temporary reversal of our original policy…which envisaged first knocking out Italy.’27 Cunningham, however, opposed the dispatch of the Mediterranean Fleet to Singapore ‘as it would mean denuding the Mediterranean, which, unless Italy were out of the war, would be unthinkable in view of all our Eastern Mediterranean commitments’.28 He was reluctant to forgo the opportunity to score significant early successes (and establish a moral ascendancy) because of the risk of losses. Offensive fleet operations represented ‘the only plan before us which shows any sign of success for us and our Allies in the early stages’.29 Cunningham had first to learn the state of the station, its assets and deficiencies, the quality of his staff and the personnel of the fleet, the standard of training, the fleet’s war plans, and the navy’s relationships with other services. He took out to the Mediterranean his long-serving secretary, Acting Captain (S) A.P.Shaw and was joined by his Flag Lieutenant, the highly regarded Walter Starkie, lately a term officer at Dartmouth. Only the chief of staff, Commodore A.U. Willis, the Fleet Gunnery Officer, Commander Geoffrey Barnard, and the Staff Officer (Plans), Commander Royer Dick, remained from Pound’s time. Accompanying the new C-in-C were the Fleet Torpedo Officer, Commander W.P.Carne, the Master of the Fleet, Commander T.M.Brownrigg, and the Staff Officer (Operations), Commander Manley Power. It was an exceptionally able group, all of whom compiled distinguished war records.30 Willis remarked of Pound that

The finest appointment

35

he did not really need a chief of staff. Cunningham, however, ‘well understood how to use a staff’ and ‘used a Chief of Staff properly as a sounding board for ideas’.31 Because Cunningham disliked paper work intensely and was bored by detail, he left a great deal to his staff, perhaps too much, and certainly they were worked to the point of exhaustion.32 Cunningham rarely held staff meetings, preferring to deal with each officer in turn. It was not a good practice, the left hand often not knowing what the right hand was doing. Moreover, Cunningham was far from easy to deal with—Manley Power described him as ‘a bully’.33 Admiral John Godfrey remarked sagely that ‘He did not favour a too ready acquiescence.’34 Decisions were arrived at, therefore, by an abrasive, wearying and often disagreeable process. Willis concluded that ‘he was a wonderful man to serve, though at times rather difficult’.35 Cunningham quickly established a routine on board his flagship and later on shore at Alexandria, rising at 0630 and dealing first with overnight signals, followed by staff meetings from 0930, visitors and more signals. An afternoon’s golf was followed by tea and dinner with his wife and a return to his desk until 2300.36 He told Admiral Sir Dudley North, ‘The paper work is frightful and I never get away from my desk till round about 1 p.m. and start again at 4 p.m.’37 Vice-Admiral Baillie-Grohman observed frankly that administration was not one of Cunningham’s strong points; moreover, there were some matters that Cunningham insisted on overseeing personally, notably expenditure and officers’ appointments.38 Though they may not have enjoyed the experience at the time, most of Cunningham’s closest associates had the highest regard for him, and acknowledged him as an outstanding leader. John Somerville, a destroyer officer in the fleet, observed that ‘he inspired affection as well as abundant respect from those who worked closely with him’.39 Cunningham frequently thanked them in later years and always did his best for them in securing desirable appointments. Barnard recalled Cunningham offering him ‘a glass of port (from a Scot)’, which was ‘the only indication of approval I have had in 18 months so I think he was satisfied’.40 The flag officers were an equally distinguished group. Two of them, Rear-Admiral J.H.D.Cunningham, commanding the 1st Cruiser Squadron, and Rear-Admiral J.C.Tovey, the RA (D), becoming Admirals of the Fleet, while the second-in-command, ViceAdmiral Geoffrey Layton, and the Rear-Admiral, 3rd Cruiser Squadron, Henry Moore, became full Admirals, all earning distinction in senior appointments during the war.41 Cunningham was to have little opportunity to test their ability as all except Tovey departed for home waters, together with most of the ships, when war with Germany broke out in September. Cunningham was a very different C-in-C to Pound. This was evident from his brusque dismissal of the detailed fleet orders drawn up by his predecessor; he ordained, ‘The Fleet will be manoeuvred by the Commander-in-Chief.’42 It both undermined a generation’s progress in staff work and left the fleet dependent on a single source of doctrine, as well as imposing on it a heavy burden of signals. Squadrons and ships were sent on operations with the minimum of verbal orders, the C-in-C placing his trust in the senior officer’s ability to interpret his general desire and, even more important, on the officer’s sense of initiative.43 Moreover, Cunningham was the master of the prompt, precise decision and crisp, clear order. He had an instinctive grasp of the principles of high command, unbounded energy, an enormous capacity for distilling experience and example, and an innate confidence in his own judgement.

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

36

His first act was to visit the ships and shore establishments. The fleet was at full strength—a battle squadron, a carrier, two cruiser squadrons, three destroyer flotillas, a flotilla of submarines and support vessels—but its bulk hid a number of deficiencies. With the exception of the flagship Warspite, the battleships were not up to date in main armaments, anti-aircraft batteries, engines or protection against bombs and torpedoes. The carrier Glorious was also a veteran and her aircraft similarly obsolescent. The heavy cruisers were high-profile ships unsuited to Mediterranean conditions and two of the light cruisers were unreconstructed Great War vessels. The destroyers were handy, well-armed modern vessels, but, in the absence of adequate numbers of sloops, the three flotillas were certain to be overworked in wartime. The new ships of the rearmament programme were either over the horizon or deployed on other stations. However, Cunningham could assume that a decade of intensive, imaginative, realistic training, the aura of invincibility unique to the Royal Navy, and the confident expectation that the personnel more than matched the Italian navy, would compensate amply for the antiquity of the ships.44 Malta was well equipped for the maintenance of the fleet, but its principal handicaps were its proximity to Italian airfields (60 miles) and its almost total lack of defences against mines and bombs. In fact, the army and the RAF had written it off as indefensible, and, on the eve of war, there were no minesweepers, AA guns or fighters to spare. Nevertheless, Cunningham lost no time in agitating. ‘Malta’, he told Pound, ‘is of immense value to us and everything possible should be done to minimise the damage which Italian bombers may do to it.’45 If the navy was to play the principal role in the early days of a war against Italy, it had to be able to operate offensively in the central Mediterranean, and Malta, astride Italian communications with North Africa, was ideally placed for air, submarine and surface vessel attack on Italian convoys, airfields and harbours. Even more vital was shore-based reconnaissance of Italian bases and sea routes. Cunningham’s pressure and Pound’s own recent first-hand knowledge of the situation led to the promise of 112 heavy AA guns, 60 lighter weapons, 24 searchlights and four squadrons of fighters; the bad news was that almost nothing could be shipped out at once. The fleet was in for a long sojourn at Alexandria.46 Alexandria, however, was little better. It was a comparatively undeveloped commercial harbour, shallow, with a difficult entrance, and it was in a nominally independent country. In a war, Egypt was likely to be non-belligerent, and many people were pro-Italian or increasingly resentful of the British presence. Fortunately, a new Anglo-Egyptian treaty had been ratified in 1936 that gave British bases long-term security. Nevertheless, ‘Service chiefs habitually regarded Egypt as a potentially hostile power and acted accordingly.’47 Cunningham, though relieved to discover that the harbour was run by a retired British flag officer, shared the army’s dismay that much of the AA defence was in the hands of Egyptians. There was little enough of it and further weapons could be had only by denuding Gibraltar and Malta. Pound had remarked that it was ‘very difficult to defend Alexandria against Air attacks’, and Cunningham, supporting his predecessor’s demand for at least 48 heavy AA weapons, also requested balloon defences against low-flying aircraft.48 Air defence remained unsatisfactory and was only partly improved by the arrival of fighters ahead of Malta. He was equally concerned to dredge the Great Pass and to provide local anti-submarine and minesweeping defences. The most immediate of his worries, however, was the inability to dock anything larger than the smallest cruisers, a load lightened that summer by the

The finest appointment

37

arrival of the capital ship dock from Portsmouth. Moreover, both Malta and Alexandria were well supplied with Italian agents and security was therefore virtually impossible.49 Cunningham, remarking that he had tired of Alexandria in the Abyssinian emergency, disliked the place. It was two days’ steaming from the central Mediterranean. Malta was a better location—but the army and the RAF headquarters were in Cairo. Even Alexandria was unsuitable for liaison but Cunningham told Pound ‘that I shall be rather remote at Malta’.50 In his first year, he found that not only was his staff scattered on missions throughout the Middle East and Balkans but, ‘One is usually wanting to be in Malta and Egypt at the same time.’51 The C-in-C, Middle East, was General Sir Archibald Wavell, a fine tactician, a consummate planner and a sound strategist. Cunningham warmed to him and they held similar views on Mediterranean strategy. The Air Officer Commanding, Middle East, was Air Chief Marshal Sir William Mitchell, but he was shortly succeeded by Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore, a blunt but adroit Australian and, significantly, a former naval officer, which gave him a ready sympathy for Cunningham’s pleas for air support. He struck up a smooth and immensely effective partnership with Wavell and Longmore, and he felt nothing in his later Allied service approached this triumvirate in compatibility and efficiency.52 Equally important, was the calibre of the ambassador in Cairo, Sir Miles Lampson, ‘A great elephant of a man, shrewd and with great standing and influence in Egypt.’53 The fleet had exercised relentlessly throughout the decade and, though the Abyssinian and Spanish crises had disrupted training, they had highlighted deficiencies and provided ‘dry runs’ for mobilisation and wartime conditions. Cunningham continued the intensive programme of his predecessors and ‘in the spring and summer of 1939 the Mediterranean Fleet as a whole carried out more intensive gunnery training and practices than have ever been accomplished in peace’.54 Like most admirals, Cunningham still thought principally of fleet engagements but he did so with some subtlety, practising convoy defence and attack and observing the difficulty of fighting ships in extreme heat. Moreover, Cunningham was well aware of the need to devise divisional tactics in which individual squadrons fought in fluid order, thus conferring on subordinates a high measure of tactical freedom within the C-in-C’s general plans. The modernisation of Warspite, for example, demonstrated that her main armament, now with higher elevation and supported by a new fire control table, tactical plots and spotter aircraft, could shoot with formidable accuracy at 21,000 yards; the advent of radar would further improve broadside accuracy.55 Cunningham had little experience of working with the FAA, was inclined to scepticism and, like many officers, regarded aviators with disdain; they were ‘considered to be out of the mainstream of the Navy’, though the navy clearly appreciated the value of observers, directing the ‘brightest young officers’ to that branch.56 Nevertheless, carriers were now integral units of the fleet, though aircraft were few in number. British carriers, apart from the newly-commissioned Ark Royal, housing up to 72 aircraft, were obsolescent, limited in capacity and slow in executing flying operations. Moreover, there was rarely more than one carrier for each of the three main stations. This meant that strike capacity was severely curtailed, and thus the role of air-launched torpedoes was simply to slow down opposing capital ships and permit the slower British battle squadron to come within decisive gun range.57

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

38

Even less attention had been paid to carrier-borne fighter defence. The armoured carrier was intended to embark only reconnaissance and strike aircraft (any fighters borne being detailed to escort the strike force) and under air attack was expected to rely on fleet anti-aircraft fire, while unarmoured carriers were unlikely to be risked in areas subject to heavy air attack. ‘It would seem that the Naval Staff, in fact, largely discounted both the danger of air attack on a fleet in the face of modern AA armaments, and also the value of fighters for preventing such attacks from developing.’58 Fighter direction was virtually non-existent and radar-equipped ships did not reach Cunningham before the autumn of 1940. Naval aircraft were also so few that all had to be multiple role planes.59 Admirals desperately wanted to believe AA fire could stave off raids by 20–30 bombers but, while target shoots had indicated that ships’ fire could be effective, the real situation was almost calamitous. The Royal Navy had made poor decisions on AA protection throughout the inter-war period. Apart from the inferior HACS control system, it had persisted with inadequate guns. Most ships built before 1935 had very poor AA defences and it was not until the war was far advanced that radar, American equipment, effective weapons and proximity fuses proved decisive factors. As Admiral Sir Frank Twiss recalled, AA gunnery in 1939 was by guess and by God. Until such new equipment was available, ‘Mutual support by AA fire is the important factor in the countering of air attack.’60 Cunningham himself was signally, even blissfully, optimistic. He reported to Pound shortly after taking command that Mitchell had been impressed by a fleet shoot. He noted that no vessel under way had yet been hit and was confident that his capital ships could withstand at least one or two bombs. He either did not expect to have carrier-borne fighters or discounted them, for he affirmed that ‘the answer is a considerable improvement in the quality and quantity of the ships’ AA fire’.61 Indeed, throughout the war, whatever weapons and control systems were available, fleets put their faith chiefly in the volume of lead—blanket barrages. Cunningham, however, was allowed a breathing space. He was able to say of Sunday, 3 September 1939, the day Britain and France went to war with Germany, ‘I never expected when war was declared to have nothing to do but go ashore and have tea with my wife.’62 The fleet steadily melted away to war zones and the only operations were the conduct of convoys—hardly necessary but good practice—and contraband patrols, somewhat muted to avoid unduly offending the Italians. In the late autumn, Cunningham moved his headquarters back to Malta, where his wife and nieces were soon busy in naval welfare work.63 There was little that could be done for Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia but efforts were made to gain the adherence of Turkey. A better defensive prospect, the Turks had won the respect of the Allies in the Great War. Turkey also held one of the great gateways, the Dardanelles, a possible avenue for attack against Hitler’s new ally, Stalin, and to be defended against historic Russian ambitions to reach the Mediterranean. Cunningham scarcely had time to draw breath before he was ordered to visit Turkey to negotiate the military aspects of a proposed alliance. The visit was highly successful but, as Cunningham quickly appreciated, the Turks were adroit in exacting assistance without commitment. They were apprehensive about Axis and Soviet ambitions and an alliance with the Allies might have provoked war with either or both parties. The Allies supplied the Turks with substantial military advice and some equipment—a token gesture, since the cupboards were practically bare. In the event of Turkey being compelled to fight,

The finest appointment

39

Cunningham wanted her to neutralise Italian airfields in the Dodecanese, while the Turks were anxious to prevent an Italian conquest of Greece. As head of a British military mission, Admiral Sir Howard Kelly, a retired officer, was favoured by the Admiralty, though Cunningham felt that he lacked the patience and tact so necessary in dealing with the Turks.64 However, Kelly quickly gained Turkish confidence and remained there until 1944, Cunningham revising his opinion and admitting, ‘There was never a better choice.’65 Cunningham had developed a relationship of mutual respect, frankness and trust with Pound, though he continued to harbour reservations about Pound’s proclivity for undue interference.66 Pound’s method of coping with the new First Lord, Winston Churchill, who assumed office on 3 September, was subtle rather than confrontational. He quickly gained Churchill’s trust and gave the latter complete loyalty.67 Churchill was a difficult man to serve, in terms of the hours he kept, the dubious close associates he employed, his schoolboyish fascination with gadgetry, his penchant for fantastic schemes of frightening impracticability, his petulant relief of officers who dared to contradict him, and his airy dismissal of operational problems. He was an inveterate supporter of the offensive at all times and was determined that both the army and the navy should not be obsessed with the defensive, as he believed had happened during the First World War. For Churchill, the war was not being fought unless the guns were sounding incessantly; he had little grasp of sea power as an unrelenting, patient, mostly undramatic and silent bulwark of the nation’s war effort.68 On hearing of Churchill’s return to the Admiralty, Cunningham almost certainly had mixed feelings, as had much of the navy, though Churchill brought to the Admiralty immense experience, talent, imagination and zest. However, Cunningham, strong, hard-headed, confident, shrewd, was not disposed to be other than blunt in repulsing Churchill’s sillier propositions.69 Nevertheless, the First Lord was as convinced of the strategic importance of the Mediterranean as Cunningham, and as soon as Mussolini began to hint at coming into the war in the spring of 1940, Churchill began to press for the reconstitution of the Mediterranean Fleet and Pound found the ships from other stations.70 Pound commented to Cunningham, ‘I do not know what Mussolini is up to but we cannot afford to be caught napping.’71 Cunningham, too, was growing anxious about Italian intentions. Gradually a sizeable fleet began to return to the Mediterranean, albeit very much a ‘second eleven’ of time-expired vessels. In the end it became a race against time, as the situation in north-west Europe began to tilt heavily enough in Hitler’s favour to make it virtually certain that Mussolini would commit Italy to war.72 Cunningham’s forces were boosted also by a French squadron, initially of three battleships, of which two soon returned to Oran, four cruisers and three destroyers, commanded by the lively and able Vice-Admiral Godfroy, who quickly struck up a good relationship with Cunningham.73 What seemed clear, especially after the German attack on Scandinavia, was that a Mediterranean war would be essentially a defensive one, with local tactical offensives.74 Cunningham, anxious to secure Malta and keen to test the quality of Italian air power, proposed to mount an offensive sweep in the central Mediterranean immediately on the outbreak of war and parallel forays in the Aegean to safeguard Allied communications and disrupt those of the Italians; these carefully co-ordinated operations became a trademark of the Mediterranean Fleet in his time. Cunningham was particularly short of air reconnaissance and destroyers. He emphasised the need to obtain the use of

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

40

Suda Bay in Crete as a matter of urgency but the Cabinet would not sanction the occupation of Crete unless Greece was attacked.75 Cunningham’s plans for extensive sweeps in the early hours of the war were clearly insufficiently bold and aggressive for Churchill, now Prime Minister. Desperate for spectacular victories to offset present dangers, Churchill brusquely questioned Cunningham’s appetite for carrying the war to the enemy: The purely defensive strategy adopted by C-in-C, Mediterranean, ought not to be accepted, unless it is found that the fighting qualities of the Italians are high. It will be much better that the Fleet at Alexandria should sally forth and run some risks than that it should remain in a posture so markedly defensive. Risks must be run at this juncture in all theatres.76 Cunningham replied to Pound mildly that he was ‘rather taken aback’ and reported that ‘all in the Fleet are imbued with a burning desire to get at the Italian Fleet’.77 In private he was ‘infuriated’ that Pound had allowed such a needless signal to be sent and he regarded Churchill’s prodding ‘as just an insult’.78 It represented the beginning of hostilities between them. What, then, were Mussolini’s intentions in the spring of 1940? He desperately wished to enter the war to prove the military valour and might of Italy, to realise Italy’s ambitions in the Mediterranean, to ‘break out of gaol’ into the oceans beyond, and to play the part of arbiter of Europe at the eventual peace conference. Mussolini’s hatred of Britain was deepened by the humiliations of the contraband system, symbol of Britain’s sea power but not applied with rigour, partly in the hope that the Italians could be persuaded to remain neutral. Mussolini was ‘bent on war regardless of his country’s military and economic weakness’, but hoped to avoid hard fighting.79 Cunningham observed at the end of May that Mussolini ‘seems to be methodically preparing for war’.80 ‘Italian policy is so dominated by the personal will of Mussolini’, noted the JPC, ‘that the future course of events is a matter of speculation.’81 Italy’s economy ‘could not possibly sustain Mussolini’s grandiose plans’.82 Half of Italy’s imports came by sea and it was ‘hopelessly vulnerable to a blockade’.83 Indeed, the British, who were well informed on Italy’s shortcomings—a lack of unity, morale, skills and productivity, and poor utilisation of resources—noted, ‘If the Dardanelles were closed to Italian trade, her situation would become critical.’84 Italian leaders were aware that ‘the demands of modern war could only be met with outside help’.85 That meant Germany—but the Germans were unwilling to underwrite the Italian war effort; indeed, the alliance was based on ‘more mistrust than trust’.86 All that the heads of the forces could do was to warn Mussolini of the services’ unreadiness for war, counsel an essentially defensive strategy and, if II Duce persisted in demanding an all-out offensive (as he did), quietly nullify his directives—there was ‘a high level of military insubordination’.87 The Italian Navy was probably the service most ready for war. Though some senior appointments went to Fascist sympathisers, the navy as a whole was probably the least Fascist of the services. Despite its considerable expansion since 1935, it was something of a Cinderella, the air force was Mussolini’s favoured arm, and the army, an enormous force, dominated the high command. The navy had developed as counter to the French

The finest appointment

41

fleet and was reluctant to regard the Royal Navy, of which it stood in awe, as an opponent.88 The fleet lacked substantial operational experience from the Great War and also a long and glorious tradition. The Supermarina exercised a close control on operations, which reduced admirals’ sense of initiative. The fleet was taken to sea by a flag officer appointed for a specific operation, which meant there was little confidence in the leaders and no opportunity to develop a consistent tactical doctrine. Tactics were in fact naïve, rigid and old-fashioned; they did not embrace night fighting, though the Italians knew that the Mediterranean Fleet had practised this assiduously for over a decade. There was conflict over naval policy between senior figures who clung to battle fleet engagements, younger elements who wished to emphasise torpedo and special craft, and others who called for a balanced fleet.89 Italian naval officers were enthusiastic and able, though there was a shortage of officers and the higher rates. Morale, discipline and seamanship were generally of a high order, though there was an element of ‘reluctance and apathy’ about the impending war.90 The service was, however, short of sea time, largely because of fuel restrictions, and training was rarely thorough; these deficiencies further undermined confidence and the capacity for independent action.91 Italy’s principal naval bases were at Taranto and Naples, neither of which was adequately equipped or well defended.92 Italian warships were celebrated for their speed, but this was often illusory; under war conditions they proved little if any faster than British vessels. They were of light construction, with protection, seaworthiness, stability and amenity being sacrificed to speed. Their machinery was frequently unreliable, their fuel consumption high and their radius of action limited, and, as the fleet had been on continuous mobilisation since 1935, ships suffered considerable wear and tear. Most designs were regarded as no more than mediocre, only the Zara-class heavy cruisers, the most recent light cruisers and the ‘Navigatori’-class destroyers rising above the general standard. They lacked efficient rangefinders, salvo spreads were too wide, the guns themselves often inaccurate and the shells defective. Radar and sonar sets were being tested but production difficulties delayed installation until the war was well advanced. The development of novel weapons, such as explosive motor boats and ‘human torpedoes’, had been halted after 1935, though it was resumed on the approach of war. The submarines, of which there were over 100, were generally ‘too big and clumsy’, having large silhouettes and being slow to dive; under water, they often proved unhandy. They were poorly ventilated, prone to leaks and had other ‘serious technical defects’.93 Italy had in service seven heavy and 12 light cruisers, over 60 destroyers and torpedo boats, and numerous light craft. However, only two reconstructed battleships were in commission, with two others almost ready to join the fleet at the outbreak of war. The modernisation of the ships was expertly done and they had the edge on British battleships in both speed and the range of their main armament, but their guns were only 11-inchers and they were lightly protected. They were not really fit to stand in the line of battle and the Italians placed their hopes of challenging the Allied fleets on the new Littorio-class battleships, of which two were commissioned in the summer of 1940, with two more under construction. These displaced about 40,000 tons and mounted nine 15-inch guns.94 Of Italy’s considerable merchant marine, about a third was caught outside the Mediterranean, leaving about two million tons for war service. Neither warship nor mercantile losses could be easily replaced.95

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

42

All air power was concentrated in the Regia Aeronautica, in the belief that Italy’s central position and her hold on the North African coast would permit her to dominate the skies over most of the Mediterranean. The navy never abandoned its desire for carriers; it was sceptical of the air force’s claim to be able to destroy ships with high-level bombing and appealed in vain for the establishment of a torpedo bomber unit. In fact, ‘The Regia Aeronautica was truly a paper tiger.’96 It was not surprising that the chief of naval staff warned Mussolini of the dire consequences of going to war. The navy’s strategy was defensive, aimed at keeping a fleet in being, partly as a bargaining counter at a peace conference and partly to force the Allies to commit large forces to the Mediterranean, as the Germans desired. Indeed, ‘as the Italian surface fleet grew, the willingness to risk the new ships in battle declined’.97 The navy was disinclined to commit itself to long-term support of the army in North Africa, and, while it regarded Malta as a likely thorn in Italian flesh, it shrank from attacking the island, preferring to encourage the air force to bomb it into passivity. The chief of staff, Admiral Cavagnari, therefore proposed a war of attrition against the enemy’s bases and fleet, waged by bombers, submarines, E-boats and ‘special forces’, with the fleet acting chiefly as a decoy to draw Allied battleships onto minefields and into the paths of submarines and aircraft.98 Cunningham recalled, ‘We never gave a thought to the strength of the Italian fleet…. We were perfectly confident that the fleet we had at Alexandria could deal with them if they chose to give battle.’99 His chief problems were, first, finding the enemy fleet, and then compelling it to stand and fight. If the Italians would not give battle, Pound encouraged him to explore the proposal made in 1935 for a FAA attack on Taranto. Cunningham himself pleaded with the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) to support operations in the Aegean with reconnaissance and anti-shipping squadrons. Mitchell replied that his forces did not possess the strength or the types to do so.100 Pound was also more cautious about testing Italian air and submarine strength, suggesting a bombardment of Libyan targets to establish the extent of the threat before sweeping into the central Mediterranean. He observed, too, that ‘the Mediterranean has become a small place’ and that the passage of even one auxiliary between Alexandria and Malta would require ‘a major operation’.101 Nevertheless, the burden would have to be assumed, as Malta needed five supply ships a month to survive. It was generally agreed, however, ‘The local strength of Italy’s geographic position and the numerical superiority of her air forces…make it necessary for Allied through shipping to be diverted to the Cape route.’102 Cunningham’s nightmares were that the Italians would block the Suez Canal prior to a declaration of war by sinking a merchantman in it and that they would seize the strategic island of Crete, thus assuring themselves of a defended supply line to the Dodecanese and the Dardanelles and a base from which to interdict British communications with Malta and Turkey He reminded the COS, If Crete is in neutral hands, the Island will be a constant menace to us unless we are soundly assured that the Greeks have the power in terms of men and material and the will to hold the place against attack…. The important factor is time since we must at all costs forestall an Italian occupation.

The finest appointment

43

He urged a pre-emptive Anglo-French expedition: ‘As we might get no warning of Italian landing the only sure way of forestalling Italians is to send force beforehand.’103 Allied possession of Crete would do much to secure Malta, whose ‘geographical position would be ideal for the control of sea communications, but for the threat of air attack’.104 In fact, the Allied situation in the Mediterranean had not improved since Munich, when it was stated, ‘The outstanding impression left on the Admiralty, from the strategic point of view, by the recent emergency, is the weakness of our position in the Eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea and Middle East.’ Not only was Malta still considered unusable as a fleet base but it was also ‘strategically unsound to base the Fleet at Alexandria’.105 Furthermore, as Pound had told the Admiralty, neither the army nor the air force could undertake an invasion of Libya and the onus of maintaining the British position in the Middle East lay chiefly on the fleet.106 With these concerns in the forefront of his mind and with the knowledge that the French collapse might lead to her defection from the looming conflict in the Mediterranean, Cunningham settled down to wait for Mussolini to declare his hand; when he did so, Cunningham proposed to test out enemy strength and resolve and to establish a moral ascendancy.107

6 Mussolini’s War

June–December 1940 ‘On this tenth day of June, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor’, declared President Roosevelt.1 How to combat Italy alone was a conundrum suddenly thrust upon a British government born in crisis and now under siege from the formidable German war machine. The British hoped that even if metropolitan France was occupied, the French would fight on from North Africa and other colonial territories. Initially, the French naval and air forces bombarded Italian ports, while Godfroy’s squadron at Alexandria conducted a sweep into the Aegean and joined British forces in a bombardment of Bardia. As late as 15 June, Cunningham reported that ‘the French Admiral here is full of fight’, and the Admiralty endorsed another joint operation, a bold sally into the central Mediterranean, on 21 June.2 However, a few hours later, with the French involved in armistice negotiations with Germany and Italy, the Admiralty signalled, ‘Defer proposed operation.’3 By 24 June, France had signed armistices with Germany and Italy. During the uncertainty preceding the armistices, Cunningham informed Pound that Godfroy had ‘faded out’ and now ‘I fear there is little to be saved from the wreck here’.4 The British were determined that the French fleet should not pass into Axis hands but they hoped that should the war turn in the Allies’ favour, or Axis treatment of France become intolerable, the ships would fight alongside the Royal Navy again. However, most French leaders believed that Britain would not long survive the Axis onslaught. Secondly, most French people, including the personnel at Alexandria, had placed their faith in Marshal Pétain’s new government. Thirdly, the naval terms of the agreement, while leaving the fleet under Vichy control, provided for the return of all units to metropolitan ports, though they were permitted to remain temporarily in colonial harbours. Darlan had assured Churchill and Pound repeatedly that the fleet would not be permitted to fall into Axis hands but Churchill was adamant that on an issue ‘so vital to the safety of the whole British Empire we couldn’t afford to rely on the word of Admiral Darlan’.5 He might be unable to prevent a sudden Axis descent on units at home and abroad. Furthermore, it would be possible to raise scuttled ships. The British were convinced that Mussolini and Hitler would break their words when it suited them to do so, and since the French fleet was the next largest in Europe, with many fine modern units, in enemy hands it could swing the naval balance clearly in favour of the Axis.6

Mussolini's war

45

Churchill and Pound were now anxious to settle the issue. The British Government was concerned to demonstrate to neutral powers, notably the United States, the nation’s determination to pursue total war. Pound’s initial proposals were to persuade the French to continue the fight, or alternatively to seize or sink their ships. While the fate of the French fleet was uncertain, substantial Mediterranean fleet operations were impossible. Vichy ordered Godfroy to sail for Beirut, but, recognising that Cunningham would not permit this, Godfroy offered to discharge fuel, enabling Cunningham to resume fleet operations without having to worry about a French break out in his absence. In return, Godfroy sought Cunningham’s assurance that the British would not attempt to seize his ships. Cunningham believed that, eventually, most French sailors would seek repatriation.7 He counselled that ‘more can be done by friendly negotiations than by threatening forcible measures’.8 By 30 June, however, the Admiralty was set on the seizure of French vessels in British-controlled ports. Alarmed by this inflexible and potentially bloody policy, Cunningham reiterated, ‘I am most strongly opposed to proposal for forcible seizure of ships.’9 He reminded Pound of the local circumstances. The French were safer in Alexandria from an enemy coup de main than almost anywhere else. Should the British attempt seizure, the French would scuttle their ships and thus foul much of the harbour. Most importantly, aggressive action would sour relations with French territories in North Africa and the Levant. By early July, the Admiralty line appeared to have softened slightly, as Cunningham was informed that it was desired to acquire the ships without force; should this prove impossible, the vessels must be effectively demilitarised, or, less desirably, sunk at sea.10 Strict orders were received from London on 3 July, with the injunction that it was ‘very important that the operation should be completed during daylight hours today’.11 Godfroy rejected the invitation to continue the fight, as he would be disobeying Vichy orders and infringing the armistice. He was not enamoured of sinking his ships at sea, a decision that Cunningham attributed to Godfroy’s hope that circumstances might change sufficiently for him to resume hostilities. Godfroy warmed to the suggestion he had mooted from the outset—that his ships should be reduced to a care and maintenance basis, which was also the Admiralty’s other option. Cunningham, well aware of Godfroy’s adherence to an unbending code of honour, ‘intimated most tactfully that it was a case of force majeure’ but he was disappointed that Godfroy, after reflection, chose to sink his ships at sea, unless Vichy agreed to demilitarisation. Pending Vichy’s approval of the reduction of crews, Cunningham persuaded Godfroy to continue to discharge fuel and also to remove warheads. Tact, patience, common sense and good will on both sides appeared to have brought about a mutually satisfactory settlement.12 This tentative agreement was effectively derailed by London’s renewed intransigence and by the distressing events at Mers-el-Kébir, where, following prolonged but abortive negotiations between Vice-Admiral Somerville and Admiral Gensoul, Somerville was compelled by his orders, the approach of French reinforcements and the imminence of darkness to open fire on the French fleet at anchor. Considerable damage was inflicted on French capital ships and some 1,300 sailors killed. Somerville viewed his action with the utmost distaste and believed that if another day’s negotiations had been permitted, bloodshed could have been avoided and the French ships would have been demilitarised. Cunningham, who received all the signals sent to and from Somerville, shared his termmate’s opinion, as did most other flag officers.13 However, he recognised that it placed

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

46

his own proposed settlement in jeopardy. Cunningham was placed under further pressure by one of the most crass signals ever dispatched: ‘Do not (Repeat) NOT fail’—a Churchillian intervention of the utmost foolishness.14 It exhibited, said Cunningham later, ‘no comprehension of the explosive atmosphere at Alexandria’.15 Almost concurrently Godfroy informed him that the events at Mers-el-Kébir had altered the situation radically; he suspended the discharge of oil, ordered his ships to raise steam and clear for action, intending to force his way to sea, a policy he knew was suicidal but, in his eyes, the only honourable course left to him. Cunningham reluctantly ordered his ships to prepare for action in harbour and intended to demand the internment or surrender of the French squadron. The Admiralty asked Cunningham somewhat scornfully, ‘What threat do you propose to use?’16 From 0800 to 1500 on 4 July the issue hung in the balance; the possibility of a second but inglorious battle of the Nile was very real. Cunningham informed the Admiralty that he was ‘hoping to sow dissension’ among the French ships’ companies, cutters bearing large notices in French going among the French ships, while British captains, assisted by Captain Aboyneau, the French liaison officer, visited their opposite numbers to persuade them that resistance was useless. Though Cunningham reported ‘situation very tense’ and that it was ‘unwise to force matters’, he acknowledged, ‘I fully realise the vital necessity of an early solution if necessary by force.’17 Fortunately, the tactic of going over Godfroy’s head worked, his captains persuading him to agree to demilitarisation and the early reduction of ships’ companies.18 Pound acknowledged that the situation had been ‘very difficult’ and, expressing his relief at the peaceful solution, paid tribute to Cunningham’s ‘patience and determination’.19 The Cunningham-Godfroy agreement on 4 July provided for the discharge of fuel, demilitarisation and the reduction of ships’ companies by 70 per cent. In return for a French promise not to scuttle their ships, Cunningham affirmed that no attempt would be made to seize them.20 Cunningham recalled, ‘Never in my life have I experienced such a whole-hearted feeling of thankful relief.’21 The bloodless resolution of the riddle of Alexandria was a tribute to Cunningham’s sagacity, shrewd judgement and skilful deployment of persuasion, firmness, cunning and moral courage. Admiral Willis observed that he ‘displayed masterly diplomatic powers’, hitherto unsuspected.22 It was a model of negotiation in that Cunningham recognised the gravity of the situation, its long-term implications, the lack of room for manoeuvre afforded by his instructions on the one hand and Godfroy’s intense loyalty to Pétain’s government on the other. Praise must also be given to Godfroy; he sought to avoid any inconvenience to Cunningham and to avert bloodshed. The less said about bulldog blundering in London the better. While the personnel of his squadron maintained a ‘sullen correctness’, Godfroy himself retained his warmth for his late allies, commiserating with Cunningham on his frequent and substantial losses and rejoicing in his many triumphs. Even when British and Free French forces attacked Vichy Lebanon in the summer of 1941, Godfroy remained calm and courteous.23 The legacy of Mers-el-Kébir was, however, bitter and long-lasting and led to more than two years’ friction. Vichy’s entry on the Axis side would probably make the Mediterranean untenable for the fleet; even hostile neutrality, which became the norm, was awkward.24 It was likely that Fascist Spain would enter the war. Even more alarming was the prospect of the Soviet Union, having made a favourable pact with Hitler,

Mussolini's war

47

sweeping down upon the Balkans and the Middle East. It was quite possible, too, that Japan might seize eastern colonies, which would raise once again the issue of the Mediterranean Fleet being sent to Singapore. Among Britain’s supposed friends in the Mediterranean, Greece was understandably anxious not to provoke Mussolini, while Admiral Kelly in Ankara reported that the Turks had to consider a possible Russian attempt on the Dardanelles. A ‘benevolent non-belligerency’ was the best Britain could expect from Ankara.25 It was not surprising that Pound recommended that the Mediterranean should be abandoned temporarily, as had happened in 1796. The strategic consensus was that the retention of the British position there was not vital to the survival of Britain or the Empire. Pound raised with Cunningham the possibility of moving the fleet to Gibraltar, leaving only light forces in the eastern basin; should Italy overrun Egypt, the Suez Canal would be blocked.26 This seemed to Cunningham the counsel of utmost despair. ‘This withdrawal’, he replied, ‘would involve such a landslide in territory and prestige’ that the historic British position would be destroyed. India would be exposed to invasion from the north and the west, while ‘the Moslems would regard it as surrender’. Turkey would be alienated and ‘even the Italians would be stirred to activity’. Malta, Cyprus and Palestine would be lost and the army would be unable to hold Egypt. Cunningham minuted to himself, ‘Are the presence of Warspite, Malaya, five cruisers and two flotillas in the North Atlantic worth the complete abandonment of the Eastern Mediterranean and making a gift of it to the Italians?’ He was confident that a small, balanced force stationed at Gibraltar and co-ordinating its operations with the Mediterranean Fleet’s could prevent a break-out into the Atlantic and hold the Italian Navy in check inside the middle sea.27 Churchill also vetoed any withdrawal from the Mediterranean and looked instead to an early reinforcement.28 He believed that offensive measures should be taken against Italy. ‘It is of high importance’, declared the Prime Minister, ‘to strike at the Italians this autumn because as time passes the Germans will be more likely to lay strong hands on the Italian war machine and then the picture will be very different.’29 Churchill also continued to hold faith in a Balkan alliance, though there was little prospect of those countries entering the conflict unless they were attacked. As important as material reasons for launching an offensive in the Mediterranean was the psychological need for good cheer at home.30 The Cs-in-C in the Middle East corresponded with the COS about reinforcements. Malta had become crucially important as a base for light naval forces and a staging post for aircraft flying to Egypt and so the COS moved quickly to order fighters and AA guns to be sent there, despite the grave shortages at home, in the midst of the Battle of Britain. ‘The defence of Egypt was vitally affected by the security of Malta’, noted the COS, especially if Malta could pose a significant threat to Italian convoys to Libya.31 Crete pressed even more heavily on Cunningham’s mind in the first few months of the war. Thus the fleet’s first sortie was to the central Mediterranean, to sweep for Italian forces, test the threat of bombers and submarines, and deter a descent on Malta, while Godfroy’s squadron was to pass through the Kaso Strait into the Aegean; a further force raided the Libyan coastline and another detachment headed for Crete ‘to counter Italian action as it develops’.32 A second operation was planned to land British and French troops on Crete in a matter of hours should Italy make war on Greece or attempt to seize

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

48

Crete. From the outbreak of war on 10 June until the Italian ultimatum to Greece on 28 October, hostilities took the form of skirmishes on land and at sea, each side probing the other and neither enjoying the power to adopt a thoroughgoing offensive. On the first sweep, an elderly light cruiser, Calypso, not really fit for fleet service, was sunk by a skilful Italian submarine attack. Equally deficient was RAF long-range reconnaissance, the lack of which enabled the Italian cruiser Garibaldi to escape interception and permitted a squadron of heavy cruisers to evade Cunningham’s forces. Eagle’s limited resources had to provide not only for scouting but also for anti-submarine (A/S) surveillance and a strike force. The fleet had to return to Alexandria to refuel after a couple of days at sea, thus permitting the Italians three days of freedom to pass convoys to Libya. The initiatives taken by Pound to develop refuelling at sea seem to have fizzled out and Malta was judged too vulnerable to air attack to enable the fleet to loiter there. Cunningham therefore pressed once more for a base in Greek territory, preferably Suda Bay in Crete. Given that the enemy had not obliged him, that he had lost a cruiser (possibly through faulty screening), that he could show his face off Italy’s front door only randomly and briefly, and that the shore-based reconnaissance had been virtually nonexistent, Cunningham felt considerable dissatisfaction with his first foray, though it had the advantage of working up the hastily assembled fleet.33 Cunningham also sought to keep the approaches to Alexandria clear of mines and submarines by frequent sweeps and to maintain a high degree of AA readiness in harbour—highly necessary in view of the weakness of land and air defences. As to keeping up offensive pressure, little could be done—three Swordfish ‘at immediate notice at Dekheila’, and a handful of ageing, noisy and unwieldy submarines, compelled to operate from Alexandria, plus a couple of submarine-minelayers, which sank almost nothing but lost several boats.34 Italian skill, persistence, good hydrophones and deep mining enabled them to deter British boats from coastal waters.35 Given the absence of light forces and an air striking capability based on Malta, submarines were the only constant offensive force, but they could not halt Italian traffic to North Africa unaided, even when reinforced by more modern boats better suited to Mediterranean conditions and often experienced in war patrols at home, or when assisted by the gradual relaxation of operational restrictions, for which Cunningham pressed on several occasions. Virtually everything the Italians sent to Libya in 1940 (690,000 tons of supplies and thousands of troops) arrived.36 The build-up of Italian land and air forces heralded an assault on Egypt, weakly defended. Both Cunningham and Churchill were alarmed at the approach of Italian forces to Alexandria and the Canal. Churchill resolved to supply more aircraft and armour. Though Cunningham welcomed the despatch of Hurricanes and AA batteries to defend Alexandria, he was even more concerned to boost the defences of Malta. The immediate priority was to bolster the morale of the inhabitants. Cunningham hoped, too, to restore Malta as the principal fleet base in the spring of 1941. ‘The rendering safe of Malta is the key to our Mediterranean strategy’, he affirmed.37 It was desired to operate torpedo bombers, long-range reconnaissance machines, submarines and light forces to savage Italian communications with Libya and stall Graziani’s invasion of Egypt. Cunningham maintained the pressure for Malta’s full allocation of fighters and guns, telling Pound, ‘I am sure that the provision of aircraft for Malta would make all the difference to our operations both in the Eastern and Western Mediterranean.’38 In time, the newly-

Mussolini's war

49

constituted and well-balanced Force H under Somerville, operating from Gibraltar, conducted a number of ‘club runs’ to fly off fighters for Malta.39 Fortunately, the Prime Minister took the same line, telling the COS that ‘we must regard the air defence of Malta as of the very first priority’.40 However, Malta also needed food, fuel and other supplies on a regular basis, implying convoys from Alexandria every two months, later stepped up to twice monthly and involving major fleet operations. Cunningham also called for a powerful force of cruisers and destroyers to be employed on the Libyan convoy routes once Malta’s defences were strong enough. His constant pleading for Suda Bay would have been unnecessary had Malta been usable for refuelling, submarines and light forces. ‘Was there ever such folly’, he lamented, ‘as to allow our Mediterranean fortress to fall into such a state?’41 Alexandria was in desperate need of coastal patrol vessels, minesweepers and adequate AA and fighter defences. Protection against the regular air raids had to be improvised; particularly difficult to deal with were the low-level torpedo attacks, delivered at dusk, and kites and baffles were rigged up. The dockyard was short of facilities and skilled labour and ships had to be docked in moonless periods to avoid bombing. What alarmed Cunningham most of all was the army’s encouragement of an advance to Mersa Matruh, where Wavell hoped to give the invaders a bloody nose from his prepared defences. However, Cunningham and Longmore pointed out that yielding territory brought enemy bombers much closer to vital targets in Egypt and might force the fleet to abandon the Mediterranean.42 Cyprus, Port Said, Suez and the Canal were almost equally defenceless but the most vulnerable of all was Haifa, terminal of the Middle East pipeline and the fleet’s source of fuel. After serious damage had been inflicted, four Hurricanes and a radar set were sent from Egypt.43 The war brought with it ceaseless convoy obligations, often of single vessels, to Greece, Turkey and Palestine, and through the Canal and into the Red Sea. The intricate convoy system placed a substantial burden on Cunningham’s notoriously small staff. Even more disturbing was the shortage of suitable escort vessels, which meant that the fleet’s limited destroyer force, already hard worked, had to be employed on slow convoys, leaving insufficient destroyers for the fleet screen.44 After dark on 7 July, the fleet steamed westward in support of convoys from Malta, one fast, one slow. It was hoped also to carry out a bombardment and carrier air strike against targets on the Sicilian coast. Cunningham assembled his strongest force— Warspite, Malaya, Royal Sovereign, Eagle, five light cruisers and 17 destroyers. He was hoping to meet the enemy fleet and on this occasion submarine and air reconnaissance served him well, for early the next morning reports reached him of Italian heavy forces steaming south, distant cover for a Libyan convoy, and air contact was maintained with the enemy until early on 9 July. Cunningham’s appreciation of the situation benefited greatly not only from the accurate reports transmitted promptly to him but also by radio intercepts deciphered by means of captured Italian code books and by the almost ceaseless and heavy high-level bombing attacks to which the fleet was subjected, suggesting to him that the Italians ‘had some special reason for wishing to keep us out of the Central Mediterranean’.45 It was the fleet’s first experience of the vaunted Regia Aeronautica and though only the cruiser Gloucester was hit the ordeal was extremely frightening and wearing for ships’ companies, who for the most part had not undergone such attacks. Commander Geoffrey Barnard declared himself ‘Very frightened after 24

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

50

bombs in one crump’ and the fleet felt very exposed since its AA fire proved very ineffective and the Eagle’s three Sea Gladiator fighters did not enjoy success until the return voyage.46 However, Cunningham was determined to contest control of the central Mediterranean and at 0600 on 9 July he ordered a concentration of his forces. Tovey’s cruisers pressed ahead, supported by Warspite several miles astern, with the remaining forces some 16 miles from the van. Eagle flew off searches to supplement those of the Malta Sunder-lands; these aircraft reported two enemy battleships, 10 cruisers and 18 destroyers. At about 0800 hours the enemy was 145 miles to the south-west and Cunningham’s plan was very simple—to work round to the northward and to cut off the enemy from his base at Taranto. In view of the enemy’s edge in speed, Eagle was ordered to fly off a strike at 1115 but the Italians turned south unobserved and the Swordfish failed to make contact. They found a force of cruisers but their attacks proved abortive. Fortunately the enemy swung round to the north again and seemed intent on seeking battle.47 The conditions were favourable for an engagement, for visibility was 15–20 miles and the sea slight. Shortly after 1500, Neptune reported sighting two battleships distant 15 miles, almost due west and steering north. Cunningham’s sense of history led him to observe that Neptune ‘was the first British warship to signal “Enemy battle fleet in sight” in the Mediterranean since the time of Nelson’.48 A brief exchange of fire between cruisers took place at ranges well over 20,000 yards and in which Warspite, supporting the 7th Cruiser Squadron in lieu of 8-inch ships, also engaged. The enemy turned away under smoke but intermittent firing took place until at 1553 Warspite exchanged fire with the two Cavours, the duel taking place at about 26,000 yards. The Italian ships were reasonably accurate but suffered from a large spread of shot. Warspite also straddled her target and at 1600 was seen to cause ‘a great orange-coloured flash’ at the base of the fore funnel of the Italian flagship Giulio Cesare.49 The Italians promptly turned for home behind a smokescreen and mounted somewhat tentative torpedo attacks, interspersed with occasional cruiser gunfire. By 1640, however, even this skirmishing was over. A little splinter damage was suffered by Neptune, while the Bolzano appears to have taken three 6-inch shells and Stuart may also have hit an Italian destroyer. Eagle’s second air strike, launched at 1545, again failed to locate the enemy battleships and once more attacked a heavy cruiser but without success. The ‘Battle’ of Calabria was over within two hours; it was really no more than a series of long-range gunnery duels and several inconclusive destroyer scraps, punctuated by the very different aerial attacks of the two sides.50 Cunningham called off the pursuit of the fleeing Italians as the enemy was attempting to lure him through a smokescreen on to a massed torpedo attack, a line of submarines, possibly a mine barrage, and certainly a resumption of heavy air attacks. Moreover, Cunningham could not slow down the enemy before he reached Messina, despite having ventured to within 25 miles of the Italian coast. The odds against inflicting further damage on the Italian fleet without sustaining unjustifiable losses to his own forces were too long, and he was wise to claim ‘a certain degree of moral ascendancy’ and wait for a more favourable opportunity and especially more effective carrier strikes.51 The Italians bombed the Mediterranean Fleet practically all the way home; it is estimated that over 400 aircraft took part in over 60 attacks, releasing some 2,000 bombs.52 The most significant hit, however, was scored by the British and the encounter was more of a morale booster to them. Campioni’s inclination to make a fight of it was frustrated by

Mussolini's war

51

firm control from Rome and when his flagship was damaged he had little option but to turn for home. The two battleships were the only ones in commission and discretion was, rightly, the better part of valour.53 Cunningham’s second sortie left him as dissatisfied as did the first one. He had not been able to compel the Italians to stand and fight, largely because Eagle’s two air strikes had failed to locate the enemy battleships and had been unable to hit heavy cruisers manoeuvring at 20-odd knots. This was due to lack of practice but the Swordfish were also too slow to trouble high-speed enemies unduly and the strikes flown off, of no more than nine aircraft, were far too small. Otherwise, Eagle’s performance in mounting several torpedo strikes, providing constant A/S patrols and reconnaissance and even flying a small fighter cover earned unstinting praise from Cunningham. Malaya could not match the range and Royal Sovereign (best speed 18 knots) never got into action. Little wonder, then, that he told Pound, ‘I must have one more ship that can shoot at a good range.’54 The Italians had fought with almost the whole of their cruiser strength, which included seven 8-inch ships, and Tovey’s cruisers were greatly outnumbered and outranged, so Cunningham pleaded also for York and Exeter. They were hardly the complete answer, mounting only six 8-inch, but they had a much lower profile than the ‘County’ ships.55 Cunningham declared, ‘I do not think we need expect anything very dashing from the Italian Fleet…but I doubt if we can tackle the Air Force as well.’56 He took up Pound’s earlier offer of the new armoured carrier Illustrious, as ‘we want some fighters badly’. He reiterated also his previous request for AA cruisers and convoy sloops. ‘Our position in the Middle East depends almost entirely on the fleet and I want to keep it active and able to go anywhere with moderate security’, he concluded.57 Nevertheless, despite his evident frustration, ‘ABC enjoyed himself like a schoolboy’ at Calabria.58 Of the other naval exchanges in 1940, the most notable was the sinking of the light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni by the Australian cruiser Sydney on 19 July. She was providing distant cover for destroyers on an anti-submarine sweep off Crete when they were pursued by the Colleoni and her sister Bande Nere. Captain Collins, who did not know whether the cruisers were 6-inch or 8-inch vessels, did not hesitate to close the enemy. Good shooting by the Sydney brought the Colleoni to a halt but the Bande Nere, despite taking severe punishment, escaped. Collins had been given ample scope for initiative by Cunningham, whose ‘operational orders were brief and it was not unusual to proceed to sea with only verbal instructions’.59 Cunningham praised Collins’s ‘quick appreciation of the situation, offensive spirit and resolute handling’ of Sydney.60 One wonders what Cunningham would have said had two British light cruisers run from a sixinch ship and five destroyers. A huge expenditure of ammunition was required by the 7th Cruiser Squadron to sink the destroyer Espero on 28 June.61 Much more rewarding was Ajax’s night encounter with three Italian destroyers on 12 October, during which two were sunk and a third damaged so badly that she was finished off on the following morning.62 Several Italian submarines were sunk during this period and the FAA despatched three destroyers and several auxiliaries. Apart from sinking several British submarines and Calypso, the Italians’ only successes came with serious damage to Liverpool and Kent by the Regia Aeronautica’s newly formed torpedo bomber unit.63 Cunningham’s appreciation of the situation was that ‘the Italian Fleet will not go far from its bases’ but he had to be prepared for a similar action to Calabria.64 Equipped with

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

52

the new eight-gun Fulmar fighters, Illustrious would provide protection against bombers and reconnaissance planes, an urgent requirement as ‘the sailors, specially those in the destroyers, look a bit askance at going to sea knowing they will be bombed for two or three days running’.65 Her high speed and greater radius of action would enable blows to be struck at distant targets. Given continued strengthening of Malta’s defences and increased long-range air reconnaissance, ‘I consider that with forces proposed the Mediterranean can be dominated, and Eastern Mediterranean held indefinitely.’66 Welcome as Illustrious, the modernised battleship Valiant, and the AA cruisers Calcutta and Coventry were, Cunningham told Blake, ‘I must get some more destroyers or our operations will come to a standstill,’ and he lobbied also for cruisers ‘to maintain pressure in the Aegean’.67 Churchill urged that military and air supplies should be sent through the Mediterranean in company with naval reinforcements. Pound, Wavell and Cunningham felt that to saddle the reinforcements with a 16-knot convoy would subject them to unjustifiable bombing risk and lead to the loss of the aircraft and tanks. The Middle East Cs-in-C preferred certain delivery at the cost of the three weeks’ delay imposed by the Cape route, but they had a titanic battle with the Prime Minister.68 Churchill was scornful of the Admiralty’s opposition to taking two fast merchant (MT) ships through the Mediterranean and Pound compromised by proposing to hold the merchantmen at Gibraltar and sail them through the danger zone if the military situation was desperate. In the event, they went round the Cape but the safe arrival of the naval reinforcements prompted the Prime Minister to remark that ‘an exaggerated fear of Italian aircraft has been allowed to hamper operations’.69 ‘Hats’ was indeed a triumph. The reinforcements, escorted by Force H, left Gibraltar on 30 August. Almost at once the value of radar and carrier-borne fighters became evident. As Somerville reported, ‘surprise attack without prior RDF warning was most unlikely’ and this ‘gave a feeling of confidence to the fleet’.70 Shadowers were tumbled from the sky before they had time to report the fleet’s position. The reinforcements, accompanied by eight destroyers, left Force H in the Skerki Channel. Cunningham had set off from Alexandria on 30 August also, a little after a convoy for Malta. Both Force H and the Mediterranean Fleet made feints and transmitted false information. The Italian fleet made a brief and distant sortie. Reported at 1813 on 30 August, the enemy was 120 miles to the north. Reluctantly, Cunningham decided that he could not launch an air strike nor be sure of engaging the enemy in the dark; on the other hand, the enemy might pounce on the lightly protected convoy, and Cunningham therefore positioned his fleet to cover it. The Italians were not located again until 1600 on the following day, when they were close to home. Few air attacks developed. More significantly, Cunningham made immediate use of his strengthened forces to strike the Italians at several points. Two destroyers bombarded Scarpanto, cruisers shelled other places and aircraft from the two carriers attacked airfields on Rhodes. Further Italian air raids were roughly handled by the Fulmars and RAF attacks on Libyan airfields reduced the enemy’s sorties.71 Cunningham appreciated particularly the arrival of Rear-Admiral Lumley Lyster, an experienced and knowledgeable student of naval aviation, as Rear-Admiral (Air), as he took over the task of organising, training and directing the FAA in the Mediterranean. Other changes included the regrouping of all the cruisers and destroyers under Tovey as Vice-Admiral, Light Forces, though he departed in October to assume command of the

Mussolini's war

53

Home Fleet, to be succeeded by Acting Vice-Admiral Pridham-Wippell, like Tovey a former destroyer officer, known to Cunningham since Dardanelles days. Rear-Admiral Renouf commanded the cruisers and another former destroyer man known to Cunningham, the newly-promoted Rear-Admiral Bernard Rawlings, led the battle squadron.72 The Mediterranean Station was a vast undertaking, with over 25,000 men under Cunningham’s command. Their welfare was a major concern and he complained to the Admiralty about poor mail deliveries, visited ships and hospitals frequently and, after he had prised the Residency from Lampson’s grip, turned it into a convalescent centre for officers as well as his home. It had a fine garden, much to the Cunninghams’ delight, and was also home to two of his nieces, the younger of whom, Hilda, was now married to Cunningham’s Flag Lieutenant, Walter Starkie. They joined Lady Cunningham in a variety of war work.73 During the autumn of 1940 the complicated network of convoys continued to operate with little hindrance, save frequent bombing in the Aegean, a nuisance dealt with to some extent by the AA cruisers. Most importantly, Malta was sustained on a regular basis. The demands of convoying limited fleet operations and led to excessive wear and tear on destroyers; by mid-September, only 12 of the 22 were fit for service. Cunningham appealed once again for escort vessels and was promised the battleship Barham, the cruiser Ajax and four destroyers. A third battleship was necessary as the Italians would shortly have six capital ships in service. Even with them, Cunningham was compelled to ensure every fleet operation served several purposes, covering convoys and bombing and bombarding Italian targets, as well as sweeping the Aegean and Adriatic.74 Italian submarines and blockade runners still supplied the Dodecanese, though shortages were occurring. Regular convoys to Libya were instituted following the French armistice, though the Italians, too, suffered from a shortage of escort craft. The Italian fleet was confined to the support of convoys and ordered to remain within shore-based air cover. The need to conserve fuel, rigid control from Rome, a tendency to over-estimate British strength, shortages of ammunition, perceived shortcomings in gunnery and the failure to ensure effective air reconnaissance combined to make it timid. Most importantly, ‘Forcing it to sea against an enemy well versed and properly equipped in the requirements of aero-naval warfare amounted to little more than suicide.’75 Cunningham was well aware of the constraints on the Italians. Naval intelligence had learned that ‘Italian Naval forces should not engage in major actions with large Naval forces of the enemy, since one or more unfavourable results…would altogether destroy the Naval power of Italy’.76 On 30 September, an Italian force of five battleships and a large number of cruisers and destroyers had been located in the Ionian Sea, 100 miles northwest of the Mediterranean Fleet, consisting of only two battleships, a carrier, three cruisers and 11 destroyers. The Italians were well aware of the British but avoided action. ‘After this episode, the impression that they had no serious intention of fighting a Fleet action, whatever their superiority, became a conviction.’77 Furthermore, the Italian air force had proved more of a nuisance than a danger, though Cunningham complained that the fleet ‘can’t move without our movements being known’.78 Already short of modern reconnaissance machines, the arrival of carrier fighters led to alarming casualties among these obsolescent planes. The bombers, too, were often forced to unload short of the target by the Fulmars; fleet barrages and cruising formations improved, and ships learnt that they had 30 seconds to manoeuvre after a bomb was dropped. Furthermore, Italian

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

54

bomb-sights and bombs were defective. High-level bombers were more effective in attacks against shore targets, mainly at night, dropping mines off Malta and in the Suez Canal and attacking Alexandria, Cyprus and Haifa. Malta was subjected to the heaviest and most frequent raids, often several a day.79 Cunningham therefore warned Pound that ‘we all have an anxious three months ahead of us’.80 He was particularly keen to obtain some long-range fighters and even more concerned to boost the reconnaissance force. ‘We should be able to quarter this end of the Mediterranean and not a thing should move without our knowing it’, he declared.81 Nevertheless, despite the slim resources at Longmore’s command, Cunningham found him ‘excellent to deal with’ and there were several instances of effective collaboration.82 A FAA attack on Tobruk on 5 July was a great success ‘largely due to excellent RAF cooperation’.83 The fleet’s bombardment of Bardia on 16 August was successfully covered by fleet and RAF fighters.84 Co-operation with the army was less easy, largely because it was on the defensive but also because Wavell did not seem to realise how helpful the fleet could be on the seaward flank—Cunningham had to press proposals for bombardment on his colleague—but the almost nightly shelling conducted by the monitor Terror, gunboats and destroyers, assisted by accurate night bombing by Swordfish flights, forced the Italians to disperse their motor transport and supply dumps. Graziani began a desultory advance into Egypt on 13 September and Wavell, though harrying the Italians, wished them to come up against the defences at Mersa Matruh.85 The invasion prompted the three senior officers to set up a Middle East Cs-in-C Committee. Though Cunningham felt that this worked harmoniously, Wavell and Longmore pressed him, unavailingly, to move to Cairo, Cunningham asserting that ‘tradition and…necessity demanded that the Commander-in-Chief should be in his flagship’, an increasingly anachronistic concept.86 He felt that the weekly conferences of the commanders were quite sufficient. Moreover, Captain H.G.Norman, an extremely able officer who had attended the IDC, acted as his liaison officer and naval member of the joint planning committee.87 The exploratory phase of the war ended with the Italian invasion of Greece on 28 October. Cunningham immediately developed Suda Bay as a refuelling base, though he lacked the booms, guns and other equipment to defend it properly and the fleet was unable to use it as an anchorage. Suda was subject to heavy and frequent air raids, in one of which Glasgow was severely damaged. Nevertheless, he was able to report on 21 November that Suda Bay ‘has already proved its value’, enabling the fleet to conduct extended operations in the central Mediterranean.88 The entry of Greece meant an increasing amount of war material had to be shipped to Piraeus. However, Greek and British submarines and Swordfish operating from Greek bases were able to score successes against Adriatic traffic.89 Churchill was insistent that a reinforced fleet should take the war to the Italians but the C-in-C made it clear that ‘constant and complete air reconnaissance’ and more destroyers were required before more aggression.90 However, upon his arrival, Lyster revived his plans made in 1935 to launch a carrier attack on Taranto and Cunningham encouraged it. The two carriers could put into the air sufficient fighters to knock down enemy scouts and also mount effective reconnaissance at the same time as preparing a substantial strike force. However, Cunningham required continuous and accurate surveillance of Taranto to

Mussolini's war

55

enable a model of the target to be built, with full information on defences, anchorages and approach runs; this was made possible by the arrival of a flight of Maryland planes at Malta; they had the range and speed to undertake this hazardous duty. A photographic reconnaissance analysis unit at Malta was also a vital part of the jigsaw. It was crucial to ensure an unseen approach. New long-range tanks enabled the strike force to fly a 350mile round trip. Aircrew were trained in night attacks on Libyan and Aegean targets.91 The plan was jeopardised by the need for constant monitoring of Taranto and by accidental damage to Illustrious, which led to the postponement of the attack from 21 October to the next suitable moonlit night, 11 November, by which time Eagle was unavail-able through faults probably derived from near-misses by bombs. However, eight crews and five aircraft from Eagle were housed on Illustrious.92 The diversity of objectives in ‘Judgement’ deceived the enemy as to the chief offensive purpose. The fleet covered the passage of reinforcements from home, escorted from Gibraltar by Force H, convoys to Suda Bay and Piraeus, and others to and from Malta, together with the voyage of Terror from Malta to Suda Bay to provide long-range base defence. Cunningham also ordered a raid on traffic in the southern Adriatic. ‘It can therefore be seen that the operation became one of considerable complexity’, observed Cunningham laconically, but his able staff ensured that everything ran with ‘clockwork regularity’. Since Cunningham kept a close watch on the morale of the Maltese, it comes as no surprise to learn that the reinforcements—Barham, Berwick and Glasgow—steamed into Grand Harbour ‘with troops fallen in and bands playing’, much to the delight of the inhabitants.93 The fleet left Alexandria at noon on 6 November, units being detached or joining frequently, while Illustrious’s fighters dealt summarily with shadowers and bombers. In the forenoon of 10 November, Barham’s force joined the fleet, which set course for the mouth of the Adriatic. At 1800 on 11 November, Illustrious, accompanied by the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and four destroyers, slipped away unobserved, Cunningham remaining in a covering position throughout the night. The carrier task force, informed that all six Italian battleships lay at anchor at Taranto, flew off 12 Swordfish at 2035, about 40 miles west of Cephalonia, and the second wave of nine at 2128, leaving them to fly 170 miles north-westward to Taranto. Each force contained torpedo bombers, dive-bombers and flare droppers.94 One aircraft lost its long-range fuel tank and had to return, while others were separated in heavy cloud and thus had to attack independently, one after a delayed start due to damage. Over the target the aircraft met substantial anti-aircraft fire. The six torpedo droppers had to avoid barrage balloons and launch their torpedoes at little above sea level and within the anti-torpedo nets. The torpedoes were fitted with unproven Duplex magnetic pistols and were dropped at ranges from 400 to 1,300 yards. Two hits were registered on the Littorio and another on the Cavour. A flare dropper illuminated the scene and assisted the other planes in bombing ships and an oil depot. The leader’s plane was shot down over the harbour after launching its torpedo but the crew was saved; the remaining planes landed on the carrier before 0200. The second force, reduced to seven, with the damaged aircraft leaving half an hour late, left at 2145 and found the defences thoroughly roused. One aircraft was shot down, the crew being killed, but the other three torpedo planes launched at 7–800 yards and secured a third hit on Littorio and one on Duilio. Two other planes dropped flares and then bombed the oil depot and the final, late,

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

56

aircraft attacked cruisers and destroyers. A seaplane hangar was destroyed but most of the bombs aimed at the warships failed to explode. The seven surviving planes landed on by 0250. The task force rejoined the fleet at 0700 on 12 November.95 In the meantime, Pridham-Wippell, with four cruisers and two destroyers had entered the Otranto Straits and had sunk four merchant vessels and damaged an escort. During the following day, Cunningham remained in position to carry out another attack on Taranto but worsening weather forced its abandonment.96 The fleet reached Alexandria without the Italians being able to lay a finger on it. The whole operation had been a remarkable demonstration of the flexibility and long reach of sea power and the range of contributions it made to the war. The crippling of half the Italian battle fleet was of infinite value. Not only did it severely depress Italian morale, it forced the abandonment of Taranto as a main base, though Naples, to which the survivors fled, was then visited by Wellingtons from Malta. The ships went north to Spezia, from which they were unable to interfere with the burgeoning traffic to Greece and were gravely hampered in providing cover to Libyan convoys. Cunningham was able to send home Malaya and Ramillies, thus reducing pressure on destroyers. He noted that ‘this successful attack has greatly increased our freedom of movement in the Mediterranean and has thus strengthened our control over the central area of the sea’.97 Taranto was also the first major British offensive success of the war and it gave home morale an enormous and much-needed boost. More significantly, Cunningham wrote that it ‘should be remembered for ever as having shown once and for all that in the Fleet Air Arm the Navy has its most devastating weapon’.98 For one who had been regarded as an unbeliever in 1935, it was a Pauline conversion. He paid tribute to the planning of the operation and referred to the ‘determined and gallant’ airmen.99 ‘As an example of “economy of force”’, he concluded, ‘it is probably unsurpassed.’100 ‘Collar’ (23–30 November) was designed to pass Ramillies, Berwick and Newcastle to the west, with outbound and inbound Malta and Aegean convoys and other movements and the passage of Southampton and Manchester eastward with troops, accompanied by three MT ships and four corvettes. Cunningham also intended to hit Italian bases with air attacks and divided the fleet into two task forces. Warspite and Valiant provided cover for an attack by Illustrious on Port Laki airfield on Leros, while Malaya and Ramillies covered Eagle’s raid on Tripoli. Suda Bay was invaluable as a refuelling base and large numbers of personnel and substantial cargoes of war material were transferred to other points in the eastern Mediterranean. On 27 November, the Ramillies force was detached for passage of the Narrows, to join Force H, which had steamed west from Gibraltar, on the western side. Cunningham cruised off Malta, awaiting the ‘Collar’ convoy, which rendezvoused at 0900 on 28 November. Intermittent and light air raids were beaten off without damage and all forces arrived safely at their destinations. For Cunningham’s command the operations had been almost uneventful but Somerville had an inconclusive brush with the Italian fleet off Cape Spartivento.101 Well might Cunningham conclude that ‘our control of the Mediterranean was close on being re-established’.102 Cunningham quickly seized on this freedom. On 16 December, the fleet sailed west as cover for Malta convoys and for Malaya’s passage to Gibraltar, opportunity once more being taken to strike at Italian bases and convoys. The fleet returned home unhindered, save having lost the destroyer Hyperion to a submarine. The attacks, though far from decisive, accompanied by air reconnaissance and surface sweeps, maintained pressure

Mussolini's war

57

and demonstrated once more the immense mobility and reach of the modern fleet.103 Moreover, by November Malta had become ‘a formidable proposition’.104 The promised expansion of AA facilities was nearing completion and a Swordfish squadron and Wellingtons were engaged on regular missions to attack enemy ships and bases. ‘The rendering safe of Malta is the key to our Mediterranean strategy’, affirmed Cunningham.105 The dockyard was operating at full capacity and the people’s morale was high. The crowning moment was Cunningham’s visit in Warspite on 20 and 21 December. The C-in-C entered Grand Harbour to cheering crowds on the heights above and was mobbed on visiting the dockyard. Cunningham was visibly moved by the reception. Not a single Italian plane appeared; Malta ‘had definitely got the measure of the Italian Air Force’.106 Assiduously supported by Longmore’s planes, General O’Connor’s Western Desert Force launched a devastating attack on the vegetating Italian army on 9 December. Cunningham’s forces provided ceaseless support on the seaward flank with air strikes, bombardments and vital supplies.107 In the absence of roads and railways, supply was ‘practically altogether by sea’.108 The strain on light forces was, however, considerable and the further the army advanced the more difficult it was for the navy to keep pace, especially as most of the captured ports were small, ill-developed and often wrecked, nor could they be adequately defended against air attack. The vessels employed were grossly overworked and subject to heavy bombing and sandstorms. Cunningham, bemoaning prewar neglect of combined operations, which meant that suitable craft, doctrine and organisation had to be hastily improvised, instituted an Inshore Squadron.109 One major benefit of the army’s comprehensive victory was that the RAF gained airfields from which it could cover convoys to Malta and the supply ships running to front-line ports. The offensive also brought the three Commanders-in-Chief…closer together, and made them realise that success could only be obtained by continual co-ordination and co-operation; that each Service depended on the others; and that the campaign by sea, land and air was really one.110 Wavell, Longmore and Cunningham shared the same strategic vision—securing the Middle Eastern base areas before acting offensively with strong and well-trained forces. The assumption of the offensive by the army and the RAF also ended Cunningham’s role as a freelance fleet commander, though it was some months before he recognised this. The navy henceforth became mainly the enabler of offensives by the other services and essentially a small ship force. The Cs-in-C, Middle East, found themselves having to deal with impractical, often absurd, schemes proposed by Churchill, aided and abetted by some of his less sensible associates, such as Lindemann and Keyes. Lord Keyes, who had retired from the navy in 1934, had ‘intrigued himself into the position of Director of Combined Operations in spite of the protests of the Chiefs of Staff’.111 At the beginning of December, Keyes outlined a proposal to seize Pantelleria, with Churchill’s warm support. As usual, Churchill airily dismissed objections and emphasised ‘the need to show ourselves capable of vehement offensive action’.112 Cunningham pointed out that Keyes’s rank of Admiral of the Fleet would create problems, inoffensive Pantelleria would confer few advantages

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

58

and impose demands and dangers on Cunningham’s over-stretched forces and would be difficult to maintain. In any case, Cunningham considered ‘Mandibles’, a proposal to capture islands in the Aegean, to be strategically much more feasible and urgent. Cunningham felt they were now short of supplies, low on morale and ‘ripe for the plucking’.113 ‘In Spring 1941’, he observed presciently, ‘we may well be faced with a drive South East by Germany’, and therefore it was essential to secure Britain’s communications with Greece and Turkey.114 Churchill insisted on ‘Workshop’ but in a few days the army’s success in North Africa combined with overwhelming logistic and other problems led to Pantelleria’s demise.115 The Mediterranean Fleet had received modern or modernised reinforcements (mostly radar-equipped), including new Dido-class cruisers, ‘J’ and ‘K’-class destroyers, ‘T’ and ‘U’ class submarines, corvettes, landing craft and auxiliaries. The FAA, boosted by Taranto, ‘have the mastery’ of the air over the fleet and Cunningham felt that ‘it will be some time before they [the Italian fleet] face the FAA’.116 However, he was aware that ‘our torpedo bombers can’t hit a fast-moving target’.117 The carriers were also short of modern aircraft, reserve planes and crews. Though Cunningham had established effective operational control of the air units on Malta, he clamoured for shore-based torpedo planes and for adequate reconnaissance. Submarines had begun to operate from Malta again, though the lack of intelligence meant that most of the Libyan convoys reached North Africa unseen. Cunningham was also chronically short of destroyers, minesweepers and coasting craft, and had no fast tanker for supplying Malta and refuelling the fleet at sea. Base defences, especially at Alexandria, were still weak.118 Despite some submarine, anti-submarine, mining, torpedo bomber and reconnaissance successes and the almost unhindered convoys to Libya, the overall Italian position was dire, due in large part to Mussolini’s rashness. He had launched badly planned and underresourced attacks on Greece and Egypt and been repulsed heavily in both places, the Regia Aeronautica was ineffective over the sea, while his fleet had been humiliated at sea and at home. In the wake of Taranto, he made substantial changes in the naval high command. These moves, however, could not disguise the fact that naval morale had collapsed and Cunningham had established a moral ascendancy.119 British forces ended the year with a ‘practically complete command’ over the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean and ‘a large measure of control over the Central Mediterranean’.120 ‘By the end of 1940’, it was stated in the War Diary, ‘we were a fair way to achieving our first object…control of the Mediterranean.’121 This was due largely to Cunningham’s clear-sighted, resolute, decisive and bold leadership. He had an instinctive sense of the possibilities and how far he could rely on his own self-confidence, bolstered by his unrivalled knowledge of the Mediterranean and outstanding skills as a seaman. He had a sound grasp of the strategic priorities, a harmonious and fruitful relationship with the other services, the firm support of Pound, the confidence of his fleet, and a Nelsonian sense of what was required to maintain morale and fighting efficiency. If for Britain, 1940 had been an annus horribilis, in the Mediterranean it had turned out to be an annus mirabilis.

7 Triumph into Tragedy

January–May 1941 By February, the Western Desert Force had reached E1 Agheila, an advance of over 500 miles. ‘By pressing on’, reflected the War Diary, ‘we might have made ourselves masters of the North African coast as far as Tunisia; had this been possible, we should have been saved much subsequent difficulty.’1 The Italians were expelled from East Africa by Cunningham’s brother Alan and the Greeks had forced them into Albania. The Italian population was ‘sceptical and indifferent’. By the end of 1940, Mussolini was imploring Hitler for help. Hitler needed to secure his southern flank before invading Russia but overall he had little interest in the Mediterranean. However, planes were sent to Sicily and Rommel prepared the Afrika Korps.2 Early in January, ‘Excess’, a convoy of three ships for Piraeus (and one for Malta), was sailed through the Mediterranean. The new light cruiser Bonaventure and three destroyers were to join Cunningham. Force H and the Mediterranean Fleet set out from Gibraltar and Alexandria respectively on 7 January 1941. Cunningham escorted two merchantmen to Malta and an oiler to Suda Bay, while shepherding other ships returning from Malta and sweeping for Italian shipping. ‘The whole operation’, Cunningham recounted, ‘was rather more intricate than usual, with of course, every movement and alteration of course prearranged and carefully synchronised.’3 The real excitement began on the morning of 10 January, when the cruisers and destroyers escorting the main convoy engaged two Italian torpedo boats, sinking one. Less than half an hour later, Gallant, part of the battle fleet’s screen, had her bows blown off by a mine but was towed to Malta under escort. Early in the afternoon, Illustrious’s combat air patrol was drawn down to sea level by the approach of two torpedo planes, which missed. The main act was a force of 43 German and Italian dive bombers, supported by other bombers and fighters. The carrier scrambled more Fulmars but neither they nor those already airborne could gain enough height to break up the attack. The Stukas dived through a ferocious barrage and, Cunningham recalled, ‘the attacks were pressed home to point-blank range’, adding that ‘we were watching complete experts’.4 In a few minutes Illustrious had been hit by six bombs and suffered a near miss. She left the line ablaze, severely damaged and out of control. She lost over 100 men dead. Three bombs had penetrated her armoured deck and others had fallen into her after lift, which was in use. It took her three hours to regain control and she then made for Malta at 17 knots, supported by the fleet. A second

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

60

attack, by some 20 planes, achieved a further hit but the carrier was able to reach Grand Harbour at 2145, an unmistakable target for her tormentors.5 On the following day, in mid-afternoon, Gloucester and Southampton, rejoining the fleet, were surprised out of the sun by a squadron of German bombers. Both ships were hit. The Gloucester suffered heavy damage to her bridge from an unexploded bomb, but Southampton, struck twice, was quickly ablaze, with 160 casualties. After fruitless attempts to control the fires, she had to be abandoned and sunk by torpedo. There was ample knowledge of dive-bombing and one of Illustrious’s pilots claimed that Lyster and Boyd had been aware that the carrier was to be the target of Stuka attacks during ‘Excess’. They pleaded with Cunningham to keep the ship out of sight but close enough to provide air support. Cunningham refused, arguing that the fleet’s morale would suffer. Illustrious was also down to six fighters, half her normal complement. Cunningham had complained about the shortage of reserve aircrew and fighters. The psychological boost afforded by the carrier’s visible presence is undeniable and her detachment might have been even more risky and required extra escorts. Moreover, it is doubtful if she could have got beyond range. However, radar reports should have allowed the carrier to fly off fighters already ranged on deck in good time to gain height and deal with the second formation; even a couple of Fulmars would have forced the enemy to scatter. The loss of Illustrious undermined control of the central Mediterranean, threatened the supply of Malta, and evened up the naval balance.6 The arrival of Illustrious at Malta coincided with the beginning of the Luftwaffe’s onslaught on the island, adding vastly to Italian bombing. The carrier was the target in the early raids, suffering two hits and several near misses, while the dockyard sustained heavy damage. She got away safely on 23 January. Eagle, prone to defects, lacked adequate protection, fuel, capacity and speed. She was to depart shortly too but fortunately the new carrier Formidable was available, though she could not reach Cunningham before March. Meanwhile, he deployed Illustrious’s aircraft to Malta, experimented with new fleet formations and barrages, improved AA armaments, fitted radar to more ships, kept forces concentrated as much as possible, made more use of darkness and called for additional shore-based fighter cover. Nevertheless, as he, Pound and Somerville recognised, the only effective defence was adequate fleet fighter strength.7 The Luftwaffe’s dramatic arrival ‘is a potent new factor in the Mediterranean war and will undoubtedly deny us free access to the waters surrounding Malta and Sicily which we have previously enjoyed’.8 Ironically, the Axis assault on Malta led to the need for more frequent supplies of oil, fighters and food, while the Germans extended their attacks to the Inshore Squadron and sowed mines in the Suez Canal, closing it for weeks at a time. The Tobruk run proved increasingly costly and the Greek and Cretan campaigns were crippling but Malta remained Cunningham’s major worry. He bemoaned the lack of ‘a really fast tanker’.9 Several convoys were run in successfully and empty vessels brought out but always under heavy air attack and the tone of Cunningham’s communications remained the same: ‘I am really seriously concerned about Malta.’10 Malta’s rising capacity for aggression invited retaliation and it was quite unable to cope with the relentless bombing of the first half of 1941.11 The principal targets were the dockyard, the efficiency of which was reduced to a quarter at times, and the airfields, where many planes were destroyed on the ground. The AA defences were an insufficient

Triumph into tragedy

61

deterrent and the fighter strength fluctuated, dipping as low as eight early in March. Cunningham was incensed to learn that the Admiralty was reluctant to risk carriers in flying in fighters and pointed out that in February only one Hurricane had arrived in the whole theatre.12 Minelaying, coupled with attacks on the handful of sweepers, blocked Grand Harbour at times.13 However, the air forces on Malta had been ‘ordered to bring the maximum effort to bear on the Tripoli route’ and, supported by reconnaissance planes, took an increasing toll of the convoys, along with the new ‘U’-class submarines, which got into their stride in the spring.14 Of 265,000 tons of cargo sent in April and May 1941, 64,000 tons was lost.15 British submarines sank 130,000 tons of shipping in the first six months of 1941, including several tankers, for the loss of just three boats. Aces began to appear— Wanklyn, Linton and Miers, all of whom earned Victoria Crosses (VCs). Cunningham was quick to praise submariners and to call for reinforcements. The submarine campaign benefited greatly from the extension of ‘sink at sight’ zones, which Cunningham had long advocated. Within 12 months, the Italians had lost a third of their mercantile marine and were unable to replace more than a fraction of the losses.16 With improved reconnaissance, the cracking of Italian cyphers and the advent of Ultra intelligence, early in April, Cunningham sent five destroyers under a trusted captain, Philip Mack. Ably directed by Vice-Admiral Ford, Mack dealt the enemy a heavy blow within a week of his arrival. In a spirited and well-fought night action, Mack’s flotilla, well drilled and confident, sank three escorts and five laden cargo vessels for the loss of one destroyer. Cunningham, who guessed the Italians would now provide cruiser escorts, ordered Gloucester to support Mack but Pound pressed for a battleship to be stationed at Malta. Cunningham refused to do so until the air cover had reached a good enough level to compensate for the larger target and the slower speed of Barham. Moreover, when the Admiralty urged him also to station Mountbatten’s newly-arrived 5th Flotilla there, he replied that he was unable to spare so many destroyers from other pressing duties, notably the evacuation from Greece.17 Despite attacks on the convoys and the Libyan coastal routes and the bombing and mining of Tripoli and Benghazi, reducing port capacity drastically, the Italians delivered over 75 per cent of their cargoes, much consisting of Rommel’s forces. Two convoys a week to Tripoli were the norm and later others sailed to Benghazi.18 The importance of Tripoli increased greatly for both sides after Rommel launched his first offensive on 24 March. Thus from 4 April the Admiralty was pressing Cunningham to ensure disruption of supplies to North Africa by concentrating submarine efforts upon it and by considering a bombardment of Tripoli by the battle fleet. Cunningham’s rejection of a bombardment because of the air threat led Pound to suggest the blocking of Tripoli by warships. Cunningham demurred, arguing for continuous air attack by heavy bombers. He acknowledged that uninterrupted German reinforcements would very likely lead to the loss of the whole of Cyrenaica, with a renewed threat to Alexandria, which would probably force the fleet to abandon it. The Air Ministry rejected pleas for long-range bombers. Pound, informing him that 10 more submarines and RAF torpedo bombers were being sent, insisted that the navy should take a more prominent role in putting Tripoli (and Benghazi) out of action, reviving proposals for bombardment and blocking, arguing that the likely benefits would justify the high risks involved.19

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

62

By 15 April, with Rommel on the Egyptian frontier, Cunningham was informed that a blocking and bombardment operation must be undertaken forthwith and that Barham and an old ‘C’-class cruiser were to be used. Cunningham, whose replies were drafted by Royer Dick ‘with the right balance of tact, persuasion and firmness’, explained his objections with patience and clarity.20 The operation was most unlikely to succeed (the history of such operations was a dismal one), there were severe navigational problems and if enemy access to wharves was blocked, cargoes would be unloaded into lighters and pressure exerted on the French to open Tunisian ports. Moreover, Cunningham was aware that the enemy had ample stores ashore to sustain his campaign for some considerable time. The sacrifice of ‘a first-class fighting unit’ would both raise enemy morale and depress that of the fleet, while exposing the note of panic in British strategy.21 Two ships’ companies would be sent to certain death or imprisonment innocent of the reason for their sacrifice.22 However, Churchill insisted that unless every effort was bent on stopping the traffic into Tripoli, ‘the Navy will be considered as having let side down’.23 It was perhaps fortunate for Cunningham’s blood pressure that he did not see Churchill’s astounding message to Pound of 12 April, which charged that …the whole situation in the Nile Valley is compromised by the failure of the Navy to close the passage from Italy to Libya, or to break up the port facilities at Tripoli… We must be prepared to face some losses at sea, instead of the Navy sitting passive. He demanded that the Mediterranean Fleet should ‘smash Tripoli to pieces’.24 A fleet operation would mean denuding the Greek convoys of much of their protection and postponing a vital convoy to Malta. In the light of these commitments, and the timely annihilation of an Italian convoy by Mack’s destroyers, as well as Cunningham’s reluctant offer to conduct instead a bombardment of Tripoli, the First Sea Lord moderated his tone. Cunningham incorporated the bombardment into his plans to relieve Malta, mine Benghazi and bomb airfields in Rhodes.25 Churchill, in a message Cunningham described as ‘the PM’s hot air directive’, adopted a much more unforgiving line, stating that ‘the reputation of the Royal Navy is engaged in stopping this traffic’ and countenancing crippling losses to do so, adding gratuitously that ‘undue fears must not be entertained’ of German dive-bombers.26 Cunningham replied in emollient fashion but wrote in his autobiography that the Admiralty’s message of 15 April was ‘dictated by somebody who appeared to know little of Tripoli, or to have any true realization of our circumstances in the Mediterranean’, intimating that it emanated from Churchill.27 The bombardment of Tripoli was carried out on the night of 21 April, a 45-minute fusillade that did considerable damage to the port but sank only two small merchantmen, a much lower scale of destruction than had been reported. The fleet was extremely fortunate that the Luftwaffe was heavily engaged in the desert and no air attacks were suffered, nor were ships lost on the numerous minefields off Tripoli.28 The dispute with London rumbled on for some time, Cunningham observing ‘I was beginning to feel seriously annoyed’ at this ‘constant advice, not to say interference’.29 Cunningham pointed out, ‘The Fleet has also run considerable and in my opinion unjustifiable risks in this operation which has been at the expense of all other commitments and at a time when these commitments were at their most pressing.’30 Characteristically, Churchill replied

Triumph into tragedy

63

that ‘personally I was not surprised at this immunity’ and ‘I suppose there is no doubt that the blocking plan would in these circumstances have come off’.31 The Prime Minister chided the C-in-C for his strictures on the failure to supply the theatre with adequate air forces. Cunningham replied that ‘no half measures will do. If HMG decided they must ensure we hold the Mediterranean then adequate air forces must be sent out.’32 Cunningham established an Inshore Squadron on 5 January, consisting of Terror, gunboats, destroyers, sloops, minesweepers, auxiliaries, coasters and schooners. They undertook frequent bombardments of enemy positions, including a big ship cannonade of Bardia on 5 January. Naval support was vital as communications were poor. The small ports were of limited capacity, they were often severely damaged and they lacked defences. Cunningham made the best one, Tobruk, the principal terminal for the ‘beef and spud run’ from Alexandria. There was a great strain on the little ships, which had to evade constant bombing and mining, and minesweepers and fighters were in short supply. Cunningham visited Tobruk on 29 January and constantly praised the work of the Inshore Squadron.33 When Rommel attacked in March, it was decided to hold Tobruk to force him into a fruitless siege and to serve as a base for a counter-attack. Cunningham, somewhat rashly, as he admitted, ‘thought he would be able to run ships in when required’, assuming the commitment would be for no more than two months.34 In the event, Tobruk became a millstone round the navy’s neck for seven months. Between 12 April and its relief on 17 November 1941, Tobruk was supplied entirely by sea, an increasingly hazardous endeavour, resulting in the loss of 27 vessels and serious damage to a further 27. The loading wharf at Alexandria was known as ‘execution dock’ or ‘the condemned cell’.35 Mining closed Tobruk at times and the ceaseless bombing forced Cunningham to supply it only at night by the fastest ships. ‘The running in of supplies by destroyers had been reduced to a fine art’, he reported.36 Admiral Sir Walter Cowan, a Commando, wrote of ‘the destroyers creeping in unfailingly, night after night, never a light, hardly a whisper, shooting out all the 40 tons of cargo and soldiers, bundling in the wounded and more soldiers and out again in under the hour’,37 Fighter cover was supplied by the RAF as often as possible and it required five squadrons at times to escort one ship, but often British planes were outnumbered 10 to 1. Fighters had to be withdrawn from Tobruk and reliance placed on AA batteries, which performed with outstanding success, but for the most part Axis aircraft were ‘able to roam at will’.38 As early as December 1940 the COS were addressing the possibility of invading Sicily should Italy show signs of collapse. The Middle East Cs-in-C poured cold water on the scheme, preferring to consolidate the position in North and East Africa and Greece.39 However, Cunningham proposed to use commandos in seizing Dodecanese islands (‘Mandibles’). This would take advantage of privation and low morale, secure the sea lanes to Greece and Turkey, deny airfields to the enemy and enable the RAF to mount attacks against Italian air power on other islands. The first phase was to be the seizure of the tiny island of Kastelorizo, 80 miles south of Rhodes and just off the Turkish coast. Cunningham was particularly anxious to hit back at the Italian bombers that attacked convoys in the Aegean and also the Suez Canal; he also proposed to use it as a motor torpedo boat (MTB) base. Accordingly, on 25 February, 200 commandos were landed and quickly overcame token opposition. They were supported by cruisers and destroyers and were due to be relieved by regular garrison troops. However, the senior naval officer went on sick leave, the garrison troops were re-embarked in warships and thus arrived

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

64

late. Only half of them were landed, and quickly withdrawn, together with the demoralised remaining commandos, who had been subjected to vigorous Italian naval and air attacks and the prompt landing of a superior force. Within 48 hours, operation ‘Abstention’ had been aborted.40 It was, said Cunningham, ‘a rotten business and reflected little credit on anyone’.41 He instituted a joint army-navy enquiry, which found that the operation was inadequately planned and suffered from poor communications, illequipped commandos and a lack of air cover, while the enemy had been grossly underestimated.42 ‘It is an absolute necessity to take the islands’, Cunningham told Pound, ‘Nothing will better secure the canal against this mining.’43 Three fast liners—the ‘Glens’—had arrived, equipped with landing craft and commanded by an old destroyer friend, Rear-Admiral Tom Baillie-Grohman; it was hoped to mount an attack on Rhodes on 3 April.44 However, by early April Baillie-Grohman found himself facing an evacuation from Greece. Longmore had sent several squadrons and other equipment followed, saddling Cunningham with frequent convoys to Piraeus and Suda Bay. Eden, the Foreign Secretary, and Field Marshal Dill, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), flew to Cairo in February and, with Wavell and Longmore, visited Athens on 22 February. It was agreed to send 58,000 troops, including armour, to help defend Greece against a German attack. Eden reported to Churchill that all were agreed that the Greeks ‘must have first call on our resources’ and ‘that there is a fair chance of halting a German advance’.45 Cunningham had been forewarned by Wavell on 17 January that this force might be sent. He felt uneasy. His forces were already fully committed elsewhere and under frequent air attack with little air cover of their own. The Foreign Secretary did convey Cunningham’s insistence on ‘air protection which we fear will be an insurpassable difficulty’,46 Cunningham confined himself to telling Pound, ‘I hope it will turn out that our policy of helping Greece is the right one. To me it is absolutely right but I much doubt if our resources, particularly naval and air, are equal to the strain.’47 He ordered plans to be made for re-embarkation. ‘See you at the evacuation’ was a common farewell among the British forces.48 Considerable doubt about this policy was felt by everyone. The military situation in Greece was deteriorating. The troops and material could ill be spared from the Western Desert. It was unlikely that the Allied army would be able to resist for long the highly professional German war machine, strong in Panzer and Luftwaffe units. Allied air support was already stretched.49 Nevertheless, Cunningham insisted that the navy must support the army. Operation ‘Lustre’, the transportation of troops and equipment to Greece, got under way on 3 March and lasted until 24 April, involving a large convoy every three days, Cunningham pointing out that ‘these movements will absorb the whole activity of [the] Fleet’, and outlined the ‘considerable risk’ of attack by surface forces and the inevitable attentions of the Luftwaffe.50 To guard against the surface threat, a battleship presence was maintained to the west of Crete. Warships carried a high proportion of the troops, to minimise the time on passage past the Italian airfields in the Dodecanese. No losses occurred on the voyages to Piraeus, the AA cruisers forcing the bombers into high-level attacks, though several ships were sunk on the return trip.51 Cunningham informed Pound, ‘We’re taking great risks with thin escorts but time is of the essence of this move being a success.’52 The bombing of the convoys, however, led him to ‘address a strong signal’ to Longmore requesting fighter cover and the bombing of Dodecanese airfields.53

Triumph into tragedy

65

The Germans attacked Greece on 6 April and within two weeks their 12 divisions, supported by 800 aircraft, had forced the British and Greek armies into a headlong retreat. By 15 April, the Cs-in-C were compelled to plan their evacuation. As the official history observed, ‘The British campaign…was from start to finish a withdrawal’, presenting Cunningham with an even more intractable problem.54 The troops were scattered, weary, often disorganised, some-times demoralised, and they had to leave most of their equipment. As the Germans now enjoyed unchallenged air supremacy, the troops were under ceaseless bombing, but worst of all, the one major port in Greece, Piraeus, was virtually destroyed by bombing within a few days of German intervention, together with 15 ships totalling 42,000 tons. Others were sunk along the coasts—no less than 22 in two days.55 Cunningham placed Pridham-Wippell in charge of operation ‘Demon’, controlling forces at sea, while Baillie-Grohman organised the evacuation from beaches and small harbours. Baillie-Grohman flew to Athens on 17 April and found the situation deteriorating rapidly and in constant flux. He had little information as to the whereabouts and numbers of Allied troops, or the enemy. Moreover, it was almost impossible to identify a date for the evacuation to begin and equally difficult to collect shipping, especially small craft. Since Piraeus was working at less than half capacity, and was likely to be the target of more raids, almost all evacuations had to be from minor ports and beaches and, to avoid bombing, it had to be conducted at night. Baillie-Grohman knew that the nights of 22 April to 2 May would be moonless and thus the great escape was planned to begin on 24 April.56 Baillie-Grohman’s organisation worked smoothly in the main, despite frequent changes of plan, and the discipline of the troops and seamen was for the most part excellent. The ‘Glen’ ships, taking 5,000 men each, and their landing craft were indispensable. Ulster Prince grounded and was bombed at Nauplia, further reducing capacity at this small port, and the liner Slamat and the destroyers Diamond and Wryneck were dive-bombed and sunk with very heavy casualties. Other ships were sunk or damaged on the way to Greece but Pridham-Wippell, BaillieGrohman and many other officers proved resourceful and by 30 April, 50,672 of the 58,000 troops sent to Greece were brought off, many of them in small parties aboard caiques acquired by various means. Pridham-Wippell adeptly orchestrated the movements of small groups of warships and merchantmen, keeping a few warships in reserve to rescue survivors from vessels sunk or damaged or to meet sudden rises in the numbers to be taken off the beaches. ‘In the varying situations throughout “Demon” he acted with the utmost speed and foresight.’57 Cunningham rightly praised the conduct of almost everyone involved, noting that both soldiers and seamen were unspeakably weary. The determination, resourcefulness, initiative, courage and skill displayed throughout the chain of command contributed immensely to the overall success of the operation. The evacuations were carried out from unfamiliar beaches and harbours, in rough water, with generally inadequate numbers of small craft, without the aid of charts, and always in pitch darkness in order to be beyond bombing range by daybreak.58 The one major disaster was at Kalamata, on the western side of the Peloponnese, on the night of 28–29 April. Some 8,000 people, including civilians, were waiting to be taken off. Many were wounded, thousands were unarmed, everyone was tired and famished, their spirits were low and the enemy was on their heels. Indeed, the Germans gained control of the town and on the approach of rescue ships after dark, firing could be

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

66

heard. The destroyer Hero was sent into the harbour to report on the situation. Her first signal (2207) confirmed the bad news but a counter-attack by a scratch force drove the Germans from the town and at 2234 Hero signalled again to the senior naval officer, Captain Sir Philip Bowyer-Smyth, of the Australian cruiser Perth, that fighting had ceased and that evacuation was possible—indeed, the destroyer’s first lieutenant was already organising it. However, Bowyer-Smyth had already abandoned the operation and left Kalamata at 29 knots, leaving Hero behind. Though she was joined by three destroyers from another force and they lifted 332 men (another 235 were rescued on the two nights following), the vast majority had to surrender the following morning.59 A more detached, patient and determined attitude might well have achieved complete success. Bowyer-Smyth reported that enemy submarines were believed to be about and he was fearful, too, of Italian surface forces intervening, though this was extremely unlikely. General Wilson, the army commander, and Cunningham were both severely critical of the decision and Cunningham had Bowyer-Smyth relieved of his command. Desertion of evacuees was unpardonable and went clean against Cunningham’s policy and the risky lifts elsewhere in Greece.60 At the end of ‘Demon’, Cunningham had ‘a very tired fleet’ that had not stopped running since the beginning of March and had been overworked long before that.61 Sheer willpower, from Cunningham downwards, kept the fleet going. Destroyer captains were rarely absent from the bridge and ships’ companies were at action stations most of the time, with scarcely a day in harbour. One officer described the week-long operation as ‘the hardest of my whole career’.62 In return, it is possible that Hitler’s assault on the Soviet Union was slightly delayed, though probably less by the Greek campaign than by the despatch of the Afrika Korps and the resistance of the Yugoslavs. Britain emerged with the moral credit of having furnished the maximum of military assistance to her ally and this certainly earned the approval of the Americans.63 It revealed ‘the importance of the old military virtues such as toughness, good discipline, professional proficiency, ready resource, determination and the ability to take command’.64 Failure in Greece, however gallant, gave the Germans the whole of the Balkans and rescued Mussolini from a self-inflicted disaster. The Axis could also enjoy the security of the Corinth Canal, which the British had failed to block effectively, for their convoys to and from the Aegean and Benghazi. They could now threaten Cunningham’s communications with Turkey, Cyprus and the Middle East, the Malta convoys could be attacked from yet another direction; Suda Bay was likely to become unusable.65 Cunningham and his men received scant thanks from London for their brave and successful efforts. Instead, the Prime Minister carped at Cunningham’s inability to stop the North African convoys. With his forces stretched to breaking point, Cunningham could do little more than occasionally bombard Benghazi and deploy submarines on the convoy routes. He replied, testily, ‘I suggest I must be allowed to be the judge of what can or cannot be done.’66 However, the Greek adventure did give Cunningham the opportunity for a notable victory. The regular convoys to Greece, even fatter and juicier from 4 March, were a tempting target for the Axis and they were subjected to heavy air attacks. However, a strong surface sweep could annihilate a convoy and its escort. The convoys were normally escorted by one or two light cruisers, an AA cruiser and two or three destroyers. The Germans had been pushing for a more aggressive Italian naval policy for some time and Vice-Admiral Iachino, the new fleet commander, was also

Triumph into tragedy

67

anxious to activate the fleet. Any such operation would depend heavily on accurate and sustained reconnaissance and fighter cover in the Aegean. The Italian Navy made somewhat vague arrangements with the German and Italian air forces. The Italian fleet, consisting of the Vittorio Veneto, six heavy and two light cruisers and 17 destroyers, left on 26–27 March, to sweep north and south of Crete.67 The British, however, decrypted the enemy’s signals and Cunningham, who always feared a strong Italian raid against the convoys while his battleships were marooned in Alexandria for lack of a screen, was alerted. Reconnaissance of Alexandria disclosing three battleships and Formidable should have warned Iachino that he would be outmatched if his sortie was detected. Shortly after noon on 27 March, a Sunderland despatched to reconnoitre the Italians’ line of approach as a cover for the Ultra penetration deliberately exposed itself to a squadron of Italian cruisers. Enemy decryption also revealed that the British had cleared the Aegean of convoys and that Formidable was at sea, and by the evening there were reports that the battle squadron had also sailed; in any case, the enemy should have realised that Formidable would not head for the central Mediterranean without heavy support. Iachino should have aborted the operation and conserved fuel. He would gain nothing by continuing and he was likely to suffer irreplaceable losses should he come within range of carrier aircraft. His only possible target now was Pridham-Wippell’s 7th Cruiser Squadron and its destroyer screen, based on Suda Bay to give cover to the ‘Lustre’ convoys, but, even if it was known to be at sea, it was likely to have been forewarned of the approach of the Italian cruisers. However, Iachino and his superiors in Rome decided to press on with the operation—the Italians ‘wanted to fight just to show they could’.68 Cunningham’s response to the Ultra reports was issued in precise and shrewd signals and dispositions made in the early evening of 26 March. The submarines Rover and Triumph were ordered to patrol off Suda Bay and Milos respectively, the Greek destroyer flotilla was at short notice and British destroyers were ordered either to accompany the Cin-C or hold themselves ready to join him. A convoy for Piraeus was ordered to proceed until dusk and then to reverse course, thus offering the bait as long as possible. The Swordfish flight at Maleme on Crete was put on alert and the RAF was requested to provide the maximum reconnaissance the next morning west of Crete. Pridham-Wippell was ordered to be south-west of Crete at dawn, to make contact with the enemy but in a position from which escape from a superior force was assured.69 Cunningham’s prior knowledge of the Italian sortie enabled him first to stage a deception plan, taking ashore a suitcase, playing his usual round of golf on the afternoon of 27 March and discussing with his Flag Lieutenant, Hugh Lee, the arrangements for a bogus dinner party that evening, within the hearing of the Japanese consul. After dark the C-in-C returned aboard his flagship and the fleet put to sea. In contrast with the aimless and slipshod performance of the enemy, Cunningham’s plans were sharply focused, canny and calculated.70 Early next morning each side’s reconnaissance aircraft reported forces less than 50 miles apart, though some messages were misleading as to their nationality and composition and some groups were not sighted. The first surface sighting was made by the Italian 3rd Cruiser Division (Bolzano, Trento, Trieste) at 0800, spotting PridhamWippell’s cruisers (Orion, Gloucester, Ajax, Perth) 13 miles to the south-east. When his Flag Lieutenant brought him news of the contact, Cunningham was in his bath but promptly stood up ‘in a state of nature’ and ordered Valiant to hasten to the support of the

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

68

cruisers nd the carrier to prepare a striking force.71 Action was joined at ranges above 20,000 yards but neither side scored hits. Pridham-Wippell, appreciating that he was facing 8-inch cruisers which outranged and outstripped his squadron, made smoke and retired on the battle fleet, some 90 miles to the east. Iachino was mildly suspicious of this turn away, observing that it was ‘not in the tradition of the British Navy to avoid battle when the forces were equal’.72 By 0900, the Italians had ceased fire and did what they had been instructed to do on sighting British forces—turn west and draw the British ships on to the Veneto’s guns. The battleship had not been sighted by British reconnaissance and was stalking the British cruisers. Pridham-Wippell, intent on maintaining contact with the enemy, followed them, only to come under heavy and accurate fire from the Veneto at 32,000 yards at 1058. As Iachino remarked, ‘The failure to sight the Veneto in the early morning, however, exposed the Orion squadron to grave danger, which, only by a stroke of fortune, did not materialise into a serious loss.’73 Pridham-Wippell was now sandwiched between two faster enemy forces with more powerful broadsides; moreover, another force of enemy heavy cruisers was bearing down from the north. Mean-while, Cunningham was hurrying westward at his best speed—about 22 knots—but was still 70 miles south-east of the action. To save the cruisers from likely destruction he sent off Formidable’s striking force at 1100. The torpedo bombers attacked without result but forced the Italians to turn away. Nevertheless, Cunningham’s careful plan had been torn up. He had hoped to hold back the striking force until he was within 50 miles of the enemy, with the classic aim of slowing down the principal targets and delivering them on a plate to the battle fleet. He had intended to get between the Italians and their bases but now hoped that further air strikes would cripple some of the enemy vessels; otherwise, he had no chance of catching up with his faster opponent, who had an advantage of about five knots.74 Around noon, contact was lost with all three enemy squadrons but Pridham-Wippell’s force joined the C-in-C. It was mid-afternoon before air reconnaissance located the Veneto and a second striking force went in to attack. The wind had now veered northwest, permitting Formidable to conduct flying operations from her position in the line, ‘almost a miracle’, as the fleet was able to maintain its speed of advance.75 One Albacore pressed home its attack through dense flak, being shot down in the act of releasing its torpedo, which struck the battleship in the stern, causing severe flooding and bringing her to a halt, though she quickly recovered to 19.5 knots. Swordfish from Crete and Blenheims from Greece kept up the attacks on the Italians, who enjoyed no air cover. Iachino felt capable of reaching home without further setbacks, however, as he believed that only one battleship was in company with Formidable and that Cunningham was at least 80 miles to the east, when in reality three battleships and the carrier were only 60 miles away. Cunningham also lacked precise details of the enemy’s course, speed, strength and formation and it was only the fortuitous presence of the flagship’s seaplane with an experienced observer aboard that clarified the situation in a series of accurate reports between 1830 and 1915.76 At nightfall, Cunningham, ‘in an exalted state of mind’, decided against the advice of his staff, whom he called ‘yellow-livered skunks’, to risk a night action.77 Though the Cin-C was a well-known exponent of night engagements, his ships had little practice in night fighting, and with several detached forces on each side in close proximity, the dangers of collision, friendly fire, torpedo attacks by enemy light forces, or simply

Triumph into tragedy

69

missing the enemy by a whisker were considerable. Cunningham, however, knew that the Italians were unschooled in night fighting, lacking the radar possessed by several of his ships; that the enemy’s morale was probably low; that fortune favours the brave and, crucially, that he was unlikely to have another opportunity to bring the Italian fleet to battle, especially as the enemy would have the assistance of dive-bombers at dawn. Moreover, Cunningham had ‘an uncanny knack of seizing up risks accurately’.78 A final and very skilful FAA attack scored one hit on the cruiser Pola, which crippled her, though the British fliers were unaware of their good fortune.79 Cunningham was now aware that the enemy had concentrated his forces and that he was 50 miles north-west of the Mediterranean Fleet. As darkness had set in, his only hope of slowing the Veneto still further lay in a destroyer attack and accordingly Mack’s flotilla was ordered to press ahead. Meanwhile, Pridham-Wippell was endeavouring to stay in touch with the Italian fleet. Mindful of this primary duty, he did not investigate a radar report of a ship stopped five miles to port but concentrated his squadron and pressed on to the north-west in search of the greater quarry, informing Cunningham of the presence of this ship at 2111. An hour later Valiant’s radar picked up the same object and Cunningham closed to investigate, but almost immediately two heavy cruisers were sighted at a distance of 2.5 miles on the starboard bow. They were Pola’s sisters, Zara and Fiume, which with three destroyers had been despatched to determine whether Pola should be towed home or sunk. Believing the British fleet to be 75 miles astern of him at dusk, with only Pridham-Wippell’s cruisers close enough to cause any concern, Iachino had heard ‘nothing to make me think that they might encounter anything larger than a destroyer attack’.80 Cunningham ordered Formidable out of line and, handling the battle squadron as if it were a destroyer division, turned to bring the enemy onto the port bow, ‘a classic case of fleet handling at night by a master of the art’.81 At 3,800 yards, with the leading cruiser illuminated by searchlight, the battleships opened fire and quickly reduced the Italian ships to flaming wrecks, the enemy being caught with their main armaments trained fore and aft. The encounter, ‘more like murder than anything else’, lasted just seven minutes, and at 2235, when the battleships ceased fire, the four destroyers in company were sent to engage the three Italian destroyers, of which two were sunk, and to finish off the crippled cruisers.82 Havock then came across the original stopped ship, Pola, and when Mack, who had been led to believe it was the Veneto, arrived with his flotilla, survivors were taken off and she was torpedoed at 0410, 29 March. Cunningham was still not entirely clear what forces he had encountered and how many foes had been sunk but he believed the biggest prize was still ahead of them. Believing that Pridham-Wippell and Mack were still in contact with the Italians, he ordered all forces not engaging the enemy to retire north-eastwards to avoid clashes between his own units. Cunningham may have ‘let the adrenalin go to his head’ and he angrily rejected his staff’s pleas to word the signal more precisely.83 It was, as he admitted later, badly expressed and had the effect of causing Pridham-Wippell to cease chasing the main enemy. It is possible that, had this not happened, Cunningham might have caught up with the Veneto in daylight. However, Mack’s decision to steer north-west earlier in the night had forced Pridham-Wippell well to the north of the enemy, while Mack too did not make contact, passing to the south of the Italians. In daylight, the fleet, picking up survivors, was attacked by Ju 88s but returned unscathed.84

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

70

Cunningham had been fortunate not to lose four cruisers in the first phase and he was ‘bitterly disappointed’ not to have sunk the Veneto.85 ‘The results of the action cannot be viewed with entire satisfaction, since the damaged Vittorio Veneto was allowed to escape.’86 Pridham-Wippell has been criticised for turning away from the Italian heavy cruisers, which might have depressed morale and indicated that the battle fleet was in the offing. Cunningham, however, reported that he ‘handled the squadron with great skill’ and acted correctly in drawing the enemy onto the fleet.87 Cunningham’s uncharacteristically imprecise signal cost him what little chance he had of catching the Italian battleship. However, both Pridham-Wippell and Mack had taken wrong options and were diverging from the enemy’s course. Cunningham compounded the error by taking the fleet too far to the east. Another signal error prevented the Greek destroyer flotilla joining the night action. The RAF and the FAA flew numerous missions and attacked with determination but still found it extremely difficult to hit fast-moving warships; the two torpedo hits, significantly, were on Pola when she was forced to heave to to avoid a sister ship, and on Veneto at the cost of the aircraft and its crew. The most interesting comment was by Captain Bridge, Director of Naval Air Division (DNAD) and late of Eagle: ‘The chief lesson to be learned from Matapan is that one AC is insufficient for a main fleet operation.’88 Formidable had only 14 torpedo bombers, supplemented by a handful from Crete, and these also had to provide reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrols. Attacks were therefore on too small a scale to overwhelm the enemy; had two carriers made possible strike forces of 30 aircraft, the Veneto might not have got away.89 The victory ‘was the first important operation in the Mediterranean to be based on Sigint’.90 It was the first fleet action in which carrier strikes set up the ultimate success. The Italians lost their three best cruisers, a reduction in eight-inch fire-power that was a considerable relief to Cunningham, while the Veneto was out of action until August. Moreover, Italian morale, badly hit by Taranto, was damaged further. A combination of low morale, depleted fuel stocks and Mussolini’s insistence that the fleet should operate only under fighter cover prevented Italian surface forces intervening significantly around Greece and Crete. The action showed up the outmoded rangefinders, wide spread of shot and lack of radar.91 Furthermore, ‘The lack of training of the Italian Fleet for night action was unbelievable. They were really not fit to be allowed out after dark.’92 However, as Iachino admitted, ‘a night encounter with major units was not believed to be practically possible’.93 Cunningham also acknowledged that Iachino was ‘badly let down by his air reconnaissance’.94 Iachino may have ‘tended to take risks beyond his capabilities’ and he was certainly lacking in awareness and suspicion, despite previous experience of Cunningham and the possession of sufficient information to piece together a plot that should have ensured safety at night.95 He should not have risked Zara and Fiume; two destroyers could have made a high-speed dash to rescue Pola’s crew. It was not feasible to tow a damaged ship over 400 miles, much of it in daylight within reach of enemy aircraft. Matapan was a combination of making use of good fortune, opportunism, errors, heroism, signals intelligence, the interaction of technologies, and relative degrees of experience, ability and confidence in the high commands. As both Cunningham and Iachino recognised, it could so easily have been the Italians who went home with the scalps of three cruisers.96 Matapan was Cunningham’s greatest triumph, confirming him as a grand master in the art of sea warfare.97

Triumph into tragedy

71

At the same time, urgent reinforcements were needed to prevent Rommel reaching Alexandria. The emergency dictated a trans-Mediterranean convoy, to be run early in May, despite the dangers of the passage between Sicily and Malta, where enemy air and naval forces and extensive minefields presented potentially overwhelming problems, especially as it would take place under a full moon. Operation ‘Tiger’ would also cover the passage to the eastern Mediterranean of the battleship Queen Elizabeth and the new cruisers Fiji and Naiad, while Cunningham intended to take the opportunity to run two convoys into Malta, one of oil to maintain offensive momentum. Mack’s destroyers had been replaced by six destroyers of the 5th Flotilla under Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten, newly arrived from home, supported by Gloucester. The new cruiser Dido and the fast minelayer Abdiel had been escorted to Malta by Mack’s destroyers. Mountbatten’s ships had an unfortunate beginning as Jersey was mined in the harbour entrance, trapping some of her sisters inside and forcing Gloucester and two others to make the hazardous journey to Gibraltar, from whence they returned with the convoy.98 A convoy was also run to Suda Bay with Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation (MNBDO) material, in anticipation of an Axis attack on Crete. On 6 May, Force H left Gibraltar and Cunningham’s various forces departed from Alexandria, carefully negotiating a new minefield. Light forces sank two enemy cargo ships off Benghazi and air attacks on the fleet were sparse on account of the overcast conditions. Heroic efforts had ensured that Grand Harbour was open for the two convoys and Mountbatten’s destroyers were able to join the fleet. On the night of 8–9 May, mines in the Narrows claimed one of the ‘Tiger’ convoy and another was damaged. Though Force H was heavily attacked from the air, Cunningham continued to enjoy substantial cloud cover and the convoy came safely under his wing in mid-afternoon on 9 May. Mounbatten’s destroyers bombarded Benghazi before returning to Malta. Beating off spasmodic air attacks, the convoy and fleet reached Alexandria on 12 May.99 Cloud may have kept most bombers away but the main danger was mines. Identifying new minefields was always a major headache but worse was the lack of minesweepers; depth charges to explode them had to be used at Malta. Cunningham was pleased by the arrival in Malta of a squadron of long-range fighters for convoy protection. It was ominous, however, that carrier fighter strength had been badly depleted during ‘Tiger’; replacement was haphazard and in driblets.100 The British, despite being in Crete since October 1940, were ill-prepared for an invasion. They had been able to spare little in the way of forces, equipment or aircraft— much to Cunningham’s dismay, for Suda Bay was still no place for ships to linger. The newly-arrived Glasgow had been badly damaged there in December and at the time of Matapan, York, Cunningham’s only eight-inch cruiser, became a total loss after a skilful attack by Italian explosive motor boats. The harbour, ill-equipped to handle cargo expeditiously, lost many merchantmen to bombers.101 However, Crete served as a refuelling base for operations in the central Mediterranean, provided air reconnaissance and fighter cover on the last leg to Malta, and enabled both planes and ships to both protect Aegean convoys and to attack Dodecanese bases and their communications. Axis control would result in more air attacks on operations round Malta, Alexandria and the Canal. ‘If in enemy hands’, noted the Middle East commanders, ‘the supply of Malta would be most difficult.’102 It might also provide a stepping stone to Cyprus and the Levant and it would afford air cover to enemy convoys to Benghazi. It was at least as

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

72

important, therefore, to deny it to the enemy as it was to exploit its strategic potential. However, the prospects of holding it against German air power in Greece were poor. Moreover, though Churchill described Crete as ‘invaluable to the defence of Egypt’ and ‘almost equally to a successful offensive in Libya’, it had a very low priority for material.103 Though Cunningham could not guarantee to defeat a seaborne invasion, he thought he could make it dangerous for the enemy; the likelihood, therefore, was an airborne assault, for which Fliegerkorps XI had 520 transport planes, while Fliegerkorps VIII mustered 280 bombers, 150 dive-bombers, 180 fighters and 50 reconnaissance aircraft.104 It was easier to attack than to defend, as it was a long, rugged island, with poor internal communications; its harbours were all on the north coast and hence more dangerous for British ships; and it was 400 miles from Alexandria—and air cover.105 Nevertheless, the Government and the Middle East commanders were determined to fight for Crete. However, most of the troops were exhausted, ill-equipped survivors from Greece. Furthermore, the plethora of demands made on the fleet since March had resulted in men and ships becoming strained to the point of breakdown.106 The one advantage the defenders had over the attackers—considerable and conceivably decisive—was the possession of the enemy’s complete plans, thanks to signals intelligence (Sigint), which afforded two weeks’ notice. ‘So complete is our information’, the COS told the Cs-in-C, ‘that it appears to present heaven-sent opportunity of dealing enemy heavy blow.’107 With this detailed information, General Freyberg, commanding on the island, was ‘reasonably confident’ of defeating the airborne invaders.108 Cunningham had to continue running supplies and reinforcements to the army but his primary task was to destroy enemy invasion convoys, of which Ultra forewarned him. He formed several small task forces of cruisers and destroyers, which he directed from Alexandria, sweeping northward of the island by night and retiring beyond dive-bomber range at daybreak. Pridham-Wippell with the battle squadron cruised south-west of Crete to prevent Italian surface forces intervening and to offer the light forces strong antiaircraft protection. Meanwhile, Formidable, which had no more than four serviceable Fulmars following ‘Tiger’, remained at Alexandria.109 As the precise date of the assault was unknown, the fleet was off Crete from 15 May, relieved every three days. In support were a submarine flotilla, and a bevy of MTBs at Suda Bay, while Abdiel laid mines around the Corinth Canal. The RAF was able to provide only intermittent cover and during 19–26 May, the fleet lacked fighter patrols.110 The German onslaught began on 20 May and after heavy bombing and strafing of Allied positions, fleets of Ju 52s disgorged para-troopers over Maleme airfield. Though heavy toll was taken of the invaders, they managed to secure control of the airfield within 24 hours and thus were able to fly in reinforcements virtually unhindered.111 Suda Bay was unusable by day owing to the incessant bombing and ships had thus to return to Alexandria to refuel and, above all, replenish with AA ammunition (already in short supply). This not only limited time on patrol and involved much tedious and dangerous time on passage but also compelled Cunningham to keep a force in reserve in case one of the squadrons off Crete needed urgent relief at a critical moment. Following the airborne attack on 20 May, Cunningham ordered Force C, commanded by the newly-arrived Rear-Admiral E.L.S. King in Naiad, with Perth and four destroyers, to sweep the eastern half of the north coast during the night. Force D, also under a new arrival, Rear-Admiral I.G.Glennie in Dido, with Orion, Ajax and four destroyers, was to

Triumph into tragedy

73

patrol the western part, the orders becoming more precise as news of enemy convoys was received. The AA cruisers Calcutta and Carlisle were to support the forces in daylight and three destroyers were to shell the crucial airfield at Scarpanto (Karpathos), a mere hop from Crete. The bombardment could have only nuisance value. The night of 20–21 May was uneventful and by dawn forces were retiring south of Crete and forming larger concentrations. The four forces were subjected to what became a depressingly familiar routine, ‘shuttle bombing’ by swarms of Ju 88s and Ju 87s from nearby airfields. The destroyer Juno was sunk with heavy casualties, including her First Lieutenant, Walter Starkie, husband of Cunningham’s niece Hilda, and Ajax suffered near misses.112 The following night, Glennie’s squadron intercepted a large body of small vessels escorted by the Italian torpedo boat Lupo. Led to the convoy by good intelligence, Glennie’s ships used their radar to good effect and shot up the convoy ruthlessly, forcing it to turn back and sinking perhaps a dozen vessels. The Lupo, despite severe damage and heavy casualties, fought back bravely, made smoke and was able to save the greater part of the convoy. Some 400 Germans (and press-ganged Greek sailors) were lost of an estimated 3,800 troops (Cunningham believed all had drowned). King’s force, still steering north of Crete at 0830 on 22 May, engaged another convoy off Kithera, escorted by the torpedo boat Saggitario, which again counter-attacked and laid an effective smoke screen. Under air attack, running low on AA ammunition, with his ships chasing after the enemy and many miles from safety, King contented himself with turning back the enemy convoy and conducting a fighting retreat against incessant air attack. He was shackled by the maximum speed of Carlisle, 21 knots, and reduced to 16 knots by heavy damage to Naiad. By noon, Rear-Admiral H.B.Rawlings, with Warspite, Valiant, Gloucester, Fiji, Dido, Ajax, Orion and destroyers, was steaming to King’s support. All forces were under persistent air attack and inevitably suffered heavy damage as they attempted to consolidate and withdraw beyond Stuka range. First Warspite suffered heavy casualties and lost much of her AA armament, then Greyhound, having been detached to sink a caique, was caught unsupported and sunk quickly by two bombs. Kingston and Kandahar were ordered to rescue her survivors and King, the senior officer present, then sent Fiji and Gloucester to support them. The results were disastrous, for the cruisers quickly expended their AA ammunition; though they were recalled when this situation was signalled to King, it was too late. Both were sunk, Gloucester in mid-afternoon, Fiji in the evening; gallant work by the destroyers saved many from the latter fate but the orders to search for Gloucester’s men were inexplicably cancelled, though a number were rescued by the enemy.113 It was extremely difficult for Cunningham to manage his scattered forces. Mack, with three destroyers, was off Heraklion during the night of 21–22 May, while Mountbatten, with another three, swept the north-west coast. Early next morning, just south of Crete and retiring at 30 knots, Mountbatten’s ship, Kelly, and the Kashmir, were sunk by 24 Ju 87s. Their consort, Kipling, rescued 279 men under the most ferocious and sustained air attacks and ran out of fuel 50 miles from Alexandria, having to be towed in. Cunningham was still running reinforcements to Crete at night, the battle still seeming to be in the balance. On 24 May he issued one of his most famous signals: ‘The Army is just holding its own…we must NOT let them down… STICK IT OUT.’ At the same time, he confessed to Pound ‘in coastal area we have to admit defeat and accept the fact that losses

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

74

are just too great to justify us in trying to prevent seaborne attacks’—though fortunately the Germans had already broken off attempts.114 There followed utterly senseless, unhelpful and uncomprehending communications from Churchill. London insisted that Glenroy should run ‘whatever risks’ were necessary to land reinforcements; the Admiralty, ‘to my amazement’, wrote Cunningham, had already countermanded Cunningham’s order to Glenroy to turn back—just as promptly, he again ordered her return.115 The COS insisted ‘fleet and RAF must accept risk’ involved in preventing seaborne landings.116 Cunningham replied patiently that it was essential ‘to avoid losses which without commensurate advantage to ourselves, will cripple the fleet out here’. He was ‘facing an air concentration besides which I am assured that in Norway was child’s play’, adding, ‘It is inadvisable to drive men beyond a certain point.’117 Night-time sweeps did continue, without success, except for the enemy, who inflicted severe damage on Barham on 27 May. Even worse, on the previous day, Formidable, having 12 allegedly serviceable Fulmars, mounted an attack on Scarpanto aerodrome. Little damage was done by the handful of aircraft available but, inevitably, the contest was one-sided, for the enemy could devote overwhelming force to a counterattack. Despite heroic efforts by the few remaining Fulmars, Formidable was put out of action by some 20 dive-bombers, who scored two hits; the destroyer Nubian had her stern blown off. It was a crass misuse of the fleet’s most important asset.118 By that time, the battle ashore had been lost and preparations were in train for yet another evacuation in the direst of circumstances. There was no respite—all ships had to refuel, rearm and sail again, the first troops being taken off on the night of 28–29 May. As Cunningham observed, this evacuation ‘threw a final and almost intolerable strain on the light forces’.119 All lifting had to be done by night and, again, almost all of it had to be done from Sphakia beach, on the south coast, accessible only by a rough track and a tortuous path down a cliff. On the first night, 4,000 troops were taken off from the north coast port of Heraklion by a force of three cruisers and six destroyers commanded by Rawlings. Bomb damage on the way out forced Rawlings to send Ajax back, and shortly after leaving Crete Imperial’s steering gear, damaged earlier, failed. Rawlings could only order Hotspur to take off her crew and troops and sink her while he proceeded with the remainder of the force and 3,500 troops. Though Rawlings hurried south, he had lost time and was well within dive-bomber range at dawn. Reduced to a crawl, Hereward returned to Crete in order to save as many of the ship’s company and soldiers as possible but Hotspur rejoined Rawlings undamaged. Long-range fighters were unable to contact the force, so the enemy was able to bomb and strafe at will. The ships, crowded with troops, short of ammunition and manned by sailors dog-tired after two months of remorseless air attacks, were especially vulnerable. Orion, Rawlings’s flagship, had her captain killed and Rawlings himself wounded, while of her company and the 1,100 troops on board, 260 were killed and 280 wounded. Dido was also badly damaged and Decoy hit. Cunningham later wrote poignantly of Rawlings’s return: I shall never forget the sight of those ships coming up harbour, the guns of their fore turrets awry, one or two broken off and pointing forlornly skyward, their upper decks crowded with troops, and the marks of their ordeal only too plainly visible. I went on board at once and found

Triumph into tragedy

75

Rawlings cheerful but exhausted. The ship was a terrible sight and the mess-deck a ghastly shambles.120 Cunningham questioned briefly whether it was better to leave men captive but alive.121 However, when the staff raised the same issue, he remarked famously, ‘You can build a new ship in three years but you can’t rebuild a reputation in under three hundred years’, and ordered the evacuation to continue.122 Fortunately, another 700 troops were brought home from Sphakia by three destroyers, of which Nizam suffered slight damage. On the following night, Glengyle, escorted by cruisers, destroyers and the two AA cruisers, lifted 6,000 from Sphakia, returning safely, though Perth suffered damage; fighter cover prevented worse injury. Four destroyers were sent to Sphakia on 30 May but Kandahar had engine trouble and returned, together with Kelvin, victim of another bomb. The other two took off 1,400 men but Napier was slowed by near misses while returning; fighter patrols probably saved both ships. Five ships visited Sphakia on the night of 31 May–1 June, lifting some 4,000 men. They returned without incident but Calcutta, sent out with Carlisle to provide additional AA defence, was sunk by a Ju 88, as usual diving out of the sun. The thousands of troops left on the island were considered incapable of resisting long enough to be rescued. Moreover, Cunningham’s fleet was now so weakened by loss and damage that further punishment would render it incapable of maintaining command of the eastern basin and of supporting the Malta convoys.123 Cunningham wrote later, ‘I sometimes wonder whether the loss of the island was really such a serious matter as it seemed at the time.’124 The Allies should have defeated the German airborne attack; a critical lack of urgency and failure to realise the importance of Maleme airfield was their undoing. A successful defence would have entailed the diversion of substantial army and air forces simply to hold the island. Even then, the navy might not have been able to use Suda Bay, except briefly at night, and it would have had to assume an intolerable burden of regular convoys over 400 miles of hostile sea and air, with a loss rate probably reaching unacceptable proportions. Crete would have found it difficult to mount a significant offensive effort. The decision to fight for Crete came down in part to a desire to deny it to the enemy. It would have been politically unthinkable not to battle for it.125 Two cruisers, one AA cruiser, six destroyers, numerous smaller craft and some 15 merchant ships were lost; a carrier, two battleships, two cruisers and two destroyers were so badly damaged as to require repairs off station—some lasting over six months. Most other ships suffered damage repairable locally or incurred defects through service without respite for three months. Several hundred soldiers became casualties and the navy loss was 1,828 dead and several hundred wounded. The psychological damage of the Greek and Cretan episodes was alarming. Ships ‘came in here [Alexandria] dead beat and weary’, Barnard told his wife, ‘only to be filled up with oil and ammunition and sent off again’.126 The casualties suffered in almost all ships had a depressing effect on shipmates. Captains, officers and men had to be relieved. Cunningham confided to Pound that he was ‘rather anxious about the state of mind of the sailors’ and he paid frequent visits to ships to try to raise morale, praising the efforts of ships’ companies and underlining the importance of the task.127 Captain Lees, of Calcutta, who had protested loudly at being ordered to sea again, recalled that Cunningham ‘talked to me quietly, like a father, explaining everything, including his own misery at being shore-bound whilst the ships of

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

76

his Fleet were being decimated’. Calcutta went to sea and was lost with some 150 officers and men. When her sister Carlisle returned with the survivors, ‘ABC himself was waiting on the jetty…. He came on board and, as we walked up and down the quarterdeck, he was in tears.’128 There were isolated occasions when he was not well received on board and the average hostilities only rating was probably fairly immune to the blandishments of senior officers, but among ships’ officers and regulars, he was viewed with awe, and it was common to say, on going to sea, ‘if the old man’s with us, we shall be all right’.129 Cunningham, who was ‘at his greatest in adversity’ and drove himself harder than anyone, maintained ‘a bold, undeterred front, sparkling with energy and humour’.130 He came to believe that had he been on the spot, some ships—particularly those caught on detachment—might have been saved. When Mountbatten visited him after his rescue, Cunningham told him, allegedly, that he felt like going into the thick of the fight on a destroyer and getting killed. It was said, too, that the pain of the Greek and Crete experiences kept him awake at night, for the first time in his career, and he acknowledged ‘I feel very heavy hearted about it all’.131 It was, he wrote later, ‘a period of great tension and anxiety such as I have never experienced before or since’.132 He also raised with Pound the question of his relief, feeling that the terrible losses, the exhaustion of his men and the sense of being in the iron grip of German air power might have caused the Prime Minister, the Admiralty and the fleet to lose confidence in him.133 He might have bolstered morale simply by being there and it is questionable whether he would have possessed less control over the situation at sea than he did at Alexandria. Most of the vital decisions had to be made by the flag officers at sea; Cunningham could do no more than pass on snippets of information, make a few suggestions and occasionally send ships to a different place—though such moves often had to be countermanded or even ignored as the situation was fluid. There were communication errors. Cunningham certainly felt some decisions were unfortunate. King’s order to break off action with a caique convoy anguished him most. He even alleged that the failure to leave 4,000 enemy troops bobbing in the water led to the loss of Crete. He thought, too, that King would have been safe from bombing in the midst of the convoy. The German troops ashore were probably unaware of the convoys, they were élite units and their morale would have suffered little. There is no evidence that the Germans would have forborne to bomb the ships because some of their troops might be killed. It may be that detached ships would have been saved but the experience of concentrations was no better. Manley Power remarked, ‘I am not sure that before the battle of Crete we were quite so imbued with the doctrine of concentration under air attack…. It was generally but rather vaguely considered to be a good thing.’134 It is likely that Calcutta and Carlisle could have been afforded fighter protection, which would probably have saved the former.135 Acknowledging that the fleet had been “badly battered’ by the Luftwaffe (which lost 30–40 planes), he confessed ‘they have had much the best of it.136 Tedder believed there was no effective AA defence against converging attacks by dive-bombers and declared, ‘It was not an operation of war to employ surface ships in an area surrounded by enemy shore bases.’137 However, he failed to suggest an alternative and confessed there was little the RAF could do. It was well known that neither the AA control system nor the gunfire could cope with dive-bombing. The planes were numerous, accurate, skilful and determined. Defence depended heavily on the experience, bravery and skill of ships’

Triumph into tragedy

77

companies. Forces adopted dispositions allowing them to fire barrages over the ship under attack, while also permitting them sea room to execute sudden and violent alterations of course. Much depended on the captains, who rarely left their bridges, to judge to a nicety when to put the helm over, turning towards the bombers and forcing them to increase the steepness of their attacks, leading them to pull out of their dives early.138 The only real defence lay in adequate fighter cover. It was said that ratings inflating their life jackets quipped, ‘That’s the only bloody air support we’ll get today!’ Cunningham himself observed, ‘You cannot conduct military operations in modern warfare without airfields which will allow you to at least establish temporary air supremacy.’139 It is difficult to defend the decision to send Formidable against Scarpanto. Cunningham admitted that many of her fighters were of doubtful serviceability and he knew from Illustrious’s experience that a strong fighter force was required to deal with Luftwaffe attacks. Moreover, the tiny number that could be sent over Scarpanto could be of no more than nuisance value. If the carrier was damaged, the likelihood was off-station repairs lasting several months. As was predictable, Formidable received such damage that she returned to action only in February 1942.140 Formidable’s departure rendered the route to Malta more hazardous, especially given the loss of Libyan airfields. Carrier A/S patrols might have frustrated the U-boat attack on Barham and carrier strike forces could have played vital roles in the two battles of Sirte.141 Cunningham has also been criticised for not persisting with the evacuation after 1 June. It is argued that the scale of air attacks had diminished by then and that the rearguards on Crete could have held out for up to 48 hours more. Cunningham, it is alleged, ‘succumbed to despair and cast aside resolve’.142 In fact Cunningham ended the evacuation only after consultation with the military authorities and indeed carried on for one night longer than the army had requested. His information was that the troops remaining, estimated at 5,000 men, were in no position to hold out. Numbers suddenly escalated at the very end; ultimately, 11,835 became captives. Few suitable ships were available, fighter cover could not be guaranteed and moonlight was now illuminating the beaches. Air attacks may have diminished but, despite fighter cover, Napier and Nizam had been damaged on 31 May and Calcutta was sunk on 1 June; given the critical state of his fleet, even one or two further losses would have been unjustifiable. There was no indication in his signals or in the recollections of those around him that Cunningham had lost his resolve.143 He said, ‘I have never felt prouder of the Mediterranean Fleet’, and added later, ‘It is perhaps even now not realised how nearly the breaking point was reached, but that these men struggled through is the measure of their achievement and I trust that it will not lightly be forgotten.’144 Churchill once again displayed his reckless short-termism in calling for the RAF and the navy to sacrifice half their strength in the bid to hold on to Crete and insisting that the army should pour men into what was already a lost battle. Cunningham was compelled to say that even the COS ‘showed considerable ignorance of the situation’, a view endorsed by Tedder.145 The battle of Crete—‘the hardest fighting of the war’—left the Mediterranean Fleet in a parlous position. Following ‘one disaster after another’, it was now time to lick wounds and consider life in a very dangerous climate, in which the enemy held the initiative, most of the shores and islands in the Mediterranean, and had a seemingly all-conquering air force and army.146 In telling Pound that ‘we are not having

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

78

too good a time out here’, Cunningham declared ‘it can all be put down to lack of air support’.147 He urged, ‘We must have large numbers of fighters rushed out to us.’148 The reinforcement of Malta was the ‘the most urgent requirement’ but the maintenance of Tobruk was also in jeopardy through lack of air cover. The enemy intended to make Malta and other ports unusable through mining and bombing.149 They also systematically targeted the Suez Canal; it was closed almost as much as it was open. A variety of mines was dropped at night and defences were improvised and inadequate. The blocking of the Canal meant that by 27 February, 110 vessels were waiting to pass through; a particular grievance was that Illustrious and Eagle were prevented from leaving the Mediterranean and Formidable from entering it.150 Cunningham also pleaded with London for shore-based torpedo bombers to hit the Libyan convoys, long-range bombers to pound Axis airfields and reconnaissance aircraft to spot enemy traffic and watch for sorties by the Italian fleet. He acknowledged that Longmore, with whom he had frequent discussions, was ‘extended to the utmost limit’.151 He felt that Longmore had a ‘real understanding of naval problems’ and regretted his relief in the spring by his deputy Tedder, ‘replacing a first-class man with a secondclass’.152 The RAF was grossly under strength but it was ‘difficult to convince those at home of the exact state of affairs’.153 Tedder blamed the lack of reinforcements on the Government’s ‘keep it on the island policy’.154 Neither he nor Cunningham was much mollified by the Prime Minister’s assertion, ‘We are making extreme exertions to reinforce you from the air.’155 London’s failure ‘to see the danger of our situation in the Mediterranean without adequate air support passed my comprehension’, wrote Cunningham, echoed by Wavell, Longmore and Tedder.156 By June, Cunningham ‘was very careful how one sent ships inside the range of the Ju 87’ and was confined either to night operations or to forays within 100 miles of an RAF fighter station.157 The disasters off Greece and Crete revived his call for a Coastal Command for the Mediterranean.158 The Cs-in-C were compelled to co-operate even more closely by events, Tedder remarking that ‘it is in that campaign that one can see most clearly, the inter-relation between Land, Sea and Air warfare’.159 The Mediterranean resembled a giant jigsaw, each base, force and service interlocking with the others. At the end of five traumatic months, Cunningham was able to tell Pound, ‘Personally, though much harassed, I have never been fitter.’160 Promoted Admiral on 3 January, and appointed a KCB on 4 March, he remarked characteristically, ‘I would sooner have had three squadrons of Hurricanes.’161 He kept a tight grip on his command, realising that he had to maintain an air of confidence, calmness and imperturbability. Much of his secret lay in his ability to escape on the golf course, in the Residency garden and in his home life, where he and Nona surrounded themselves with high-spirited young people. He had a love of ‘childish fun’ and ‘a great sense of humour and loved bawdy jokes’. Hostile to new ideas until they had proved themselves in action, he ‘could be very impetuous and pigheaded at times, and very intolerant’; he engaged in much banter with his staff and he was ‘respected, revered and feared’.162 He looked upon staff college methodology and

Triumph into tragedy

79

language with scorn and frequently signed orders without looking at them. It was only under the pressures of the Greek campaign that his staff persuaded him to establish an office ashore; inevitably, it was linked to the flagship by a gangway. At sea, he was always close to the bridge and generally pacing it between 0330 and dawn, or rising at 0630 ‘intent on gingering everybody up’.163 It was known as the routine of the ‘caged tiger’.

8 The Caged Tiger

June 1941–April 1942 In August 1941, Cunningham told Admiral Kelly, ‘I hate this being cooped up in the Eastern Mediterranean and very nearly go into a frenzy when I hear of Italian surface ships being at sea in the Central Mediterranean.’1 The battle fleet was frequently immobilised for lack of a screen. Only limited use could be made of shore-based torpedo squadrons, while reconnaissance and fighter support was patchy. Since the enemy had recovered Cyrenaica and now held the Balkans and Crete, while threatening to add Russia, Cyprus and the Middle East, the British were hemmed into Egypt and Palestine. Cunningham had realised the strategic consequences that the loss of Crete and half his fleet would impose and told Pound that he found his new position ‘eminently unsatisfactory since it is almost entirely defensive’.2 British bases were also less secure. The trans-Mediterranean route was Virtually closed’ as Axis planes could attack convoys almost everywhere, thus threatening Malta. The imminent risk to Alexandria might well lead the fleet to abandon it and the Suez Canal. The possession of a ring of air bases enabled the enemy to safeguard their own Libyan traffic. All the cards seemed stacked in Axis hands, causing Cunningham to warn, ‘We are on the edge of disaster here.’3 After June, the navy had to find forces to deter a restless Japan and to escort convoys to Russia, so Cunningham could expect few replacements. The answer was an increase in air strength—‘we must have the air and immediately’.4 He also urged an early land offensive to regain Cyrenaica. ‘The whole object of clearing the southern flank is to provide a series of airfields’ to allow attacks on enemy bases in Libya and the Balkans and their supplies, reconnoitring the Malta convoy route and covering the fleet and convoys with fighters.5 Thus he hoped that Wavell’s ‘Battleaxe’, launched in mid-June, would enable the RAF to support naval operations in the central Mediterranean.6 However, it was a further disaster; British forces were pushed back well inside Egypt. The army was unable to mount another major offensive until November. Nevertheless, Churchill and his service chiefs justified their enormous investment in the theatre but failed to satisfy Transatlantic critics.7 The British argued that by drawing the Germans into the Mediterranean, they stretched Hitler’s resources and diverted strength from the Russian front. However, though German Mediterranean strategy ‘had an adverse effect on supplies for the Eastern front’, they were still able to threaten Russia.8 The British held that withdrawal from the canal zone would entail serious losses and undermine

The caged tiger

81

Turkish and Arab morale and stability; ‘the importance of prestige cannot be discounted’.9 They also pointed to the interdependence of the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Only by holding on to these areas could the full imperial war effort be deployed and Russia supplied through Iran, whose oil was essential to the conduct of operations east of Suez. A successful North African offensive might persuade French territories there to desert Vichy.10 There is no doubt that Cunningham subscribed to this strategic vision and he was mindful that the services must co-operate: If you wish to win a war you must control the sea. If you wish to control the sea you must control the air, and if you wish to control the air you must hold or capture the necessary bases—which brings in the Army. If you wish to hold and supply these bases you must see that your sea lanes are secure, and that completes the circle.11 Early Russian catastrophes raised the spectre of a German thrust southwards to the Middle East oilfields and the Suez Canal, perhaps in company with a renewed Afrika Korps offensive and Japanese entry into the war.12 London also became alarmed at an apparently cosy relationship between the Germans and the Vichy regime in Syria and Lebanon, so Wavell was compelled to mount an invasion of the French mandates on 8 June. Cunningham was ‘much concerned’ at the possible loss of Cyprus, as the island was ill-defended. He pointed out that ‘the consequences of its occupation by the Germans are very serious’; in their hands, communications with Turkey would be severed, while Port Said and the Canal might become unusable.13 He seemed less concerned about Syria, though ‘it was felt to be essential to forestall the enemy and secure our Northern flank’.14 Cunningham, having established that Godfroy would remain loyal to his agreement, sent a squadron to patrol off Beirut to contain French destroyer and submarine forces there and prevent reinforcements. The FAA assisted with fighter and strike forces and the fleet supplied artillery support on the army’s seaward flank and put commandos ashore.15 However, all services experienced setbacks. Fulmars suffered heavily at the hands of superior French aircraft and the big contre torpilleurs were ‘well and boldly handled’, with accurate gunnery and enough margin of speed to conduct hit-and-run raids on British forces.16 They crippled one destroyer and two others were damaged by bombs; alarmed, Cunningham told King, in command of naval forces, ‘we could not afford to have destroyers knocked out at this rate’.17 He was compelled to send a second force of cruisers and destroyers from his strained resources. Lieutenant-Commander Alliston, commanding Decoy, recalled that his ship’s company was weary after Crete and that the destroyer could steam at only 25 knots; nevertheless, her guns proved effective against Vichy tanks. British naval forces were constrained to operate at night at times as fighter cover had to be shared with the army. They were ill-served by reconnaissance but they provided effective flank support and, from airfields in Cyprus, the FAA sank a destroyer and merchant vessels.18 The French were forced into an armistice on 14 July. Cunningham, clearly unhappy that French forces had enjoyed the better of the engagements, described the Syrian episode as an ‘irritating though necessary interlude’.19 He was relieved, however, that Captain Morse ensured that Syrian ports were under effective British control.20

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

82

One reason for the long-drawn-out Syrian campaign was that operations had ‘not been properly planned between the three Services’.21 There were changes of C-in-C for the army and air force, Auchinleck, fresh from India, replacing Wavell on 22 June and Tedder taking over from Longmore in May, the Air Ministry considering that Longmore ‘was inclined to give way to the other Commanders-in-Chief’.22 Cunningham did not take kindly to these changes; ‘fast friends’ with Wavell, he felt Longmore was ‘a true comrade and friend’.23 ‘After Wavell and Longmore left’, he recalled, ‘there wasn’t the same feeling of friendliness’, and he ‘did not get on well’ with either Auchinleck or Tedder.24 He found Auchinleck ignorant of naval warfare and unappreciative of the navy’s efforts to support Tobruk and the ‘Crusader’ offensive in November. Cunningham told the haughty Auchinleck ‘he wasn’t the only Heaven-born about!!!’25 Cunningham thought Tedder untrustworthy, obstructive and obsessed with the Trenchard philosophy of the indivisibility of air power.26 Tedder lamented in May, ‘I would give a lot to have opposite numbers who really understand the joint problem.’27 He would have been glad if Cunningham had been replaced, though he professed friendship, not reciprocated by Cunningham. Tedder and Auchinleck proved extremely compatible, it having been suggested to Tedder that he should ‘if possible, combine with him against Cunningham’, as ‘it seems unlikely that Cunningham will work well with you’.28 Tedder reported that he and Auchinleck were ‘very much of one view regarding The Old Man of the Sea’ and he came to regard Cunningham as ‘an anachronism’ and ‘a real menace’.29 Moreover, Auchinleck was naturally blunt and Cunningham and Tedder had decided, independently, to speak more frankly at Cs-in-C meetings.30 Tedder felt that these should deal with genuine policy issues rather than as information clearing houses. There was certainly more cut and thrust from the summer of 1941 and many disagreements. However, the commanders stood together on pursuing the one major strategic aim of ensuring the security of the Egyptian base and building up forces to expel the enemy from North Africa.31 Their resolution was tested in October when Churchill ‘ordered preparations to proceed with utmost speed’ for the invasion of Sicily (‘Whipcord’) in the hope that the forthcoming ‘Crusader’ offensive would lead to a breakdown in Italian morale, thus exposing Sicily. Its possession would re-open the through Mediterranean route, curb the raids on Malta and enable the bombing of mainland Italy; it might even lead to the downfall of Mussolini. The Middle East commanders diplomatically advised that the idea was premature. Mid-winter was not a propitious time for an assault. The enemy could reinforce the island faster than the invaders, who lacked shipping, landing craft and adequate air cover and would struggle to maintain the landing force. The invasion fleet would be exposed to overwhelming air attack. They had to guard, too, against a possible German thrust from the Caucasus. This was a higher priority and also the advantages claimed for Sicily could be obtained far more cheaply and easily by the conquest of Libya. The COS were hustled into ‘Whipcord’, another example of Churchillian overoptimism and unfounded assumptions.32 Oliver Lyttelton, an able and experienced politician, became Minister of State, Middle East. Acting in a quasi-diplomatic role, Lyttelton chaired the Cs-in-C Committee. Auchinleck and Tedder, supported by their chiefs in London, requested that Cunningham should move to Cairo. Tedder groused that ‘the one main difficulty is that C-in-C, Mediterranean, and staff are…sometimes at sea at critical times’ or, when at Alexandria,

The caged tiger

83

reachable only via an unreliable telephone.33 Cunningham felt a move would be totally unnecessary as there was never a full day’s work and he would be divorced from the operations of his fleet, for which (unlike his colleagues) he had direct operational responsibility. ‘I regard it as of cardinal importance that the Admiral should be in closest touch with his Fleet…. When hard fighting and difficult conditions have to be met the Commander should not be 100 miles away from his forces.’34 Though he gained Lyttelton’s support, under pressure from colleagues and staff, he established a shore office in the spring (with air and military liaison officers) and he had Norman at Cairo. Cunningham himself attended the weekly Cs-in-C meeting.35 His leadership at sea was invaluable and it is arguable that ‘Alex’ was a more suitable site for Middle East headquarters than the fleshpots of Cairo. However, it was demeaning to Auchinleck and Tedder to have a junior officer standing in for Cunningham, and it was becoming more difficult for him and his staff to be away from Alexandria. Moreover, later on, Cunningham came to feel there should be a senior admiral in Cairo, with subordinates commanding the fleet and the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and called for co-terminous areas of command. Tedder believed that it was an integrated campaign and that there should be a joint staff.36 Cunningham himself, rejecting a supreme commander, argued that the individual commanders had to learn to co-operate; the services were ‘interdependent and largely indivisible…working to a common end …each C-in-C will also be thinking of how he can assist his two colleagues’.37 The debate over a ‘Coastal Command’ caused a great bitterness. During Longmore’s time, Cunningham had obtained operational control over reconnaissance and bomber forces but the Greek and Cretan débâcles, and the appointment of the less sympathetic Tedder, induced him to call for a group dedicated to naval co-operation.38 Tedder referred to Cunningham as ‘a case-hardened salt horse’ who was ‘incapable of appreciating some of the elementary facts of modern warfare’.39 In fact Cunningham displayed an acute understanding of the influence of air power on maritime operations, calling for more comprehensive and reliable long-range reconnaissance and for trained anti-shipping squadrons.40 He felt that the RAF in the Middle East was still far too weak and agitated constantly for large-scale and immediate reinforcements. Otherwise, ‘our position in the Mediterranean and Middle East will crumble completely’.41 Moreover, the lack of a carrier rendered the fleet totally dependent on the RAF Without air support the fleet would ‘remain pinned in this corner of the Mediterranean’,42 The air command was, however, ‘touchy and difficult of approach’, obstructive and deliberately uncooperative.43 Furthermore, the RAF seemed unwilling to acknowledge its deficiencies over the sea—poor navigation, inaccurate observation and an unwillingness to attack warships by day (the FAA did so)—and refused naval offers to train aircrew in maritime operations. Cunningham felt the RAF compared poorly with enemy air forces in a maritime role, accusing it of ‘a lamentable exhibition of disorganisation and inefficiency’,44 ‘The Italians and the Germans quarter the whole Mediterranean daily’, he complained, whereas he had received no reports on Piraeus and Suda Bay for over a week, while the Germans were ‘infinitely better’ and ‘more daring’ at anti-ship operations.45 If a Coastal Command had been found necessary at home, it was even more vital in the Mediterranean.46 Before Crete, Cunningham had drafted a blueprint for a naval co-operation group which would be under his operational control and have its headquarters alongside his own. The disembarked FAA squadrons would come under its

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

84

umbrella. The RAF squadrons would be adequately trained for operations over the sea and dedicated to the maritime role. Secondment to other operations would require Cunningham’s consent. He made a formal proposal to Tedder early in June. Cunningham was ‘in no mood for a compromise’ and geared himself for ‘a fierce battle’ with Tedder, declaring ‘I’m just going to hammer the thing through’.47 Tedder emphatically rejected the demand that a large proportion of his forces should be permanently assigned to naval co-operation. Not only was this ‘impossible with our present resources’, but he observed that naval operations made intermittent demands on squadrons and therefore units would be under-employed. It was ‘a question of balancing the relative priorities’ between the requirements of the navy and the army.48 Tedder also set himself for ‘a dingdong fight’ and hinted broadly that ‘there is one simple remedy to the whole problem’—Cunningham’s relief.49 The issue was then referred to London but Portal and Pound proved as obdurate as their Cs-in-C. Pound emphasised that aircrew could only become proficient in maritime operations if employed continuously on them, while Portal believed that air forces required ‘the maximum of versatility and the minimum of specialisation’.50 The fight dragged on into the autumn but ultimately Churchill and the COS drew up an agreement that gave Cunningham most of what he wanted. A Naval Co-operation Group (No. 201) was set up with the primary function of supporting fleet operations. Units were to be withdrawn from maritime duties only after consultation with C-in-C, Mediterranean, while other RAF squadrons might be drafted into the group when operations at sea required it. The Middle East Cs-in-C were to decide allocations of units. FAA squadrons were attached to the group but could be seconded to land operations only with Cunningham’s permission. A photographic reconnaissance unit was to be formed as well as a pool of observers, while as many of the RAF’s squadrons as possible were to be trained in work over the sea. The Air Officer Commanding-inChief (AOC-in-C) and C-in-C, Mediterranean, were to agree on the strategic employment of the group and to issue joint standing orders. It had been, Pound admitted, ‘a pretty stiff fight’.51 The AOC of 201 Group, Air Commodore Slatter, was a former carrier aviator in whom both Cunningham and Tedder had full confidence. Thus, by December, Cunningham found ‘matters are much improved’ and Tedder described him ‘as far more amenable recently’.52 The group was to consist of three reconnaissance, one Air-toSurface Vessel (ASV), four torpedo bomber, two Torpedo Spotter Reconnaisance (TSR) aircraft, three long-range fighter, six short-range fighter, and (temporarily) two heavy and four light bomber squadrons.53 However, Cunningham still complained that reconnaissance was grossly inadequate, and Tedder was constrained to agree. Following the disasters in the Far East and the loss of his battle squadron, Pound enquired whether air forces could fill the gap. Initially, Cunningham agreed, provided they were adequate, well trained and under his control. The inability to sight the Italian fleet, on a three-day sortie in the central Mediterranean, and a number of convoys to Libya, however, led Cunningham to expostulate, ‘It is all nonsense to talk of them securing sea communications.’54 He was especially critical of their reluctance to attack warships by day but Tedder was convinced this was virtually suicidal.55 Tedder complained also that standing fighter patrols over naval forces was an extremely inefficient use of resources but acknowledged that there was little option but to carry on.56 Portal noted that by the beginning of 1942 ‘naval control of the Eastern Mediterranean has virtually ceased to

The caged tiger

85

exist and will have to be replaced by air control’ and Tedder felt that naval activities should increasingly ‘conform to air operations’.57 Even Cunningham was compelled to admit by the time he left that ‘control of the Mediterranean now rested largely on the effective use of torpedo bomber aircraft’.58 However, there were many instances of effective air/sea co-operation on the routes to Tobruk and Malta and operations against enemy convoys.59 Moreover, Cunningham and Tedder were agreed that ‘air operations, like naval operations, are conditioned by the bases available’ and that ‘the campaign is primarily a battle for aerodromes’.60 Cunningham believed that if the army could hold westward to Derna, it would enable the air force to provide a chain of airfields. From these the RAF would be able to cover fleet operations and the Malta and Tobruk convoys, provide reconnaissance and attack enemy convoys and bases. It would prevent most of the attacks on Alexandria and draw the Luftwaffe into a losing attritional battle.61 If the coast was not held, Malta’s survival was jeopardised and the navy would continue haemorrhaging ships on the Tobruk run. In early June, Cunningham reported that ‘supply is nearly at a standstill west of Mersa Matruh’ owing to enemy air activities; fighter cover was ‘the one urgent need’.62 Unless the air force could neutralise airfields, the Stukas would continue to reap a rich harvest at sea. Short-range FAA torpedo bombers, which would be required for a new carrier, needed support from RAF strike squadrons. Moreover, the arrival of deadly German Uboats in October required anti-submarine patrols. Cunningham assisted ‘Crusader’, successfully begun on 18 November, with bombardments and herculean efforts to increase supplies to the front.63 Tobruk was finally relieved after 242 days, at a cost of 34 naval and merchant vessels and as many damaged. The ‘beef and spud’ run had taken in over 30,000 troops and evacuated a similar number, delivered 34,000 tons of supplies, 72 tanks and 92 guns.64 Ships had sailed laden with stores and men, proceeding largely by night and at full speed; they had engaged enemy planes with various weapons—begged, borrowed or stolen—but always the contest was an unequal one. Unfortunately, Rommel recoiled and once more thrust the army back into Egypt; by 4 February 1942, Tobruk was once more under siege.65 Cunningham’s pleas for a new carrier were summarily rebuffed by Pound, long sceptical about the value and survival of carriers in the Mediterranean. Not only was there no carrier available until the spring of 1942, but a replacement would be ‘a sheer waste’.66 Cunningham argued, vainly, that a carrier, while a prize target, protected the fleet from even more damage. Indeed, he pressed for one to be stocked with fighters and a second to serve as a strike carrier. He promised to look after new vessels more carefully than he had Illustrious and Formidable. However, he could rarely take the fleet to sea, as he lacked a screen.67 This defensive posture drew from Churchill a characteristically disapproving and uncomprehending comment: ‘Cunningham has not done any fighting since Crete, and there is no chance whatever of the Italians attacking him in the Eastern Mediterranean’; despite Pound’s robust defence, the Prime Minister continued to accuse Cunningham of ‘lying low’.68 After Crete, most ships required repairs or refits and two or three light cruisers and several destroyers were his only replacements; Cunningham confessed to being ‘pretty well skinned of ships and destroyers’.69 When Force H brought relief to Malta in the ‘Halberd’ (July) and ‘Substance’ (September) convoys, Cunningham could only offer feints and deceptions.70 The Mediterranean war was becoming increasingly a small ship

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

86

campaign. Cunningham’s priorities were minesweepers, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft escorts, MTBs, sub-marines and auxiliaries. The enemy was resorting to extensive minelaying to pin British forces into their bases, the Germans sent a score of U-boats, and Axis air forces were as strong as ever—reflected in Cunningham’s urgent requests for warning radar sets and hundreds more Oerlikon AA guns.71 On Cunningham’s last trip to sea with the fleet, supporting light forces, Barham was sunk by U-331 on 25 November. It was, as Cunningham admitted, an excellent performance by the U-boat. The destroyers were so hard-worked they were short of A/S practice and there were no carrier planes to keep the U-boat away. Cunningham noted, with unconscious irony, that ‘it won’t do to get another put out of action’.72 On the night of 18/19 December, three Italian ‘human torpedoes’, offloaded from a submarine, came through the boom at Alexandria with returning destroyers and set explosive charges close to Queen Elizabeth, Valiant and the tanker Sagona. Though all six Italian crewmen were apprehended and a search was made for the explosives, none was found, and at about 0545 on 19 December, they began to go off. Sagona, and Jervis alongside her, were badly damaged but the two battleships were put out of action for many months. Ultra intercepts on 18 December had informed Cunningham of an impending attack and he warned the fleet to be especially vigilant. The harbour defences of sentries, booms, nets, patrols and explosive charges were strengthened but it was too little, too late.73 Simultaneously, Force K, the successful Malta surface striking force, was decimated on a minefield. Two further light cruiser losses, storm damage and Ajax’s poor mechanical condition also limited Cunningham’s operational horizons. Coupled with the losses of Ark Royal, Prince of Wales and Repulse, the Alexandria fiasco effectively emasculated British sea power outside home waters.74 The attack was a superb feat of arms and achieved a greater effect than the raid on Taranto, for the battleships were hors de combat for longer than two of the Italian vessels and eliminated the British battle fleet. Though Cunningham was to write, ‘One cannot but admire the cold-blooded bravery and enterprise of these Italians’, his embarrassment was clear.75 Could the attack have been prevented? Alexandria, essentially commercial and under Egyptian sovereignty, was difficult to defend, having a wide entrance, while the boom was excruciatingly slow to close and the battleships’ nets inadequate. Attempts by the port admiral, Rear-Admiral G.H.Cresswell, and Cunningham’s staff to improve the defences had met with the C-in-C’s stern ‘not approved’ decisions. Only on 17 December was a sea defences officer appointed. A board of inquiry was set up under PridhamWippell and noticed deficiencies in the supervisory arrangements, lookouts, boom operations, radar, hydrophone loops, asdic, illuminants and air patrols, concluding that even a closed boom would not have prevented the Italians’ entry. Given Cunningham’s pre-war complaints about the poor state of Alexandria’s defences, it is surprising that he did not apply his usual vigour to the problem. Predictably, afterwards, measures were taken to prevent a recurrence.76 As the imperial position in the Far East crumbled, the Mediterranean surrendered ships to the Indian Ocean. Cunningham insisted that Force H, with a capital ship and a carrier, should remain, to compel the Italians to divide their attention between east and west. In the eastern Mediterranean, there seemed no option but to trust RAF bombers with countering the Italian fleet. He appreciated that ‘the war will only be won by beating Germany…the defeat of Germany will mean the defeat of Japan’, counselling that ‘the

The caged tiger

87

offensive from the Mediterranean and/or North Africa provides our chief card of re-entry into Europe where Germany must be defeated’.77 This called for the early rebuilding of the battle fleet and the return of at least one armoured carrier. For the time being, however, the crippling of the battleships ‘opened a period of clear Italian supremacy in the East-Central Mediterranean’—though, due to shortages of fuel and destroyers and their lack of confidence, the Italians made little use of their opportunity.78 Apart from some seaward support of ‘Crusader’, and a night bombardment of Rhodes aerodromes, operations were confined to the supply of Tobruk, Malta and the Levant, and the escort of troopships through the Red Sea.79 Alexandria was subjected to heavy enemy air attacks, which led to cessations of work, making it difficult for ships to go to sea. In the absence of adequate AA, radar and fighters, the burden of keeping open ports and the Canal fell on Cunningham. He was desperately short of minesweepers and other naval and auxiliary vessels had to be adapted. He was compelled to send Fulmars and AA cruisers to Suez to guard the unloading of the great troopships and to add the Red Sea to his command, furnishing it with ships from his own resources. Despite this, the liner Georgic was burnt out in a raid. He appealed for an enormous increase in army AA defences along the Canal, noting that it was frequently closed for days after a raid.80 These pressures combined to keep Cunningham at Alexandria, where he presided over a vast shore establishment with numerous training schools, airfields, repair facilities and harbour units. At his departure in April 1942, the ‘fleet’ consisted of four light cruisers, 15 destroyers, 25 submarines, sweepers and auxiliaries. Force H had shrunk to Malaya, the old, slow, small carrier Argus, and a handful of destroyers. Its distinguished commander, James Somerville, left in January 1942. All this was in comparison with an Italian fleet of five battleships, nine cruisers, 55 destroyers, 50 submarines, and at least 20 German U-boats.81 Malta’s problems remained the most persistent and intractable. As the Axis intensified their air attacks to neutralise the island, so its defence became even harder to sustain. By 1942 the colony required 15,000 tons of stores a month and stocks of some items were down to two months’ supply. The cost in lives, ships and planes was substantial. As Tedder observed, ‘the retention of Malta was literally vital, not only to any possibility of denying the cross-sea route to the enemy, but also to any prospect of reopening our own through route’.82 After Crete, Cunningham had been unable to cover sailings from the east, so even more considerable efforts had to be made by Force H, strengthened by heavy units from the Home Fleet. ‘Substance’ and ‘Halberd’ were fought through against heavy air and surface opposition, delivering almost all of their precious cargoes and filling Malta’s storehouses for several months to come, as well as bringing additional troops to guard against invasion. Force H regularly flew in fighters and TSRs, while bombers flew from Gibraltar.83 Cunningham, however, was compelled to send in oil by the converted fast freighter Breconshire, supplemented by Glengyle and by submarines. Following the loss of Ark Royal in November 1941, it became impossible to despatch convoys from Gibraltar. However, the COS informed the Mediterranean commanders that ‘Malta is of such importance both as an air staging point and as an impediment to enemy reinforcement that the most drastic steps are justifiable to sustain it’ and ‘it should be regarded as our primary military commitment’.84 Portal declared that ‘there would be no possibility of our being able to provide adequate air cover for our Malta convoys till General Auchinleck’s armies had won back the aerodromes in North West Cyrenaica’

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

88

and Pound echoed this.85 Convoys from Alexandria had to negotiate an ‘air gap’ of several hundred miles and the odds were against them arriving with any of their charges afloat. Malta was at this time the ‘Verdun of the Maritime War’.86 Cunningham exploited moonless nights and a temporary cessation of enemy traffic to Libya to send Breconshire in mid-December 1941 to replenish the perilously low fuel tanks. He was fortunate that the flag officer commanding this operation was Philip Vian, a somewhat overbearing, hard-driving leader but full of fighting spirit, determination and tactical acumen.87 Vian set sail on 15 December, having the two light cruisers Naiad (flag) and Euryalus, with the AA cruiser Carlisle and seven destroyers. Malta’s light cruisers and destroyers were to rendezvous on 17 December. The thinness of British air reconnaissance was exposed when Vian encountered an Italian force of three battleships, supported by two heavy cruisers and destroyers in the late afternoon of that day, while suffering from the latest and heaviest of air attacks. Vian at once made smoke and threatened the enemy with a massed torpedo attack and the Italians distanced themselves, refusing an engagement in the failing light, thus allowing Vian to detach Breconshire to Malta in the care of the cruisers and destroyers from there that had hastened to his support. Vian then made an unsuccessful night search for the enemy convoy of which the fleet had been the distant cover. Vain efforts were made also by the Malta air and surface striking forces to intercept the enemy Vian dashed home through the ‘air gap’.88 Cunningham told Pound that ‘when Vian was surprised by the Italian battleships, Vian handled the situation with great skill’—much as Cunningham would have done.89 Towards the end of January, Breconshire made another run to Malta, the escorts from Malta and Alexandria exchanging her for two merchantmen; though bombed several times and usually without fighter cover, each force returned intact.90 On Boxing Day, four merchant ships made a successful escape from Malta, escorted by what remained of the Malta surface forces, and Carlisle and destroyers brought them safely back to Egypt. Air reconnaissance was again at a premium and a handful of RAF fighters provided air cover but air and submarine attacks were beaten off without major damage. Their successes, however, did little to guarantee Malta’s survival, Cunningham stating that another convoy would have to be run soon, though he feared ‘serious losses which might well be whole convoy if we are unlucky’.91 Three merchant ships sailed from Alexandria on 12 February 1942, escorted by Vian, while Breconshire and three other vessels left Malta. Despite powerful AA support and maximum exertion by 201 Group, one of the Malta-bound merchantmen was damaged and forced to return, while the other two were sunk; the ships from Malta arrived unscathed. Cunningham confessed, ‘It appears useless to try to further pass in a convoy until the air situation in Malta and military situation in Cyrenaica have been restored.’92 It was the most insoluble of riddles. The air situation in Malta could not be restored unless more fighters, fuel and stores reached the island, while a key prerequisite of an advance in Cyrenaica was an effective campaign against enemy traffic and ports spearheaded by air and sea forces from Malta. In the meantime, Cunningham could not afford to lose more of the scarce large, fast freighters—but unless he risked them, Malta might not survive. Once again, Cunningham was compelled to try a convoy in February, and once again warning, ‘we may easily lose the convoy’.93 However, the army launched a minor diversionary offensive to distract enemy air forces and the RAF and FAA attacked airfields in Crete and Cyrenaica. An anti-submarine sweep to clear U-boats from the

The caged tiger

89

convoy’s path had the predictable result of losing a destroyer to a U-boat, which remained undetected. On Vian enquiring as what he should do if the Italian fleet appeared, Cunningham told him to act on his own initiative but ‘that if he made enough smoke the Italian Fleet would not come through it’,94 Vian assumed that a surface action against superior forces was likely and, dividing his forces into five small groups, rehearsed them in laying smoke screens and making gun and torpedo attacks and ensured his divisional commanders knew exactly what he required. He planned to keep the whole force together, exploiting gaps in enemy air reconnaissance, taking a southerly course to maximise distance from Italian units and making ground to the west under cover of night, avoiding known U-boat patrol areas.95 The convoy left Alexandria on 20 March, led by Vian in Cleopatra, with Dido, Euryalus, Carlisle, 16 destroyers, Breconshire and the merchantmen Clan Campbell, Talabot and Pampas, and they were joined early on 22 March by Penelope and Legion from Malta. The army and air attacks probably helped to conceal the convoy for the first two days but on 22 March the force was attacked several times by over 150 aircraft. The strong AA armament of the warships, aided by long-range Beaufighters, drove them off. Under severe air attack and in a rising wind and sea, Vian’s force sighted three Italian cruisers and four destroyers to the north-east at 1427; the divisions concentrated and steered for the enemy, opening fire at 1436, the enemy breaking off the inconclusive and long-range action at 1515. At 1637, the enemy, now consisting of the Littorio, three cruisers and eight destroyers, reappeared to the north, endeavouring to work round to the south-west in search of the convoy, which had been sent further south, escorted by Carlisle and six ‘Hunts’. During the next hour, Vian’s forces made smoke, dashing in and out of it to fire sporadically at the enemy; though the weather gauge favoured the British, accurate fire was difficult in the heavy seas. A false report of two damaged opponents lured Vian to the east at 1730 and Captain St J.A. Micklethwaite (D22) in Sikh with his division ‘held off the enemy for nearly half an hour, a remarkable feat’, until Vian came racing back.96 By 1800, ‘the situation appeared critical’, despite repeated forays against the enemy’s heavy ships and torpedo attacks when the range came down to 6,000 yards or less, though most of the action was at much longer ranges. However, the enemy, who refused to penetrate the smoke screen, broke off action at dusk (1900). Vian also fought off no less than 28 air attacks during the afternoon. Meanwhile, the convoy, too, held off Axis bombers, thanks to the ‘fine gunnery’ of the escorts and effective if somewhat violent evasive action by the merchant ships, Cunningham being told that ‘the sky over the convoy was black with aircraft and shellbursts’.97 Vian had won a famous victory—even though his ships had suffered more damage than the Italians—a single hit on Littorio. Kingston and Havock were both reduced to 15 knots and proceeded to Malta with Penelope and Legion, while Vian returned to Alexandria. The convoy was dispersed during the night, each ship continuing to Malta with an individual escort. The action had been followed with apprehension and frustration at Cunningham’s headquarters. ‘Never before’, he recalled, ‘have I felt so keenly the mortifying business of sitting behind the scenes with a heavy load of responsibility while others were in action with a vastly superior enemy.’98 Nevertheless, as the reports came in, Cunningham recognised that Vian was handling the situation exactly as he would have done. He told Howard Kelly that it was ‘a classic retiring action. Anyone but the Italians would have eaten him and the convoy up.’99 Years later he

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

90

concluded, ‘I shall always consider the battle of Sirte on March 22nd, 1942, as one of the most brilliant naval actions of the war, if not the most brilliant.’100 Vian’s ships were given a rousing reception on their return to Alexandria and Cunningham went at once on board Cleopatra and signalled his congratulations to all who took part. The Prime Minister added his praise and Vian was rewarded with a knighthood.101 However, Vian’s triumph was only a tactical victory (even that is disputed by Italian apologists).102 The action had delayed the convoy and pushed it far to the south, thus bringing it well within range of enemy bombers on the following day. Clan Campbell was sunk and Breconshire disabled within sight of Malta. Legion and Avon Vale suffered considerable damage and Southwold was sunk by a mine. Though Talabot and Pampas reached the Grand Harbour unscathed, large-scale enemy air attacks destroyed both of them, while Breconshire capsized. Some of Breconshire’s fuel was saved but only 5,000 tons of the 26,000 tons of cargo was safely unloaded. Legion and Kingston were sunk, too, and though Havock was repaired and sailed for Gibraltar, she ran aground off the Tunisian coast. The March convoy represented, therefore, a strategic defeat; though the Italian fleet had failed to locate it, its pressure had placed the ships in the palms of the Axis airmen. The collective gunfire of the warships might have saved ships which, supported by a single warship, became easy targets. Malta also failed to unload the ships on arrival; they should have been beached.103 Only Dido and Euryalus were undamaged, while Cleopatra and Penelope had suffered minor damage and Aurora was still in dock. Only six destroyers were fully fit for service; 16 were under repair for periods ranging from one week to several months.104 Though RAF fighter cover had been extensive and efficient and the AA gunnery excellent, enemy air power, despite the land and air operations to distract it, including the flying in of Spitfires from the west, had been overwhelming. Cunningham therefore advised the Admiralty that the success of future convoys depended on a substantial reinforcement of destroyers and the Malta fighter force and greater efforts to divert enemy sea and air forces.105 Malta’s parlous state was a direct result of the success obtained by the island’s surface, submarine and air striking forces against the Libyan convoys and their assembly and arrival ports in the second half of 1941. The Luftwaffe returned in force in December and it was calculated that the Axis air forces could have 670 aircraft available by February 1942, the fighters including the latest model of Me 109, which greatly outperformed the Hurricane I.106 The Axis raids, mounted round the clock, were ‘definitely trying to neutralise Malta’s efforts’ and attacks were focused on the submarine base, the dockyard and airfields.107 The approaches to harbours were mined, minesweepers were strafed while sweeping, submarines were forced to lie on the bottom in daylight (though four were destroyed), and ships under repair were blown up in dry dock. There were no longer any safe berths and aircraft were about as safe in the air as on the ground.108 Proposals to construct underground offices, oil tanks, repair shops and submarine pens had been made before the war by Pound and Ford but rejected. By 1942, there was a concerted effort to house personnel and equipment underground, while blast-proof pens were built on airfields and planes widely dispersed.109 Ford described the AA fire as ‘b—y’ and there was a lack of co-ordination and direction of the fighters and the barrage.110 There were often less than 10 serviceable planes; at least four squadrons of Spitfire Vs were required. ‘The Government must give up safety first and send out the very latest if they want to hold Malta’, warned Ford, while his successor, Vice-Admiral Sir Ralph Leatham,

The caged tiger

91

declared, ‘All or most of our troubles… are from weakness of our fighter strength.’111 The combined weight of senior commanders prompted a delivery of 15 Spitfires on 7 March, most of them being lost within a day. Another 47 arrived with the March convoy and they gradually got the upper hand but not before all the submarines, cruisers and destroyers were sent away.112 The simultaneous arrival of reconnaissance, intelligence and substantial surface and air striking forces, together with new submarines, as well as the slackening of enemy air attacks, had led to an increase in Malta’s offensive effort. Despite panic in London over the arrival of the Afrika Korps, nevertheless, neither Cunningham nor Longmore had the forces to effectively disrupt North African traffic; between June 1940 and May 1941, 7 per cent of enemy supplies, 6.5 per cent of his oil and under 5 per cent of his troops were lost.113 German air strength, however, was claimed by the Balkans and Russia from March 1941 and senior British commanders concentrated on stopping Rommel. Churchill petulantly demanded decisive action.114 Pound and Cunningham emphasised that miracles must not be expected, offensive forces were still very limited and it was not possible to reinstate the destroyer flotilla. Reconnaissance was still patchy and Ultra, though very productive, had to be used cautiously lest it be compromised. The enemy’s reconnaissance was comprehensive enough to enable him often to evade British forces. Nevertheless, aircraft were increasingly being fitted with radar and co-ordination of land and sea forces was much improved. Until the autumn of 1941, however, the brunt was borne by submarines operating from Alexandria and Malta.115 Cunningham retained overall control of the 1st and 10th Flotillas, making dispositions according to operational requirements, such as sorties by the Italian fleet or shifts in convoy routes.116 He told Pound that ‘every one is worth its weight in gold’ and that ‘I can use any number profitably’.117 Bold, brave and skilful commanding officers, such as Miers (Torbay) and Wanklyn (Upholder), torpedoed and shelled enemy shipping, bombarded shore positions, landed agents, rescued Allied escapees and sabotaged coastal targets.118 In May, Air Vice-Marshal Hugh Lloyd was appointed with the remit ‘Sink Axis shipping’,119 The core of the force was 830 FAA Squadron (Swordfish), reinforced in October by 828 Squadron (Albacores). RAF units trained in anti-shipping strikes arrived, together with Wellingtons, which acted as ASV pathfinders and also bombed ports.120 What was really required was a powerful surface force, supplied with Ultra and reconnaissance intelligence, steaming fast to engage at night, returning to Malta by dawn. The decimation of destroyer strength meant that Cunningham could not restore Mack’s force; moreover, he was not convinced that Malta was secure enough and said ‘I do not think surface from Malta would achieve anything’; Pound was equally sceptical.121 However, ‘Crusader’ compelled Pound to find two light cruisers and two destroyers, as ‘I think there would have been lasting criticism had we not made any attempt to cut the communications to Africa by surface forces’.122 Cunningham thought their impact would be confined to forcing the enemy to strengthen his escorts.123 Force K, arriving on 21 October, quickly had a catastrophic effect on enemy traffic. Shrewdly directed by Ford, skilful, fast, radar-equipped and well armed, on the night of 8/9 November, it sank seven out of eight merchant ships and three of four escorts—the sort of annihilation of which only a surface force was capable. Cunningham did not think the Italians would offer such tempting and poorly defended targets.124 This outstanding success merely whetted the Prime Minister’s appetite and he urged the severance of Rommel’s fuel supply. The

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

92

shortage of Malta’s oil inhibited Cunningham from reinforcing Force K but ultimately he agreed to detach two more cruisers and two destroyers.125 Meanwhile, Force K sank four more cargo ships and a destroyer. Convoys were suspended and when they resumed gave Malta as wide a berth as possible. As Cunningham had predicted, the enemy was compelled to employ battleships and cruisers in close escorts, to the detriment of shrinking oil reserves. In the interim, warships and aircraft transported personnel and stores and on 13 December two light cruisers, carrying cased petrol, were sunk by four destroyers, reinforcements from home. On the following day the submarine Urge put the battleship Vittorio Veneto out of action for several months.126 In June, Cunningham estimated that the enemy had lost about 150 merchant vessels in the first year of the war, leaving him with about 300 ships; if British forces could sink another 150 vessels, the Axis armies in North Africa would face severe problems. By the end of September it was noted, ‘Hardly a day passed without some heavy loss to the enemy.’127 In that month, it was calculated that 20 ships had been sunk, and possibly a further nine, with an equally large number damaged. The Germans reported that ‘the most dangerous British weapon in the Mediterranean is the submarine…. A very serious supply crisis must occur relatively soon’ owing to the Axis inability to replace shipping.128 Blaming shipping losses for shortages, Rommel signalled, ‘Supply situation critical. Troops have less than one issue of ammunition. Stocks in Cyrenaica negligible. Tripoli too distant… Quite impossible to bridge gap Tripoli to front with resources Afrika Korps.’129 Tripoli was unable to clear cargoes with despatch and the Axis lacked both coastal shipping and trucks, while Rommel’s reckless advances took him several hundred miles from the port. Shortages were therefore his fault—British efforts were ‘insufficient to bring about any serious damage to the enemy’s supply position’.130 Nevertheless, Rommel considered that ‘the fighting strength of the British forces on Malta represented the most difficult problem’.131 The Germans estimated that the convoy loss rate in July was 17 per cent, leaping to 35 per cent in August and 38 per cent in September. In October the loss rate shot up to 63 per cent, and 77 per cent in November, and 49 per cent in December. During 1941 as a whole, 26 per cent of the ships on the North Africa run had been lost. Hitler ordered additional U-boats and air units to be sent.132 Because of limited port facilities at Tripoli and Benghazi, ships were loaded to only 40 per cent and precious tankers and large liners were lost. Moreover, relentless bombing of Tripoli increased the turn-round time by three and half times. The Desert Air Force made successful attacks on coastal shipping between Tripoli and the front. The Luftwaffe, short of oil, was forced to devote considerable resources to convoy protection. The re-routing of convoys far to the east lengthened voyages and consumed more oil; the heavy escort used more fuel than was transported. The steady attrition of escorts led to a critical situation in convoy protection by the end of 1941.133 Thanks to Ultra, Rommel’s anxieties were known to the British.134 Cunningham believed that Malta had a decisive effect on the Mediterranean war during this period. He thought that ‘Malta was really the linchpin of the campaign in the Mediterranean…its maintenance had a direct bearing on the progress of the battle in Cyrenaica’.135 The role of Malta in Rommel’s eventual defeat has probably been overstated—but the important point is that both Allied and Axis strategic planners in 1941–42 believed that Malta was a major, not to say decisive, threat to Axis success in North Africa.136

The caged tiger

93

The Axis enjoyed mounting success in the first half of 1942. Cunningham lost all three battleships. Force K lost Neptune and Kandahar, while Aurora and Penelope were damaged by the minefield encounter on 19 December 1941; Ajax’s mechanical defects rendered her unserviceable.137 These losses meant that Rommel ‘will recover his freedom’ and his supply situation was considerably eased, allowing him to drive the British back deep into Egypt.138 Moreover, British offensive strength was being whittled down. The Italians were concentrating on the production of escort vessels and they were being equipped with German sonar; anti-submarine efforts were markedly more successful from the beginning of 1942. The enemy also laid 500 mines off Malta.139 The arrival of German U-boats from October 1941 produced results out of all proportion to their numbers. Cunningham found it extremely difficult to keep them in check, while they were infinitely more skilful and dangerous than the Italians. He was perpetually short of anti-submarine vessels and convoy escorts were threadbare, while RAF anti-submarine squadrons were slow to arrive. In December, Cunningham had a total of 26 anti-submarine vessels. Meanwhile, the U-boats were taking ‘a steady toll on the Tobruk run’ and as they shifted the focus of their attack, he was compelled to strengthen A/S forces in the Levant.140 Shortly before his departure he re-organised his forces, deploying the 5th Destroyer Flotilla and two A/S groups off the North African coast, with another two groups in the Levant and local patrol forces for each of the major ports. Most of his ships were trawlers, whalers and motor launches, with a stiffening of corvettes and destroyers. Like most senior commanders of his day, Cunningham failed to learn the essential lesson of the previous war—that the best means of sinking U-boats lay in attracting them to well-defended convoys, thus laying them open to counter-attack. Instead, he and other admirals ordered generally fruitless offensive sweeps, the only results of which were to cause unnecessary wear to ships and expose them to U-boat attack, since they proceeded at low speed to operate their asdic.141 Pridham-Wippell continued to be a very able second-in-command, though he was much shaken by the horrors of Barham’s sinking, following which he encouraged his fellow-survivors to maintain their spirits. Cunningham had implicit trust in BaillieGrohman, Glennie and Rawlings, who ‘had no failings that I discovered’, but he rapidly lost faith in King after Crete and Syria, coming to feel that he was a fine staff officer but unsuited to command at sea.142 His replacement as Cruiser Squadron (CS) 15 was Vian, Cunningham writing that he was ‘delighted to have him’ and describing him as ‘essentially a fighting sailor’—almost a clone of the C-in-C himself.143 Cunningham also greatly respected Ford, a man of ‘courage, unflagging energy and helpfulness’, and regretted his relief at Malta’s hour of trial.144 Among junior officers, Cunningham thought highly of Captains Lees (Calcutta) and Mack (D7). He was especially appreciative of his blunt Staff Officer (Operations), Manley Power, who went home exhausted early in 1942.145 For the most part, Cunningham’s energetic efforts to raise spirits seem to have borne fruit, as he reported a month after Crete that morale had been restored. Cunningham was generally regarded as sparing on praise and reluctant to put men forward for decorations but ships that did well received immediate and warm congratulations, often delivered personally, while ships leaving the station were sent signals thanking them for their service and wishing them well.146 He was particularly anxious to go aboard ships about to depart on difficult operations and explain the necessity of sending them into dangerous

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

94

waters.147 He was especially pleased to receive a letter from a disabled seaman in response to one of his own, which, said Able Seaman (AB) Atkinson, ‘had greatly cheered me’.148 He also pressed successfully for VCs in at least four cases.149 He was assiduous in seeking recognition of the fleet’s arduous and vital work and aggrieved when this was not forthcoming, and he strove incessantly for regular mail deliveries.150 Towards the end of 1941, his old friend, Vice-Admiral Sir Jock Whitworth, the Second Sea Lord, asked him to accept a draft of Wrens. Cunningham demurred, feeling that Alexandria was no place for young ladies, and perhaps harbouring residual doubts about their abilities. The manpower situation was so dire, however, that he had little choice and later acknowledged their sterling contribution.151 Cunningham was a modest, even humble, man, and, to gain the confidence of his fleet and persuade it to do what was necessary, he shared the discomforts and perils of life at sea in wartime. He was fully conscious of the Nelson legacy, both in terms of the nature of command and of control of the Mediterranean, and he also had the same gift of inspiring his subordinates, instilling in them the desire to engage the enemy more closely, the willingness to take bold initiatives and the necessity for rapid and firm decisionmaking. Feared for his irascibility, he was at times a bully and unjust, refusing to hear explanations, and Baillie-Grohman, one of his closest friends, remarked that ‘the C-in-C kept too much in his own hands, especially when it concerned officers’ appointments’.152 He was, however, pleased when people stood up to him, bore no grudges, and could be sentimental, caring and thoughtful. Early in 1942, he was asked to relieve Admiral Sir Charles Little, a Dartmouth termmate, as Head of the British Admiralty Delegation in Washington. He was not unwilling to leave the Mediterranean, regretting ‘there was now no fleet to go to sea in’.153 By the spring of 1941, the accent was on mine counter-measures, anti-submarine and antiaircraft warfare, inshore support of the army, convoy escort, submarines and coastal forces. The new warfare was not for a born battle fleet commander, well though Cunningham adapted to the new exigencies. He was not keen to continue in a shore berth, dealing mainly with ‘politico-strategic problems’.154 The army now took the lead and the air force was increasingly important; the navy became their handmaiden. He was doubtful, too, whether his successor, Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Harwood, possessed the requisite command experience, personal standing and knowledge of the Mediterranean. The Japanese were driving into the Indian Ocean, the Germans over-running the Caucasus and threatening Egypt; a link-up between them ‘would be a major disaster for the British Empire and its Allies’. There seemed little that the British could do to rescue themselves, for ‘the security of the Middle East largely depends on the continued resistance of the Southern Russian armies and the staunchness of Turkey’.155 It was scant reward for Cunningham’s stalwart efforts. Having sent valedictory messages to the fleet, the Merchant Navy and Malta, Cunningham flew home with Nona on 3 April 1942, leaving Pridham-Wippell in acting command. His departure remained a secret, for as the Admiralty explained, ‘his bold conduct of the Naval war in the Mediterranean has had a profound effect on our enemies’ and it was desired not to ‘dispel this effect earlier than necessary’.156 Cunningham had little appetite for his next appointment, anchored to a desk but aware that he had ‘to deal with an American CNS who is being very difficult’. He considered he was ‘no use at it but I daresay I can give the Yank some straight speaking’.157

9 King and the King’s Navy

June–October 1942 On arrival at Paddington Station, London, on 9 April, the Cunninghams were met by the Board of Admiralty, a remarkable tribute to Cunningham’s achievements in the Mediterranean, endorsed shortly after by the award of a baronetcy. After a few days of briefing about the nature of the post in Washington, Cunningham and his wife enjoyed overdue leave, visiting relations and fishing in the Highlands.1 Cunningham attended meetings at the Admiralty and briefed his successor as C-in-C, Mediterranean, Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Harwood, victor of the Battle of the River Plate and latterly ACNS (F). Cunningham also consulted with the American naval delegation in London. His departure was delayed until 23 June; there seemed no urgency about his arrival in Washington. The Admiralty argued with the Treasury for special treatment for Cunningham, because of his august stature and the need to impress the Americans. Cunningham insisted on a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce and a reasonable entertainment allowance and refused to go until the Treasury conceded. As Alexander told Churchill, the likely obstruction was that ‘unless he is allowed to maintain a certain state and entertain fairly freely… he will be unable to take full advantage in his dealings with the Americans, of the prestige attaching to his name’.2 Churchill had become increasingly disillusioned with the navy and felt that the high command needed shaking up. He replied to Alexander, ‘I thought Cunningham should command the Home Fleet, Admiral Noble should go to Washington, and that Admiral Tovey should go to Liverpool and manage the Western Approaches.’3 Churchill attempted to persuade Cunningham to relieve Tovey at a tête-à-tête at Chequers, drawing the firm response, ‘If Tovey drops dead on his bridge I will certainly relieve him. Otherwise not.’4 The root of the matter was Churchill’s insatiable desire for offensiveminded commanders, together with strong personal likes and dislikes. Cunningham, commenting on his precipitate departure from the Mediterranean, told Admiral North with heavy irony, ‘I think WC with his unerring touch in picking a winner thought Harwood would be an improvement’, adding with his customary selfdeprecation, ‘It may very likely be so.’5 Cunningham observed ‘he is able enough I think’, but regretted his lack of major sea-going command experience and his unfamiliarity with the Mediterranean.6 He made Pound uncomfortably aware of his views but it was too late. Cunningham felt he echoed a general feeling that Pound, too, was

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

96

often a poor judge of fitness for high command.7 Ironically, when Cunningham visited him in April, I found Pound in great distress. He asked me if I thought he ought to resign and I said certainly not. He told me that Winston was thinking of getting rid of him and putting Mountbatten in as First Sea Lord!! Naturally I told him to glue himself to his chair but he was much worried about it.8 Pound’s daughter confirmed this curious concern but there is no other evidence.9 Eventually, the Admiralty got Churchill to agree to Cunningham ‘paying a short visit to the US, as they will pay great attention to what he says’, because of his fighting record. Pound insisted that ‘there is great work in front of Admiral Cunningham to obtain complete co-operation between the two Services’. He added that though ‘Admiral Little has done a great deal to forward this co-operation…it requires someone with Admiral Cunningham’s prestige to bring it to a really satisfactory conclusion’.10 Moreover, Cunningham’s appointment was warmly supported by Stark and Ghormley in London, though the Australian Richard Casey told him he was ‘quite the wrong man to go to Washington’.11 He had ‘no particular wish to go to the USA’, but he had been told that Admiral Ernest J.King ‘is in terror of being told anything by the British and resents it and it certainly does look as though I am going to tell him some things’.12 Washington in summer is uncomfortably humid and air conditioning was not universal. After a month in an apartment, the Cunninghams moved to a house, with five staff. They hosted cocktail parties (at their own expense) but they hardly enjoyed them and preferred more informal social gatherings. The Joint Staff Mission (JSM) was housed in the Public Health Building, across the road from the Army and Navy Building and close to the White House. The British Admiralty Delegation had been set up in 1941, with Little as its head. The sections concerned with technical matters, supply, repairs and maintenance really ran themselves and it was expected of the head only that ‘he will concern himself with matters of general policy’.13 The JSM really attained importance after America’s entry into the war, and the simultaneous appointment of Field Marshal Sir John Dill, former Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), as its head. With the formation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), the heads of the British services in Washington acted as the representatives of the COS in between meetings of the British chiefs with the newly-minted American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Following Cunningham’s arrival, Little conducted him round the principal figures, while Churchill, who had come to confer with Roosevelt, introduced him to the President.14 Cunningham relied on his staff for day-to-day liaison and he described his duties as ‘not particularly exacting’.15 After two months in Washington, he told Kelly ‘frankly I don’t like it’. Cunningham also found the meetings of the CCS frustrating, as ‘we have no power to order a man or a dinghy to move’, since essential decisions were taken between Washington and London.16 Much of his time was spent negotiating with the Americans on the precise division of ships, planes and equipment just beginning to flow from their manufacturers. He noted the superiority of American carrier planes and anti-aircraft gunnery control but lamented their slow progress in anti-submarine warfare. This seemed about the only subject on which the Americans would take British advice.

King and the King's Navy

97

Like other British observers, he was astonished at the bitter enmity between the US Army and Navy; indeed, it was common to say that the US Navy’s fighting priorities were (1) the US Army; (2) Japan; (3) anyone else. The Americans were led by a genial but somewhat vague President and split by civil-military and inter-service differences. Some improvement was effected by the appointment in July of Fleet Admiral William D.Leahy, a Roosevelt confidant, as the President’s Chief of Staff and chairman of the JCS. With Dill, he was an emollient influence in the CCS. Dill was ‘a bosom friend of General Marshall’s, and it is quite impossible to over-estimate the value of that friendship to our relations with our great ally’, acknowledged Cunningham.17 General George C.Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, was an able man of the highest integrity. However, King, the self-styled ‘great dissenter’, recorded of his relationship with Marshall, ‘We had many fights’.18 The head of the Army Air Corps, General H.H. (‘Hap’) Arnold, was brought into the JCS but was less able and more narrowly focused; he rarely opposed Marshall. The location of the CCS in Washington represented a British acknowledgement of the likely dominance of the United States. Dill attempted to ensure that the JCS did not make unilateral decisions but the CCS weekly meetings were ‘formal in character, most of the business having been settled off the record, beforehand’ and the participants’ ‘mutual suspicion was never dispelled’.19 The dominant (and fraught) subject in countless alliance discussions in the first half of 1942 was Allied grand strategy for the coming year. Cunningham was involved only marginally with this. His chief preoccupation was securing the effective and wholehearted co-operation of King. A man of immense will-power, energy and all-round ability, King had a good technical mind, graduated from Annapolis with distinction, was a qualified pilot, had commanded a carrier squadron and a submarine division and, in 1941, the new Atlantic Fleet. On 30 December he had become C-in-C, US Fleet, and from 18 March 1942 he combined with it the post of Chief of Naval Operations. From that time, ‘King’s authority was absolute… Never before had an American naval officer exercised the authority and responsibility delegated to King.’20 Cunningham’s measured appreciation of him reflected that of most British figures: A man of immense capacity and ability, he was not an easy person to get on with. He was tough and liked to be considered tough, and at times became rude and overbearing. It was not many weeks before we had some straight speaking over the trifling matter of lending four or five American submarines for work on our side of the Atlantic. He was offensive and I told him what I thought of his method of advancing allied unity and amity. We parted friends…. On the whole I think Ernest King was the right man in the right place, though one could hardly call him a good cooperator.21 King’s contemporaries confirmed that ‘he was difficult’ and that he ‘never became chummy with anyone’.22 One subordinate said he was ‘Bull of the Woods and intended to exact the utmost in performance’, while Arleigh Burke concluded that he had a ‘penetrating mind of extraordinary brilliance…complete intellectual integrity and the underlying courage of his convictions’.23 The President had been told that King ‘shaves every morning with a blowtorch’ and Stark ‘knew that King was a fighter and was

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

98

particularly well suited for a wartime command’,24 King and Cunningham were therefore well matched. King had insisted initially that inadequately escorted convoys were worse than none at all but by the time of Cunningham’s arrival a reasonably effective system was functioning, though by the end of July, Cunningham was still writing to Pound that ‘the fact is they are in a mess’ with their anti-submarine warfare.25 There was disquiet, too, that King ‘rather regarded any forces sent to the European theatre as wasted because they were not fighting the Japanese’.26 There were several flashpoints, mostly caused by different interpretations of events and policies or imagined slights.27 At times either King or a subordinate offended the British by their rudeness or by taking unilateral decisions. King admitted of his relations with Cunningham, ‘I was indeed very abrupt (rude) with him—and purposely so!’28 Shortly after his arrival, Cunningham requested an appointment with King for a general discussion of common issues, only to be told King was too busy and that he would have to wait six days for an appointment. The enraged but resourceful Cunningham thereupon called a meeting of the CCS, informing it that he had urgent naval matters to discuss.29 On another occasion a Captain J.A.Grindle reported to Cunningham that his American opposite number had rudely refused to share a batch of Landing Ships (Tank) (LSTs). Grindle recalled, Without a word he picked up his cap, told the secretary to let Admiral King know that he was on his way over and walked off. Within a few minutes he was back and sent for me. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I don’t think that sort of thing will be said to you again.’30 That was why Cunningham was in Washington, a dreadnought to fire the occasional broadside to clear the air. King was not anti-British, though he was often critical of the Royal Navy. He was quoted as saying, ‘I am not going to have US ships hoisting the White Ensign’ but he ordered American units to the Home Fleet or other North Atlantic forces, thus releasing British ships to theatres agreed to be under White Ensign command—the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.31 Most of King’s meetings with Cunningham were amicable. American naval aid to Britain, despite severe shortages of ships and aircraft, was far greater than British offerings—a Coastal Command squadron and a handful of trawlers. Furthermore, the Admiralty turned down King’s request for a diversionary raid by the Eastern Fleet to assist American operations in the Pacific.32 Much to Cunningham’s undisguised relief, his tour was brought to a swift end by American commitment to the invasion of North Africa. He had little part in the making of this decision but he was one of its main beneficiaries. Though his stay had been brief, Americans (including King) trusted, admired and liked him. As a result, they clamoured for him as naval commander of the ‘Torch’ landings—testimony of their respect for his stern, calm, commonsense demeanour, his integrity and adaptability, willingness to cooperate in the sole interest of winning the war expeditiously, and his vast experience of high command, battle and the Mediterranean. Cunningham flew home on 11 October, leaving Nona behind as ‘cover’ for his new post. Rear-Admiral Wilfred Patterson, his

King and the King's Navy

99

Chief of Staff, was, he thought, ‘quite capable of carrying on temporarily’ and before the end of the year Admiral Sir Percy Noble, formerly C-in-C, Western Approaches, took over as head of the British Admiralty Delegation (BAD). Cunningham himself was ‘delighted to be getting away from the hot house atmosphere of Washington and actively back into the war’.33

10 Return to North Africa

October 1942–May 1943 Operation ‘Torch’ was launched on 8 November 1942 to seize Casablanca, Algiers and Oran, ultimately gaining the southern shore of the Mediterranean in conjunction with the Eighth Army’s offensive from E1 Alamein. An Anglo-American expedition, it was the product of months of wrangling over the strategy for 1942. The American tradition of war-making was uncomplicated and direct; go immediately for the main enemy’s jugular and end the war expeditiously and with the minimum of casualties. That meant an early landing in north-west France and a drive to the heart of Nazi Germany. Moreover, Germany was the only enemy that could defeat both Russia and Britain, so the Americans regarded it as a ‘second front’ to relieve pressure on the Soviet Union, facing imminent collapse unless aided by supplies and military assistance. The British agreed that Germany was the principal enemy and were equally anxious to open a ‘second front’ in 1942. However, while endorsing the rapid build-up of American forces in Britain (‘Bolero’), they were sceptical about the likely success of the two American proposals: ‘Sledgehammer’, an emergency lodgement on the west coast of France if the Russians looked like folding; and ‘Roundup’, a more substantial invasion on the Channel coast that aimed to cut Hitler’s throat in 1943. They feared either complete repulse of the invasions or a stalemate on 1914–18 lines. Germany was too strong to defeat by direct methods; she must be worn down by the traditional British peripheral approach, which utilised the mobility and superiority of allied sea power to stretch enemy forces. They preferred an invasion of Vichy North Africa, claiming numerous benefits would flow from it. Cunningham had little to do with the original strategic arguments but when given an opportunity expounded succinctly the case for ‘Torch’: I am more than ever convinced that events this year lie in the Mediterranean…. It would go a long way towards solving our shipping problem once the short route through the Mediterranean was gained. It would jeopardise the whole of Rommel’s forces and relieve anxiety about Malta. It would shake Italy to the core and rouse the occupied countries. To intervene effectively Hitler would have to act through Spain and/or unoccupied France thus involving him in most unwelcome fighting and transport commitments. The troops for the purpose would have to be

Return to North Africa

101

withdrawn from France thus weakening those defences. The effect on the Russian situation might well be conclusive. Finally it would put us in a position to attack later through Southern France as well as the North West or to go for Italy. If we wait until 1943 it may mean facing a Germany in Europe free of Russian commitments and immeasurably stronger.1 It would justify also the enormous military investment Britain had made in the Mediterranean (a million men, 4,500 tanks, 6,000 planes and a great fleet).2 It would remove the threat of a German drive southwards from the Caucasus, perhaps linked with a Japanese move northwards towards Suez, and it would compel the Axis to fight on two fronts in North Africa, an unwinnable campaign. While it would confirm Franco’s neutrality, it would encourage Turkey to join the allies. Vichy might be persuaded to sail the fleet from Toulon and swing the North African colonies to the Allied side, while Casablanca and Dakar would become invaluable bases in the Battle of the Atlantic. It could be launched at any time up to mid-November and some forces could sail directly from the United States. ‘Torch’ would also get Americans ‘emotionally involved in the European theatre for which so many of them had scant sympathy at a time when there was a natural focus on the Pacific’.3 Churchill believed that it offered ‘by far the best chance for effective relief to the Russian front in 1942’ and enthused, ‘Here is the safest and most fruitful stroke that can be delivered this autumn.’4 Moreover, the Prime Minister asserted, ‘No responsible British General, Admiral or Air Marshal is prepared to recommend Sledgehammer as a desirable or even as a practicable operation in 1942.’5 The Luftwaffe was too strong and allied fighter range too short; there were too few landing craft and the Battle of the Atlantic needed to be won. As ‘Overlord’ (1944) proved, there had to be months of careful, detailed planning and espionage, remorseless bombing, the creation of special units and equipment, and the training of millions of troops. Cunningham endorsed Churchill’s condemnation of American pipe dreams, saying, ‘It shows how little they knew about war to suggest such a thing.’6 However, the headlong British retreat in the Western Desert and in the Far East appeared to undermine the plan’s viability; by March 1942, the idea had been shelved.7 In any case, the US services felt that the Mediterranean represented a strategic dead end and involved the unwise dispersal and wastage of resources. They shared ‘an intense suspicion and dislike of Britain’ and were especially critical of ‘the immoral and militarily indefensible anachronism’ of the British Empire and suspected Britain of inveigling the United States into supporting it.8 They continued to believe also in a successful ‘Roundup’ in 1943. Furthermore, though the Americans were ostensibly in favour of Admiral Stark’s ‘Plan Dog’ of October 1940, a ‘Europe first’ concept, Pearl Harbor had raised a clamour among political and military leaders and the public for an ‘Asia first’ strategy. The confusion of a great nation, traumatised, freshly at war, facing enemies in both oceans, with a newly-constituted JCS nominally responsible for making war, was captured by Cunningham: ‘The Army wants to fight the Germans, the Navy wants to fight the Japanese, and I am not sure that we and the U.S.A. have the same ideas on how to conduct the war.’9 Indeed they did not, and the resulting bitter disagreements about plans revealed this.

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

102

The catalyst was Roosevelt. He was adamant that, for public and political reasons, ‘It is of the highest importance that US ground troops be brought into action against the enemy in 1942.’10 In July, he accepted ‘Torch’ as the only feasible alternative for 1942.11 He had already courted political unpopularity by bravely refusing to bow to the pro-Asia storm following Pearl Harbor. He was in any case partial to a North African landing. Like his cousin Theodore, he had a ‘nautical fascination’ with Morocco.12 He feared that Vichy might permit Germany to use Casablanca and Dakar, thus imperilling the Western Hemisphere and since the summer of 1940 he had attempted to ingratiate himself with Vichy. He realised, however, that ‘Torch’ probably implied the postponement of ‘Roundup’ until 1944.13 Military opinion was virtually unanimous on this and Eisenhower termed the ‘Torch’ decision ‘the blackest day in history’.14 The Americans dragged their feet on the planning of ‘Torch’ throughout the summer of 1942, Cunningham remarking that the US Navy ‘made all sorts of difficulties’.15 He told Pound, The trouble is that the US Chiefs of Staff returned from London with a feeling of frustration, particularly on the Army side, while the Navy saw their chance of getting on with the war in the Pacific and leapt at it.16 As late as mid-September, Dill was warning that the Americans were swinging towards an ‘Asia first’ strategy.17 King, whose ‘war is in the Pacific,’ had ‘apparently stated that it [‘Torch’] would have little effect’.18 Brigadier General Walter Bedell Smith, joint secretary of the CCS, and, along with Leahy, one of ‘Torch’s’ few American defenders, asked Cunningham for a second opinion. He replied that ‘the gain from complete success was just incalculable from every point of view’.19 He endorsed Rawlings’s opinion that ‘the joint in the Axis harness is there’.20 Roosevelt became anxious to launch the operation by 30 October (for the Congressional elections), and intelligence appreciations also urged an early date to assist the Russians and prevent the Germans switching forces from the eastern front and seizing Tunisia.21 The British wanted to co-ordinate it with their projected break-out from E1 Alamein, and urged that ‘the early appointment of a Supreme Commander is the most pressing need’.22 Ironically, on 14 August, Eisenhower, then commanding American troops in Britain, was appointed Commanding General (on King’s recommendation).23 Eisenhower, a protégé of Marshall, was highly regarded as a very capable staff officer, a lucid strategic analyst and a sound military planner. He set out to make ‘Torch’ a complete success and was ‘determined from the first to do all in my power to make this truly an Allied Force, with real unity of command’.24 Cunningham, who was also ‘quite determined that nothing should stand in the way of this vital unity of thought and purpose’, declared himself ‘most favourably impressed… I liked him at once. He struck me as being completely sincere, and straight-forward and modest’, concluding: ‘We soon became fast friends.’25 However, observing that ‘it was purely a political appointment’, he doubted Eisenhower’s ability to command ‘Torch’. He recalled that ‘he had no military knowledge and knew nothing about the Navy’ and was ‘an untried man’.26 Eisenhower was blessed with a fine supporting staff. Bedell Smith (Chief of Staff), probably prompted by Marshall and Eisenhower, had sounded out Cunningham on becoming Allied Naval Commander, Expeditionary Force. Cunningham intimated that if

Return to North Africa

103

asked to serve, he would do. However, he insisted that the naval commander should control all naval forces. Ramsay was already serving in the post but both Pound and the Americans felt that an admiral who had flown his flag at sea in wartime should be C-inC. As Leahy observed, Cunningham was ‘the best expert in the Allied navies on strategy and tactics in the Mediterranean’.27 Ramsay, though disappointed at being shunted aside, loyally supported Cunningham’s appointment and energetically set about planning the landings.28 The US Army insisted on landings at Casablanca, partly to ensure Allied possession of Morocco to aid the Battle of the Atlantic but also because ‘it would be unsound to use as a main base any port inside the Straits as the sea communications to it from the Atlantic would be liable to interruption once the Germans reached Southern Spain’.29 They feared, too, that Spain might become hostile, though Cunningham believed Franco had missed the boat. More particularly, they wished to obtain a foothold in North Africa that could be supplied directly from North America. King himself opposed a landing (possible only on one day out of five) on the surf-wracked beaches of Casablanca and favoured landings as far to the east as possible, preferably at Bizerta.30 Eisenhower, too, advocated the abandonment of the Casablanca landings, ‘because of the necessity for pushing rapidly into Tunis and because all reports show that a very bad surf would probably be encountered in any attempt to land on the Atlantic coastline’.31 Churchill also thought that Casablanca was ‘a doubtfully practicable landing’ and urged the need to land at least as far east as Algiers, the hub of French North Africa.32 Furthermore, Casablanca would contribute nothing to the success of ‘Torch’. The strategic key, however, was undoubtedly Tunis, since it was in a very short distance of Sicily, Sardinia and Tripoli; in Allied hands, it would threaten Italy and permit a variety of future operations. Cunningham pointed out to the CCS that ‘the essence of the operation’ was ‘the early capture of Tunisia’ and was also sceptical about the Casablanca landing; moreover, if Franco did join the war, the Allies could seize Spanish Morocco and devastate the coastal cities of Spain.33 Together with the COS, he counselled boldness and a landing as far east as Bizerta, permitting a rush for Tunis.34 In vain, British planners argued: Our prime consideration must be to forestall the arrival of Axis forces in Tunis. To achieve this end we must secure control of the Tunisian ports, and necessary aerodromes and communications, at the latest within a month, but preferably within fourteen days. Both in order to save time, and to reduce wear and tear on tracked vehicles, it is essential that the initial assaults should include ports as near as possible to Tunisia…. Indeed, it might be said that the whole conception of Torch may stand or fall on this question of early Allied occupation of Tunisia.35 Had the Allies followed this course, probably they would have eliminated the weak Axis forces rushed there in the immediate aftermath of ‘Torch’ and seriously menaced the rear of the Afrika Korps. If they had done so, it is possible the campaign could have been concluded successfully by the end of 1942. Cunningham wrote afterwards, ‘I bitterly regretted that bolder measures had not been taken…and that we had not landed at Bizerta.’36

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

104

However, Marshall failed to appreciate that Tunis was the strategic objective and that the Germans, who did recognise its importance, would forestall the Allies and prolong the campaign by several months. He insisted that ‘Torch’ must be virtually certain of success ‘since the reputation of the US Armed Services was at stake’.37 Eisenhower, though convinced of the urgent need to secure Tunis, decided that ‘it merely became an impossibility’ to land close to Tunis and came to share the general American view that ‘all the earlier campaigns of the war underlined the grave dangers of attempting to sail convoys into “bomb alley”…. It would, moreover, be beyond the shipping and other resources available to us to include Tunis.’38 Both partners were agreed on landings at Oran. The Americans insisted on Casablanca and the British on Algiers, ‘the centre of sentiment favourable to our Cause’, the best port in North Africa and the hub of its administration.39 While the British were willing to take considerable risks elsewhere, notably in the Battle of the Atlantic, King stated abruptly that he would not reduce American forces in the Pacific. The COS thereupon instructed the JSM ‘to emphasise that Torch is in complete accord with the agreed fundamental strategy that Germany is enemy No. 1 and that Admiral King’s reluctance to spare anything from the Pacific is a departure therefrom’.40 Cunningham underlined this, telling the CCS that ‘if the operation was worth doing at all, it must be done with all the available resources of both nations. If we went into it wholeheartedly, he felt sure that the necessary resources could be provided.’41 The US Navy was asked to provide a carrier, two escort carriers, three heavy cruisers, 26 destroyers, three AA ships, a minelayer, 26 fast and four slow escort vessels, two tugs, and a flotilla of submarines.42 The utmost exertions were required to persuade the Americans that not only was it possible to find the ships but that the Algiers landing, the one the Americans wished to omit, was the most vital of the three. The COS observed, ‘All that stands between us and the full Torch is the provision of a comparatively small naval force.’43 Fortunately, Eisenhower added his weight to that of the COS and JSM and even the President was called on to order King to make additional warships available.44 The issue was not settled until 5 September, dangerously late to begin detailed planning and the assembly of the requisite forces. Fortunately, Ramsay, principally responsible for the planning, was able, experienced and dynamic. Cunningham trusted him implicitly and obtained for him some of his proven Mediterranean staff, while his own chief of staff was the relatively junior Captain Royer Dick. He valued Dick’s resourcefulness, loyalty, ability to get on well with Americans and fluency in French. Ramsay visited Cunningham in Washington, and in October, Cunningham spent 12 days with Ramsay in London. Cunningham, wisely, stood above the planning maelstrom, confining himself to major issues and relations with his fellow commanders and the CCS; in any case, as Ramsay noted, ‘He is not a man of detailed knowledge.’45 Power, responsible for writing task force orders, wrote, The planning and preparation of the whole Operation was so rushed that there was no question of preparing an overall plan for issue to the Task Force Commanders to allow them to proceed to the detailed planning in conformation with the Commander-in-Chief’s general intention.46

Return to North Africa

105

It was accepted that the French would resist British troops and thus most of the soldiers in the initial flight would be American, possibly fêted. The American High Commissioner, Robert Murphy, oversaw an extensive consular and information system and relied on his French friends to seize power. Confident the French would ‘play ball’, the Americans had General Henri Giraud spirited away from France and proposed to make him GovernorGeneral of North Africa, with the notorious Admiral Jean-François Darlan as C-in-C of all French forces.47 The British were sceptical. The Americans purposely made no room for the Free French leader, General Charles de Gaulle, who was cordially disliked by just about every American and British political and military figure but to whom the British were pledged. However, widely regarded by French officers as a rebel, he had only modest support in the French colonies and was a difficult, proud and obstinate man but possessed of immense political ability.48 Moreover, Giraud, though a brave man, was also vain, haughty and had no support in North Africa—and he was bereft of political skill. He was strategically naïve, having initially demanded control of the whole operation, which he wished to direct against southern France.49 Furthermore, the Allies were uncertain both of French security and loyalty and faced the virtually impossible task of how much to tell them and when.50 The British proved right; the Americans were over-confident, for Murphy and his French friends ‘had enough men in key posts to create confusion but not to seize control’.51 As Cunningham noted, ‘this difference in feeling towards the Americans and ourselves was much exaggerated’.52 He expected the French Navy at least to offer staunch, though not insuperable, opposition. King insisted that the Casablanca force, which was to sail directly from the United States, should be under the command of the C-in-C, Atlantic Fleet; he may have believed that Cunningham, inside the Mediterranean, would be unable to exercise effective control over the Casablanca force—or it may have been simple chauvinism. Observing that ‘this was an impossible attitude to take up’, Cunningham compromised.53 The force, under the genial, able Rear-Admiral Kent Hewitt, an enthusiast for combined operations and for Allied co-operation, would come under Cunningham east of 40 degrees west. Otherwise, Cunningham was adamant that the assault convoys should have adequate air cover throughout the latter stages of their voyages.54 Pound pressed the argument, telling Churchill that the convoys ‘are the most valuable ever to leave these shores’ and ‘have to face the greatest danger from U-boat attack which has yet threatened British military convoys’.55 Cunningham called also for the bombing of U-boat bases in the Bay of Biscay, the bombing of targets in northern Italy, the mining and bombing of enemy harbours, and the neutralisation of Sicilian airfields. Extensive photo-reconnaissance of enemy bases was required and a substantial number of flying boats was deployed for long-range reconnaissance, while ASV-equipped Swordfish patrolled the Straits. He requested also the operational control of air forces working with the navies to cover the convoys.56 Cunningham’s requirements were vast: three battleships, five carriers, four escort carriers, eight heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, 56 destroyers, six AA cruisers, four auxiliary AA ships, two minelayers, 44 fast and 65 slow escort vessels, 52 minesweepers, and four tugs.57 Force H (Vice-Admiral Sir Neville Syfret), with three battleships, three carriers, three cruisers and 17 destroyers, would hold the ring against possible intervention by the Toulon fleet or the Italians, and support the assaults if necessary. The Eastern Task Force (Algiers; Vice-Admiral Sir Harold Burrough)

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

106

consisted of 67 warships and 25 merchant vessels. The Western Task Force (Oran; Commodore T.H. Troubridge) would have 70 warships and 34 merchantmen. At Casablanca, Hewitt would have two battleships, three heavy and three light cruisers, 18 destroyers, four submarines, the carrier Ranger and three escort carriers, and eight minesweepers, while a cruiser, an escort carrier and 10 escort vessels would cover the assault convoy of 38 ships.58 Cunningham planned to deploy most of these forces from a headquarters at Gibraltar. Local patrols and escorts would operate from Gibraltar, under Commodore Geoffrey Oliver, another Cunningham stalwart. Substantial air and surface striking forces were to be based on Gibraltar, Malta and North African ports, for, as Cunningham made clear, ‘It is essential for the success of the Army plan that no substantial enemy reinforcements should reach Tunis.’59 The maximum number of Allied submarines would patrol off Toulon and Italian naval bases and others would be off Casablanca and Dakar, while several boats would function as beacons for the assault forces. A covering force in the vicinity of the Azores would guard follow-up convoys. The initial assault convoys would pass the Straits at night, an operation requiring the most accurate timing. Among the innovations was the provision of two headquarters ships—Bulolo (Algiers) and Largs (Oran)—equipped with excellent communications. Once the first assault had gone ashore, follow-up convoys would land reinforcements and also take Bougie, well on the way to Tunis. Another major feature was the reliance on carrier-borne air cover until airfields had been seized. Elaborate arrangements were made for the rapid unloading and return home of most of the merchantmen and many of the warships. Much would depend on the Inshore Squadron in the race for Tunis, as it would have to keep forward troops supplied in the face of U-boat, E-boat and air attack.60 Cunningham took formal command at Gibraltar on 1 November. He complained that ‘things are damned slack in this place’ and told Ramsay, ‘The harbour is absolutely stiff with shipping, cruisers, carriers and small fry. How on earth the enemy are expected to take no notice beats me.’61 Eisenhower joined him at the Rock on 5 November; much of their time for the next fortnight was spent in its dank caves, but they exercised little influence. As Cunningham explained, The real inter-service work for Torch was done on the level of the Commanders in charge of the landings. Troubridge and Burrough did excellent work with their respective American Generals; it was on this level that all questions as to the work of the Command ashore, and how the troops were to be put ashore, were settled.62 As for the Supreme Commander, Cunningham was curtly dismissive: ‘What effect did he have on Torch? Some on his American soldiery perhaps, otherwise none.’63 It was hoped to have simultaneous landings at all three places at 0100 on 8 November but surf conditions at Casablanca prevented uniformity of zero hour. However, Ramsay said the next day, ‘The operation so far has been an outstanding success and from the naval point of view has gone absolutely according to plan.’64 Cunningham himself was more prosaic: ‘We have had such wonderful luck and Ramsay’s organisation has proved itself.’65 There were in fact a number of hiccups—some troops were landed at the wrong beaches, many landing craft were lost through inexperience, air warning sets were slow

Return to North Africa

107

to arrive. ‘Things went awry’, reported Cunningham, ‘and delay and confusion resulted, which might have endangered success had the opposition been determined or alert.’66 The Americans had developed a sound amphibious doctrine and effective landing craft but, despite a firm bond between Hewitt and General George Patton, there was little army-navy co-operation; an exercise in March 1942 was described as the employment of ‘the incompetent to train the ignorant’.67 Hewitt took a gamble that the predicted easing of the Atlantic surf would occur and sent the assault in. His communications with Gibraltar were disrupted, and as 35,000 troops had to be landed at three spots 200 miles apart, he was constantly on the move. The assault also met the fiercest French resistance from sorties by cruisers, destroyers and submarines and from shore batteries (including the one mounted four×15-inch turret of the incomplete battleship Jean Bart).68 Resourcefulness made up for shortcomings in training and material and the carriers played a crucial role in undermining resistance, while the surface covering force and dive-bombers disabled Jean Bart and destroyed a dozen other French warships without damage to American ships. At Port Lyautey and Fedhala, there was confusion, absence of surprise and the loss of many landing craft but enough troops got ashore to seize the objectives. At Safi, the port at which the armour was landed, ‘everything clicked’— fortunately—and the attempt to rush the harbour by the old destroyers Cole and Bernadou was completely successful.69 In Casablanca itself, Vichy leaders prepared to collaborate with the Americans launched their coup too early and the prolongation of fierce fighting cost the two sides some 3,000 casualties in four days.70 So many errors were made that an American general wrote that it was ‘a hit or miss affair that would have spelled disaster against a well-armed enemy intent on resistance’.71 At Oran, the landings ‘passed off without a hitch’, French naval resistance was brave but limited, airfields were captured swiftly, and the developing U-boat menace was kept at bay by assiduous air patrols and the experienced escort groups drawn from Atlantic convoys.72 The assault convoy was never sighted by the enemy. By noon on 10 November resistance ashore had ceased. The one black spot was the total failure to seize the harbour. However, navigation was difficult, the French were alert, opening a stream of merciless fire from all quarters, and sabotaged the port. Despite ‘the gallantry displayed by the officers and men of both nations as they strove to achieve their object in the face of hopeless odds’, the ex-US Coastguard cutters Walney and Hartland were both lost, with heavy casualties, though Captain F.T.Peters was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).73 Cunningham said later that he was unaware of the details of Peters’s plan and would have amended or cancelled it had he been informed of the rigid timing and the intended loudspeaker announcement.74 A similar attempt to force the boom at Algiers by the old destroyers Broke and Malcolm was equally disastrous, Malcolm becoming virtually disabled before she reached the harbour; Broke, severely damaged, landed her troops on the wrong side of the harbour and was swept by a hail of fire when daylight broke.75 The American Rear-Admiral Bennett had warned, ‘If determined resistance is met from the French Navy, which seems to be the general opinion, it is believed that this small force will be wiped out before the Army can enter the city if they go in at H+2.’76 Cunningham, who was well aware of the risks, nevertheless sanctioned the attacks as justifiable. It is doubtful whether either operation could have succeeded; surprise was difficult, the defences were overwhelming, the commandos too few, and a dawn approach might have been more effective in unknown harbours. Cunningham might have taken

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

108

greater heed also of Bennett’s warning and have informed himself of Peters’s proposals. However, although French batteries proved stubborn and had to be reduced by bombardment and bombing and some landing craft went astray, Algiers was soon captured and all fighting ceased by evening.77 The instigator of the ‘cease fire’ was Admiral Darlan, who was in Algiers visiting his sick son—and, having sensed that the war was turning in the Allies’ favour and that they were shortly to invade North Africa, was providentially on hand. He had much influence in North Africa. Between the wars, he was the creator of the modern French Navy—it was ‘la marine de Darlan’.78 When Vichy was set up, he became Pétain’s chosen successor and courted the Axis. By 1942, however, he had lost out to his great rival, Pierre Laval, and in October made overtures to the Americans, offering to deliver the French fleet to them. Ordered publicly by Pétain to ‘defend North Africa against the American aggression’ (and to take no action against the Axis), he appears to have had Pétain’s private carte blanche to reach an accommodation with the Allies.79 Darlan, a shrewd politician, quickly saw that the Allies were coming ashore in substantial numbers, supported by a huge fleet and overwhelming air power. Cunningham, in passing on to Eisenhower his feelers for a ‘cease fire’, assured the latter of the British government’s support. Eisenhower despatched his ubiquitous deputy, General Mark Clark, who had already met Murphy’s French collaborators and had brought Giraud out of France, in two daring, if dubiously worthwhile, escapades, to meet Darlan. After a bizarre game, tense discussions led to a deal on 13 November that gave Darlan political control of all North Africa in return for his orders to other French authorities to cease fire and co-operate with the Allies. Giraud, who had to be persuaded to talk to Darlan, became head of the French armed forces.80 He had been unable to stop the fighting, casualties piled up and, above all, the drive on Tunis was hindered—hence Eisenhower’s turn in desperation to Darlan, the only man who could halt the fighting.81 The French question was a minefield and occupied much of Eisenhower’s time, while his subordinate commanders, including Cunningham, were sucked in on a regular basis. Cunningham had several direct concerns—securing the end of hostilities with the French Navy, resolving the issues of the Toulon fleet and the Alexandria squadron, and obtaining French co-operation in clearing and operating the North African ports. Darlan proved unable to persuade Tunisia to hold out against Axis invaders, Cunningham’s friend Admiral Esteva being taken hostage by the Germans, who moved swiftly to deny the Allies their prize.82 He failed also to bring over the Toulon fleet, another pre-war friend of Cunningham’s, Admiral de la Borde, refusing to acknowledge Darlan’s authority and being forced to scuttle the fleet when the Germans entered.83 Darlan failed also to persuade Godfroy to bring Force X over to the Allies. Darlan’s representative, Admiral Fenard, with Commodore Dick, talked to Godfroy in midDecember but, in a notably twisted piece of logic, Godfroy thought it presaged a Gaullist takeover. Cunningham did as much as anyone to convince his old friend, though he recognised that ‘the French Navy, indeed, was all at sixes and sevens in its loyalties’ and that Godfroy in particular was ‘beset by mingled perplexities’.84 Harwood, too, found that ‘Godfroy is very tiresome, he won’t take the slightest risk’ and remained ‘100% Pétain’, though, like Cunningham, he felt Godfroy would come across in his own good time.85 It was the politicians, notably Churchill, who wished to hurry Godfroy, and by rough means—cutting off money and supplies and threatening to shoot him if he scuttled his

Return to North Africa

109

ships. Though he felt Godfroy had ‘no excuse now for remaining inert’, Cunningham, exasperated at the politicians’ lack of finesse, sent home a pointed biblical text: ‘Attention is invited to the first verse of the penultimate chapter of Ecclesiastes and I trust that you will see that the sense of it is made known in the proper quarters’ (‘Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days’).86 He combined with Darlan, Harwood and Kelly (an old friend of Godfroy’s) and the Resident Ministers in the Middle East, R.G.Casey (Cairo) and Harold Macmillan (Algiers), to cajole Godfroy.87 Even Roosevelt took an interest but in general the Americans left the matter to the French and British.88 Harwood recognised that ‘until a government in North Africa suitable and acceptable to him was established, he was unable to reach a decision’.89 Godfroy did not like or trust Darlan. Cunningham exploited all his contacts among French leaders in North Africa and suggested ingenious signals designed to convince Godfroy that everyone else in the French Navy had joined the Allies and that the North African campaign was turning into a resounding success. Though his patience, skill and inventiveness ultimately paid dividends, it was only the final triumph in North Africa in mid-May 1943 that persuaded Godfroy to come off the fence.90 Cunningham quickly established harmonious relations with other French admirals; only Admiral Ripult at Oran gave him ‘a frosty interview’.91 Regarded as ‘un grand ami de France,’ he was cheered in public and awarded the Légion d’Honneur and the Médaille Militaire.92 At their first meeting, Darlan had said to Cunningham, ‘Thank you for Admiral Godfroy’, acknowledging that Cunningham had found a peaceful solution in July 1940.93 The two laid wreaths at the memorial to those of both sides killed in the fighting.94 Cunningham liked Darlan personally, cultivated good relations with him and insisted that the infamous deal was ‘the only possible course, and absolutely right. Darlan was the only man in North Africa who could have stopped the fighting’.95 Moreover, ‘it enabled us to get on with our chief task of fighting the Axis’.96 He valued the high level of cooperation with the French instigated by Darlan, who was ‘genuinely working for us for the moment whatever his underlying motives’,97 He reported: Darlan is still hostile to us and in a lesser degree to the Americans but consider he sees position in France gone and wishes to control from North Africa. I think he is genuine in that he will not let French Fleet fall into German hands but will move them only in last emergency.98 Cunningham was Eisenhower’s ‘strongest supporter all through the negotiations with Darlan’ but ‘I wouldn’t trust him an inch’.99 He conceded, ‘No one, least of all myself, likes dealing with this skunk but above all we must have stability in north Africa and have it speedily’, though once he had served his purpose, he must be dismissed ‘rapidly and without compunction’.100 Nevertheless, the deal provoked public outrage in Britain and America, displaying for the first time the three-way confusion in the Allied cause: military expediency, imperial concerns and political principle. The President and the Prime Minister were compelled to underline the temporary nature of the deal, agreeing with Eisenhower that ‘our decision to treat with Darlan was dictated by considerations of sheer military expediency’.101 The politicians were determined also that the French ‘prima donnas’, as Roosevelt called them, should remain subject to Eisenhower.102 Ironically, Darlan was perhaps the greatest and most premature casualty, for on

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

110

Christmas Eve he was assassinated by a young Royalist fanatic. The murder stunned Cunningham: ‘I only lunched with the Darlans on Wednesday and he was murdered the next day…. I rather liked the little man. In his dealings with us here he has been quite honest.’103 Cunningham had formed a poor opinion of de Gaulle as a result of the general’s interventions in the Middle East and West Africa. He told Pound, ‘I feel that the Foreign Office should keep de Gaulle in order and not allow him to impede the advantageous agreements we are getting out of Darlan.’104 However, Churchill, who was at least halfcommitted to de Gaulle, persuaded Roosevelt to agree to the Free French leader meeting Giraud at the Casablanca conference in January 1943. Cunningham foresaw that the uneasy and short-lived dyarchy would not work: ‘To unite the pair was like mixing oil and water.’105 De Gaulle quickly proved popular, the true heir of Darlan, and triumphed. The arrival early in 1943 of Harold Macmillan as Minister Resident was like manna from heaven for Cunningham, for he was an experienced and smooth politician who took most of the burdens of dealing with the French off the commanders’ shoulders. He also balanced Murphy’s wrong-headed influence at Eisenhower’s headquarters. Macmillan acknowledged Cunningham’s skill in bringing round the French admirals and concluded that Cunningham was ‘a splendid man and absolutely first-class and a most amusing and agreeable companion’.106 The Axis were almost completely in the dark on both the date and location of ‘Torch’, though they sensed that Casablanca and Dakar would be early targets for American forces. ‘Almost everything was considered possible except an invasion of North Africa’, said the German admiral in Rome, and it was felt ‘the enemy will not risk a landing on the Algerian-Tunisian coast because the danger from the air and from the French Navy would be too great’.107 The Italians did consider landings in North and/or West Africa possible but the Germans were convinced operations were aimed at Tripoli or even Italy. Afterwards the enemy admitted that Allied security and deception were extremely good and meant that U-boat concentrations were slow to develop against the convoys and in the Mediterranean.108 Nevertheless, the Axis were well placed to frustrate the Allies’ plans, as they had 100,000 men on the Tunisian border and were expected to be able to seize the colony by the end of the month.109 The Germans reacted with customary vigour once the landings took place. The U-boats took toll of departing merchantmen and follow-up convoys. Though the ground fighting was now close to the Tunisian border, the ports were subject to regular heavy air raids, which found abundant targets in the shipping still lying offshore or alongside the sabotaged wharves. For the first few weeks ships had to provide their own early warning and AA defence at night. Fortunately, neither the French nor Italian fleets ventured out; both were short of fuel and air support. Meanwhile, strenuous efforts were being made to clear wharves and wrecks. Burrough arrived at Algiers in Bulolo and Captain Morse, another trusted officer from eastern Mediterranean days, soon gained the confidence of the French and began to restore the port’s capacity.110 Cunningham visited Oran and Algiers, with Eisenhower, a week after the landings, conferring with French officers and governors. By 25 November, the situation was safe enough to transfer Allied headquarters to Algiers. The Hotel St Georges was taken over, though Cunningham spent much of his time aboard Bulolo. Eisenhower and Cunningham were accommodated in comfortable villas with fine gardens and spectacular views.111

Return to North Africa

111

Of more pressing concern to Cunningham was the slow progress to Tunis. He remarked exasperatedly to Ramsay, ‘Tunis is anyone’s who cares to walk in but the Huns are beating us in the race.’112 The best that could be done was a landing at Bône, over 250 miles east of Algiers. It had a good harbour, undamaged, and an adjacent airfield. Bône was well located for supplying First Army’s advance on Tunis and for offensive operations against enemy convoys to Bizerta and Tunis. The port was under the able command of Commodore Oliver, while Rear-Admiral Cecil Harcourt, another Cunningham protégé, led Force Q of light cruisers and destroyers; both could be left to exercise their own initiatives. Force Q was supplemented by torpedo bombers and American MTBs, preying on Axis shipping; many scraps took place at night, with casualties on both sides. As it was the most forward base, Bône was subjected to even more intense air attack than Algiers, as were convoys between the two ports. However, supplies were delivered regularly—over eight million tons reached the North African ports in four months. By the beginning of December, Bône and subsidiary ports were operating effectively, a stream of reinforcements was arriving, and the air defences were able to ward off enemy bombers.113 An additional worry was that Nona was at last on her way back to Britain—but in a slow convoy; he was much relieved to hear of her safe arrival.114 While the naval operations were prospering, those on land soon became stuck— literally, for an exceptionally wet winter churned up dirt tracks and bogged down aircraft. The army suffered also from a lack of motor transport, petrol and other supplies. By 5 December, Cunningham had to confess that ‘things are not going too well out here militarily’.115 Axis forces profited from their all-weather airfields and their quick and complete occupation of Tunis enabled them to repulse First Army, which had made a risky dash for Tunis with small forces, a dozen miles from the city. The Allies would not now be in Tunis before the spring.116 Force H, which spent much of its time at Mers-el-Kébir, was retained to counter a possible Italian sortie, though the Italians, bravely attempting to reinforce and supply North Africa, were barely in a condition to face an overwhelming Force H (now under Vice-Admiral Willis). The French fleet had removed itself on 27 November. Much of the Allied effort was spent on escorting convoys through the Straits and then protecting the local convoys. As additional ports were captured—notably Tripoli on 23 January 1943-so Cunningham’s forces assumed further burdens and ventured deeper into waters still contested keenly by the enemy U-boats, E-boats and bombers. The prolongation of the land campaign brought about further casualties in small ships, still in short supply. As he told his wife on Christmas Day, ‘We’re having a pretty lively time at sea and the ominous telephone alongside my bed rings fairly often. Do you remember it during the Crete time? I can hear it still.’117 Cunningham, quick to visit newly-acquired harbours, mostly by flying long distances in uncomfortable conditions, cheered up the sailors who had to contend with poor conditions and enemy air attacks. He told his aunts in January, I took a trip in a destroyer up to the east just to see the sailors in one port that had been having a poor time. It was grand getting into a little ship again although it was quite rough and I had some difficulty in keeping myself in my bunk.118

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

112

Ramsay, who visited him in February, reported that ‘Cunningham… is in great form…. He is very autocratic, sees only his own side of any matter and dictates his orders and decisions accordingly.’119 He noted of a later occasion, ‘We played ping-pong for an hour and a half after dinner last night. ABC is extraordinarily good at it’—testimony to Cunningham’s fitness, capacity to turn off the cares of war and his relatively unsophisticated leisure interests.120 The cruiser and destroyer squadrons based on Malta and Bône, Swordfish, light craft, minelayers, submarines and bombers were employed to sever the passage from Italy. The surface forces were handicapped by the lack of sufficient air cover to enable them to operate off hostile shores by day but at night there were many fierce encounters with Eboats and escorts. New ports, such as Bizerta, Sfax and Sousse, heavily wrecked, required well-organised salvage efforts, for which Cunningham expressed thanks to the Allied salvage crews. He also paid tribute to Gibraltar’s stretched facilities, on which he leaned.121 He was uncompromisingly exacting, too: ‘To allow personnel to be sloppily dressed is…the first step to indiscipline.’122 Results began to improve in 1943 and the air forces assisted by bombing harbours in Italy. As Malta escaped the grip of siege, it was able to move over to the offensive. The 8th (Algiers) and 10th (Malta) Sub-marine Flotillas enjoyed a productive spring and Cunningham reported that their successes ‘were undoubtedly a major contributing factor in Eighth Army’s victorious advance’, though it was not until the beginning of May that the enemy’s convoy effort finally collapsed.123 He badgered incessantly for more MTBs and aircraft, testimony to the decisive shift in the Mediterranean to small-scale encounters between light forces and the capacity of aircraft to cover it. However, he declined to take unjustifiable risks, despite familiar prodding by the Prime Minister, who declared on 6 December, ‘The first duty of the Navy for the next ten days is to stop the reinforcements to Tunisia. This duty should be discharged even at a heavy cost.’124 Despite the enemy counter-offensive, which caused many casualties, attacks on the Italian ports delayed convoys and there was a relentless attrition of escorts—only 26 were available at the beginning of 1943. So dangerous did the passage become that troops were flown in or rushed across in destroyers. By the beginning of December, the Italian naval command was admitting, ‘The Tripoli route is now exposed to such peril from Maltabased naval forces and aircraft that there is little point in continuing with our convoys’.125 By mid-December losses had become so great that convoys were suspended. Malta’s forces ‘have literally imposed a blockade over the sea routes to Tripoli which will probably be permanent’.126 Despite the seizure of nearly half a million tons of French shipping, the enemy faced an increasing shortage of merchantmen; sinkings rose steadily from 40 per cent in December to 60 per cent in April 1943, when no less than 12 escorts were also lost. Not surprisingly, the Italians referred to the North African passage as the ‘Route of Death’.127 Of the 400-plus merchantmen and naval vessels lost between November 1942 and Italy’s surrender in September 1943, two-thirds were by air. Allied air supremacy, 2:1 at the outset, reached 5:1 at the end. Allied submarines, of which there were ultimately 32 at work, sank 72 ships and several warships and damaged others. The enemy’s fight against overwhelming odds was nevertheless a brave one and his feat in landing more stores than his huge army could consume was a ‘remarkable achievement’.128

Return to North Africa

113

Once Cunningham had declared the sea route effectively severed (28 April), he set about preventing evacuation. He explained to Pound on 8 May, ‘We have the Straits packed with destroyers and MTBs every night and tomorrow the air have promised us cover so they will be there daily as well.’129 Operation ‘Retribution’ had been carefully planned and forces from Malta and Bône combed the seas off the coast. Should the enemy attempt to escape by sea, Cunningham issued the ruthless order ‘Sink, burn and destroy. Let nothing pass.’130 It was a clear desire to exact revenge for British experiences off Greece and Crete a year earlier. He recounted with relish, ‘One young “Hunt” captain told me that it was too dangerous to stop and pick up one boatload so he ran over them. I shook him warmly by the hand and left him without enquiring further. I trust there were more like him.’131 Few Axis soldiers attempted to escape by sea—only some 600 made their way across to Italy.132 By the middle of May, ‘the whole of Africa was ours’ and about 250,000 Axis prisoners were caught in the trap Hitler had created for them.133 ‘No one in their wildest hopes’, wrote Cunningham, ‘thought we should catch the lot but we have.’134 It was now possible to pass a convoy from Gibraltar to Alexandria and to begin the colossal task of sweeping up thousands of Allied and Axis mines. Cunningham’s role was marked by his appointment as Admiral of the Fleet in January 1943, following the award of the American Distinguished Service Medal (DSM). More significantly, there was an adjustment of naval commands that saw him become only the second admiral to hold the historic post of C-in-C, Mediterranean, twice. He told his wife, ‘It’s funny coming through the back door so to speak and it was none of my making.’135 As the ‘Torch’ forces advanced, they came up against the nominal demarcation line between Cunningham’s command and that of Harwood. It seemed sensible to place all forces devoted to the attack on the enemy routes to Africa under one command. Moreover, it was desirable to institute co-terminous military, air and sea commands, which Cunningham had always advocated. Eisenhower was also keen to retain his most trusted associate. It emerged later that there was a hidden agenda. At a meeting in Malta, Cunningham and Harwood, who became C-in-C, Levant, arrived at an amicable division of responsibilities but, as Cunningham told his wife, ‘Harwood is not pleased and I don’t blame him.’136 It represented a demotion to a backwater command, the naval and civil authorities having expressed doubts about Harwood’s fitness to hold a senior command. He was a stout man with high blood pressure. It was said that he was not on the same level of ability as his air and military colleagues, Tedder and Alexander. Harwood himself felt that his opposition to intimidating Godfroy had irked the Prime Minister, though Pound denied this. More ominously, Montgomery complained that the navy had been slow to clear Tripoli. A month later, Harwood was relieved of the Levant command and Cunningham told Pound that he had been ‘Very hardly dealt with’.137 Cunningham already had a sense of Montgomery’s self-important and bombastic character. Pound also acknowledged that Montgomery’s claim was unjustified but upbraided Cunningham for speaking out on a topic of which he had inadequate knowledge and said that he had a better candidate—the urbane, intellectual John Cunningham (no relation). It seems that Harwood was promoted above his true level, for which Churchill and Pound must share the blame, and he had not been as clear-sighted, decisive and confident as his predecessor. By 1943, Pound appears to have lost confidence in him but he handled Harwood’s relief as maladroitly as he had that of Admiral North.138

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

114

Cunningham acted as mentor to the green, self-effacing, self-doubting and ‘terribly mercurial’ Eisenhower.139 His almost unrivalled experience of war, high command, interservice relations, American leaders and methods, and the Mediterranean, made him the perfect eminence grise. Marshall was particularly grateful for Cunningham’s loyalty to Eisenhower, remarking that he ‘had given such an outstanding demonstration of unselfish co-operation’.140 Indeed, so obvious was Eisenhower’s dependence on Cunningham (and later on Tedder) that some Americans scorned that he had been taken over by the British.141 Cunningham and Eisehower were ‘proper buddies’ and he confided that ‘I think he likes to have me by him’.142 Cunningham made a point of seeing Eisenhower for half an hour each day and found him ‘Very good in deferring to my opinion not only on naval matters’.143 Furthermore, ‘I attempt to keep the British point of view to the fore.’144 He remarked that, after Tedder and Alexander were appointed to head air and land operations, ‘The American papers said it looked as if Eisenhower was to be the stooge and that the Tunisian campaign was to be run by Alexander, Tedder and Cunningham’, adding rather brutally, ‘which is what happened’.145 However, ‘At Algiers Eisenhower came on a lot and though much blamed for his negotiations with Darlan, I think he did these well.’146 Eisenhower’s innate caution—as, for example, in opting for landings at Bougie rather than the strategically much more significant Bizerta—meant the Allies missed opportunities to win an early victory.147 It was fortunate for the Allies that Eisenhower was able to cut his teeth in a secondary theatre and initially against secondclass opposition and that he had strong, decisive and co-operative subordinates, British and American.148 Tedder had been appointed air commander following the failure of the initial arrangement of separate air forces under the American, General Carl Spaatz—‘a grand little man’—and Air Marshal Welch, seemingly miscast.149 Cunningham, concerned at the inefficiency and lack of the various forms of air support, told Pound, ‘I must earnestly press for every effort to be made to have adequate air operationally under Naval control before my only striking force in the shape of capital ships and carriers is removed.’150 This indicated a new Naval Co-operation Group. By mid-December, Cunningham complained, ‘Air out here is chaos. There is only one solution and that is to put Tedder in here.’151 Though he had little cause to like Tedder, he acknowledged his ability and the two agreed on one air command for the whole Mediterranean, and Tedder commented that Cunningham ‘is the livewire’ at Allied headquarters.152 However, he remarked facetiously that ‘my old friend and enemy, the Admiral, has of course to be watched like a cat’, and they were soon embroiled in the familiar dogfight about control of aircraft operating over the sea.153 Not surprisingly, Tedder again dug in his heels, observing cuttingly, The one outstanding and incontestable lesson of the last eighteen months is that control of the sea communications in the Mediterranean has passed to the air. The victory at Matapan was the last dying flicker of naval supremacy in the Mediterranean.154 Warships could now go to sea only under a fighter umbrella and long-range bombers were required to deal with enemy naval forces—as Cunningham had long insisted.155 Ultimately, Tedder was persuaded to place the anti-ship striking force under the Coastal

Return to North Africa

115

Group. The two were at one in stressing the absolute necessity of harmonious cooperation with the Americans, subordinating rank if necessary, in the cause of winning the war cheaply and quickly and Eisenhower swiftly came to appreciate their worth, to value their orderly, decisive methods, and to feel that both were out of the top drawer.156 Cunningham got on well with the other Americans, too. He had a high regard for Bedell (‘Beetle’) Smith and Mark Clark, A most energetic and able man’.157 He found the US Navy easy to work with and formed a lasting friendship with Hewitt, who became commander of US naval forces in the western Mediterranean. ‘We worked together like brothers’, he recalled, and described Hewitt as ‘Very able and a most loyal and wholehearted co-operator’.158 He was less enamoured of General Sir Harold Alexander, who took charge of all the ground forces. Alexander was an able field commander who had conducted skilful retreats in France and Burma, a man of charm who could coax cooperation out of others. However, Cunningham, like many senior officers, felt he had few opinions of his own, allowed Montgomery too much rope, and was unfitted for high command.159 ‘Torch’ had been a success despite the shortness of the planning time, the lack of training and experience, inadequate numbers and equipment, breakdowns in logistics, communications and intelligence, and the timidity governing landing places. Cunningham commented: It is a matter of regret to me that the boldest conception for initial assault…further eastward was not implemented. Had we been prepared to throw even a small force into the eastward ports, the Axis would have been forestalled in their first token occupation and success would have been complete. They were surprised and off their balance. We failed to give the final push which would have tipped the scales.160 Landfalls were made in the wrong places and a large number of the scarce landing craft had been lost. The loss of returning ships and those compelled to anchor offshore demonstrated the need of ‘establishing properly directed fighter protection at the earliest moment’.161 The French had proved more awkward than anticipated and the Germans had reacted with despatch, thus prolonging the campaign. Nevertheless, Force H had provided useful bombarding support, the carriers gave effective air cover and the command ships were of ‘inestimable value’.162 Particularly pleasing was the confidence of ships’ companies to take on air attack ‘which I think they lost at Crete’.163 ‘Torch’ was ‘the first great undertaking by our seaborne forces in which ships entered the area of operations adequately armed’, a reference to lessons painfully absorbed and the steady reequipment of ships with Bofors and Oerlikon guns and radar.164 Moreover, there had been no serious breaches of security, Ramsay’s planning had been meticulous and there was ‘a spirit of comradeship and understanding’ between all services and both nations.165 ‘Torch’ did lead to the re-opening of the Mediterranean highway, though it took time for it to affect supplies to the Indian Ocean and the prolongation of the campaign undoubtedly sucked in more shipping that would otherwise have been available for other theatres. It cost the Axis at least as many troops as surrendered at Stalingrad but the Germans’ adroit seizure of Tunis in November meant the pouring of another 27 divisions into Russia—thus exposing the facile Churchillian claim that it would draw forces from

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

116

the eastern front. It certainly prevented ‘Roundup’ in 1943, for the forces could not be relocated and trained in time, while ‘Bolero’ was slowed to a trickle. However, King was able to undertake more offensive operations in the Pacific than would have been the case if ‘Roundup’ had gone ahead in 1943.166 Dill admitted, ‘We have imposed our strategy upon them and they are very conscious of it.’167 Americans then and since have complained that ‘Torch’ ‘led to a wasteful diversion of resources’ and an ‘unnecessary continuance of the Battle of the Atlantic into 1943’, permitted the Germans to strengthen the Atlantic Wall, and allowed the Russians to overrun eastern Europe.168 The British view, contemporary and present day, has been that ‘Torch was a sensible and certainly a logical choice… No other combined operation on a respectable scale offered comparable prospects and clear tactical success within a politically acceptable time frame.’169 ‘Torch’ failed to deliver its main objective quickly enough and wound up employing more Allied effort than had been anticipated but it is very doubtful that a landing in north-west France in 1942 or 1943 would have succeeded. Considering all the alternatives, it was the ‘least worst’ one. For Cunningham, it revealed hitherto only occasionally glimpsed talents of patience, skill, willing subordination to a junior Commanding General, determined cooperation with the Americans and deft handling of the French quagmire. His more celebrated traits of ruthlessness, decisiveness, crispness, strategic directness and comprehension and ability to shoulder the burdens of high command had been displayed on a wider stage.

11 The Invasion of Sicily

May–August 1943 Following the success of ‘Torch’, Roosevelt suggested to Churchill that the CCS should be requested to ‘make a survey of the possibilities including forward movements directed against Sardinia, Sicily, Italy’ and other parts of the Mediterranean.1 Churchill replied that ‘Sicily is by far the greater prize’.2 The subsequent ‘Symbol’ conference at Casablanca (January 1943), however, began in ‘an atmosphere of veiled antipathy and mistrust’.3 The debate largely mirrored those over ‘Torch’. The JCS insisted that the strategy for 1943 should ‘ensure that the principal effort of the United Nations is directed against Germany rather than against her satellite states’ by an intensified air offensive and the invasion of north-west Europe.4 Further Mediterranean adventures, the British argued, would force Italy out of the war, while Turkey might come in. Awkward northsouth communications would make it difficult for the Germans to reinforce the Mediterranean swiftly or in strength.5 The Americans, however, ‘were united in the suspicion that the underlying motive of the British proposals to continue operations in the Mediterranean was to postpone the cross-Channel assault for as long as possible, if not to prevent it altogether’.6 The JCS’s apparent unity was fragile and they were under-prepared for the Casablanca meeting. While Marshall clung to ‘Roundup’ in 1943, Arnold was attracted by the prospect of bombing Germany from Italy, while King appreciated the benefits of a secure Mediterranean seaway, noting that ‘the occupation of Sicily would have a decisive and favorable effect on’ communications; he offered to make additional forces available to permit a landing in the early summer.7 Moreover, Roosevelt had already ruled out ‘Roundup’ for 1943; the long-drawn-out North African campaign endorsed his decision. Eisenhower also believed the earliest fair wind for France was in 1944 and agreed with the British that forces already in the Mediterranean should be used there in 1943.8 Ultimately, Marshall was persuaded by his friend Dill that a further Mediterranean campaign would save tonnage, a major concern.9 Marshall demanded, however, that Sicily be the last of Mediterranean operations and rejected an invasion of mainland Italy.10 The CCS recommended that ‘Husky’, the invasion of Sicily, should take place in June or July 1943.11 Eisenhower, Cunningham and the other commanders made only brief appearances at Casablanca and their views had little influence. Cunningham had always felt that the

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

118

possession of Tunis and Tripoli offered an acceptable degree of convoy safety and was one of the few favouring an attack on Sardinia, an easier proposition requiring smaller forces; control of Sicily, however, would raise shipping security from 85 to 90 per cent.12 Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander. This was uncertain, as his stock stood low in just about every respect in early 1943. However, his British subordinates remained loyal to him, he had effectively integrated his HQ and set a fine example of co-operation, and he retained the solid support of Marshall, which was probably decisive.13 The air, land and sea commanders were obvious choices: Tedder, Alexander and Cunningham. For Cunningham, ‘Husky’ would represent much the greatest command he would enjoy, reckoned at four battleships, two carriers, 14 cruisers, 50 destroyers, 115 escorts, numerous light craft and auxiliaries, 200 merchantmen, and over 1,000 landing craft—in the event, far too conservative an estimate.14 After ‘Symbol’, Cunningham found himself hosting Churchill, and early in June the Prime Minister was back, to Cunningham’s acute discomfort: I have had Winston staying in my house for about eight days, much too long in these busy times and a perfect nuisance interfering with the work. I just cleared out and lived on board a ship in the harbour…it’s a bit weary after dinner not getting to bed till after one.15 By the end of June he was exclaiming ‘the number of visitors is terrific [;] this place is a regular Clapham Junction’.16 One visitor was most welcome—King George VI. After the King had visited troops in North Africa, Cunningham took him to Malta in a cruiser as ‘I thought a visit to Malta by him would have a great effect all over the British Empire.’17 It certainly did on the Maltese, Cunningham declaring that ‘it was a fine sight to see the old walls and battlements black with cheering people’.18 Cunningham had visited Malta in March and was delighted to meet old Maltese friends and relieved to find that ‘none of the populace showed signs of what they had been through’.19 Sicily, a large triangle, each coastline approaching 200 miles in length, lay in an excellent position to control both north-south and east—west routes across the Mediterranean and the access to the toe of Italy. It had several good harbours and numerous airfields. Initial plans projected a British landing in the south-eastern corner and an American one to the west but the planning responsibility was transferred to Algiers and Cairo in February 1943. Divided between the two commands, it also involved several commanders still heavily engaged in North African operations. The one senior figure who could devote most of his time to it was, fortunately, the ‘quickthinking, alert, friendly, understanding, and very fit’ Ramsay; unfortunately, he was based in Cairo, over a thousand miles from Cunningham, leading to delays and misunderstandings, even conflicts.20 Cunningham’s intention was to prepare a plan speedily and sufficiently flexible to allow of easy amendment when military commanders got down to detailed planning.21 Cunningham and Ramsay had a chequered relationship. Cunningham, though noted for his fierce demeanour, was not a man for detail and had firmly held views. Ramsay, who was meticulous, mercurial, intense and quick to bridle, was horrified at Cunningham’s casual attitude and put his finger on what probably underlay their conflict: ‘The fact is that he can’t bear having anyone whom he considers to be in competition with him and I suppose it is a sort of self-imposed jealousy’, and he

The invasion of Sicily

119

even dared to suggest that ‘he has outstayed his usefulness and it’s time he was put on the beach’.22 Ramsay was one of the few senior figures who worked well with Montgomery, while Cunningham and most American and British commanders loathed him. Montgomery, as Ramsay admitted, ‘adopts the attitude that he is now omnipotent’.23 Manley Power, Cunningham’s Staff Officer (Plans), recalled that Montgomery’s ‘views were conveyed to us in a series of bombastic signals’ and, partly as a result, ‘rather acrimonious signals’ were sent to Ramsay.24 Montgomery argued for concentrated landings in the south-east, securing Eisenhower’s and Alexander’s agreement. However, as both Tedder and Cunningham pointed out, not only did it fail to exploit the flexibility of sea power—its ability to land in several places, thus confusing the enemy—but it also left important airfields in enemy possession, leaving a mass of more or less stationary shipping offshore within a few minutes’ flying time. It also required additional troops and therefore shipping and landing craft. It involved the supply of the American forces across difficult beaches for several days (to which Hewitt and Patton objected) until Catania and Syracuse were captured. They were doubtful of overall success but the unflinching Patton ‘has taken up the attitude that he has been ordered to land there and he will do it’.25 Even Cunningham warned: There is no doubt that the maintenance of three American divisions in the south-western assaults is a very tricky problem, involving the supply beaches and perhaps one small port for some six weeks, 3,000 tons a day and no one really knows whether it can be done or not.26 He grumbled to Pound: I am afraid Monty is a bit of a nuisance; he seems to think that all he has to do is to say what is to be done and everyone will dance to the tune of his piping. Alexander appears quite unable to keep him in order. Tedder is also absolutely opposed to this new plan.27 Montgomery, who had been ‘too preoccupied’ to consider the plans until almost the end of the Tunisian campaign, had now brought the planning process to a standstill.28 At the end of April, with the landings set for 10 July, Cunningham complained: …here we are with no fixed agreed plan and just over two months off Dday and the commanders all at sixes and sevens, and even if we do get final agreement, someone will be operating a plan he doesn’t fully agree with. Not the way to make a success of a difficult operation.29 Eisenhower was faced with ‘an unseemly British inter-service dispute’ and ultimately Tedder and Cunningham were left with little choice but to accept Montgomery’s proposals.30 By squeezing such reserves as there were in landing craft and by trimming shipping for India and Britain, and despatching an extra division from the United States, the additional forces were found. Marshall’s fear that the Mediterranean would swallow up alleged savings in shipping was becoming uncomfortably apparent.31 Though

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

120

Cunningham stated later that ‘any one of the alternatives would have been equally successful’, he contributed to the disarray by basing himself in Malta. He observed blandly that ‘the advantages of Malta close to the area of operations were too obvious to be disregarded and consequently the naval and army commanders decided to install themselves there during the assault’.32 Tedder, however, suspected that the C-in-C, Mediterranean, decided to return to a safe Malta.33 The military and naval commanders at last began to work closely but both were irritated by the air commanders’ unwillingness to co-ordinate their plans, which led to fears of inadequate air support for the assault forces, especially as the air chiefs seemed more concerned with neutralizing Sicilian airfields than providing fighter cover over the invasion fleet.34 The new plan increased ‘the force of the blow, [it] would insure the capture of the main airfields, and would permit a prompt link up of the two forces’.35 Though the chief object was now the early seizure of key airfields rather than ports, many landing grounds would still be out of immediate reach.36 The naval planners also argued, vainly, …where a naval commander is charged with the security of great fleets of valuable ships and in particular with the safety of seaborne armies, it is right that he should be fully cognisant of the measures designed for his protection in the air, and be able to consult with an air officer.37 Two British divisions were to come from Suez, with a further one from Tunis and Malta, while a reserve division was to be embarked at Sousse and Sfax. Three American divisions would sail from Algerian and Tunisian ports, the Canadian division would arrive from the UK and another division would be despatched from the United States. The British and American airborne divisions were to take off from Tunisia. The need to send divisions from outside the Mediterranean was due to the devastated state and limited capacity of many of the North African ports. A vast repair and training programme for landing craft was put in hand. There was a possibility that the Italian fleet might come out and Cunningham was given the battleships Nelson, Rodney, Warspite and Valiant, which, together with the carriers Indomitable and Formidable and two flotillas of destroyers constituted Force H (Vice-Admiral Willis); Howe and King George V were in reserve and two squadrons of cruisers were allocated bombardment roles. The forces were deployed to cover both Taranto and Naples. Numerous escort vessels, AA ships, minesweepers, minelayers and coastal forces were also required, while among the special vessels were two monitors, several headquarters ships and beacon submarines. While the Royal Navy supplied the bulk of the naval forces, there were several American cruisers, numerous destroyers and escorts, and representatives of European navies. Many of these ships were performing normal naval operations until the eve of the landings and, even more serious, many of the landing craft had to be employed in ferrying troops to embarkation ports and running coastal supply services, thus hampering the training programme and adding considerably to wear and tear. Much the most notable development was the DUKW, an amphibious truck carrying 2½ tons, able to ‘swim’ ashore and then roar off the beach. The Americans rushed 200 of these remarkable vehicles to the Mediterranean and it was they that made possible the supply of the US divisions over the beaches.38 Hewitt was designated C-in-C, 8th Fleet, and the able and energetic Rear-Admiral Alan Kirk brought across the Atlantic the US 45th Division. Ramsay hoisted his flag

The invasion of Sicily

121

afloat for the first time, in command of the Eastern Task Force, with Troubridge and McGrigor in charge of specific landings, together with Vian, a late substitute for one of Cunningham’s other favourites, Philip Mack, recently promoted Rear-Admiral but sadly killed in an air crash. As the American assaults were under Kirk, Conolly and J.L.Hall, the Allied navies boasted an incomparable team.39 Cunningham told Pound, Although most optimistic myself…there is a good deal of unjustified optimism with regard to Husky, particularly in Army circles. The soldiers seem to think that they will be landed at the exact spot they expect to be, that the weather will necessarily be perfect and that naval gunfire will silence all opposition.40 The weather was not behaving itself and Cunningham emphasised that in bad weather it was more dangerous to go on than to recall the armada. Contingency plans were laid for such an eventuality but Cunningham, drawing on his unrivalled Mediterranean experience, noted that accurate forecasts were normally available 24 hours beforehand.41 Cunningham’s orders for the attack kept the assault convoys out of the central Mediterranean until a few hours before H-hour, to help deceive the enemy as to their destination, one of a number of elaborate ruses, which had a limited effect in diverting enemy forces to the Aegean and Sardinia (the Axis always felt Sicily was the likely target). Covering forces were to make feints to both east and west to suggest other destinations and the convoys themselves had to be carefully marshalled so as to pass through a relatively narrow passage northwest of Gozo or to the north-east of Malta at close intervals in order to synchronise the landings, the timing of which was determined by the requirements of the paratroops who preceded them by an hour or two. Cunningham emphasised that this was essentially a military campaign and that the seamen had to ensure the safe and timely arrival of the land forces on the beaches. He noted that the Mediterranean experienced generally good weather and visibility and that U-boats and aircraft could be met anywhere in that sea and cruising dispositions were arranged to meet these threats, with carriers operating in the line. The most zealous steps must be taken to destroy U-boats. A high degree of AA readiness was desirable and ships were to avoid being caught down sun. For defence, reliance was placed on well-judged if violent alterations of course and the maximum barrage fire. Strict wireless silence must be maintained and all ships must make frequent alterations of course and zig-zag at all times. Forces were enjoined to practice their night-fighting skills, in which the Royal Navy enjoyed ‘a marked superiority’, and he reiterated his belief that the optimum range was point-blank.42 The C-in-C took personal control of the dispositions of submarines belonging to the three flotillas (8th at Algiers, 10th at Malta and 1st at Beirut, a total of 47 boats).43 The covering forces were to be available for bombardment but their main function was to deal with a sortie by the Italian fleet: ‘If it is ever going to fight, it must fight now in defence of its own country’, but ‘Four British battleships are considered adequate to deal with six Italian.’44 H-hour was to be at 0245 on 10 July, during moonlight to permit the paratroop drop. For the seaborne assault, the soldiers eschewed the use of naval gunfire, in part to effect surprise but also because most of them had little faith in its efficacy. The initial assaults were designed to secure airfields close to the coast and then to advance rapidly on the ports of Syracuse, Augusta and Catania. Combined

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

122

Operation Pilotage Parties (COPP) were sent ashore some time before the landings to gain information, suffering heavy casualties but without revealing Allied intentions, and Cunningham acknowledged their ‘arduous and hazardous efforts’.45 Apart from pounding defences and airfields, the ‘air plans had all along appeared to be somewhat nebulous’.46 On 4 July, Cunningham made his headquarters in Malta, which was almost awash with equipment, followed on 8 July by Eisenhower and Alexander. The commanders based themselves in the insalubrious Lascaris Bastion, where their austere offices looked down on a giant relief map of Sicily and various wall charts. Though it was subject to incessant sandfly attacks, against which there was little defence, Cunningham believed ‘Malta was a wise choice from both naval and army viewpoints’.47 He admitted to feeling the awesome responsibility but also that ‘it is rather fine to look down on the Grand Harbour and see again two battleships moored in it’.48 A fierce northerly gale and steep seas developed on D-1, precluding landings and perhaps involving the recall of all assault convoys. The storm did abate, as the forecasts (and Cunningham) suggested, though there was considerable surf on the more exposed American beaches, and in the convoys ‘some of them and not only the soldiers were halfdead with seasickness’.49 Most of the convoys arrived at their rendezvous pretty much to time, despite struggling into a fierce headwind and short, steep seas, conditions for which ramped landing craft were most definitely unsuitable. Cunningham summed up the situation concisely and comprehensively: On the night of 9 July the sixty-mile gap between Malta and Sicily became crowded with shipping, and the chart in our operations room criss-crossed with the lines showing the tracks of convoys, squadrons and flotillas converging on the beaches of Sicily. Those many ships showed no lights. There was complete wireless silence. The weather was improving.50 However, the enemy calculated ‘tonight at any rate they cannot come’.51 In a phrase of cold and knowing menace, Cunningham commented, ‘But they came.’52 The operation, he reported, ‘ran like a well-oiled clock’.53 A later report recorded, ‘Husky enjoyed tideless waters, fine weather, moderate defences and surprised a half-hearted Italian garrison.’54 The Italians mustered about six divisions, stiffened by two incomplete German Panzer divisions (quickly reinforced by two first-class divisions). Most Axis aircraft on Sicily had been destroyed and the remainder had largely fled to the mainland. The Italian fleet, which consisted of five battleships, two heavy cruisers and nine light cruisers (though very few destroyers), lacked fuel and air cover and only two half-hearted sorties were made by cruisers. Ten Italian and six German U-boats were on patrol in the waters round the island but aggressive anti-submarine operations accounted for 12 of them, for a handful of Allied ships sunk or damaged. The Axis air forces, though they often met no fighter opposition, did no better, partly because of the sheer volume of AA fire put up by the assault forces.55 Cunningham expressed the feelings of all Mediterranean veterans in recalling: To one who had to fight through the Mediterranean campaign from the beginning it appeared almost magical that great fleets of ships could

The invasion of Sicily

123

remain anchored on the enemy’s coast, within forty miles of his main aerodromes, with only such slight losses from air attack as were incurred.56 It had been estimated that the Allies would lose some 300 vessels, about 10 per cent of the total; the actual losses were 12, with several vessels damaged, including the carrier Indomitable and the cruiser Cleopatra, both torpedoed.57 Nevertheless, despite disposing of almost 4,000 planes (almost four times the Axis total), air cover was intermittent— there were never more than a handful of planes over any beach—and soldiers and sailors were critical of the airmen.58 Landing craft crews were much more competent than in ‘Torch’ and there were more specialist vessels. A number of craft broached in heavy surf on poor beaches and some were caught on offshore sandbars. Some beaches suffered from congestion but enemy opposition was generally light and relatively easily stifled, with large numbers of Italians hurrying to surrender. In general the British and Canadian landings had easier tasks than the Americans, who suffered from the post-storm swell. Within 48 hours, some 80,000 men, 7,000 vehicles, 300 tanks and 900 guns had been landed—a larger force than that put ashore on D-day in ‘Overlord’.59 Cunningham recorded that Kirk’s landings ‘constituted one of the finest exhibitions of seamanship it had been his pleasure to witness in 45 years of sailoring’.60 German Panzers rolled towards the beach at Gela on D+1 (11 July). Aided by spotter planes, radar, good ranging equipment and well-trained gun crews, American cruisers and destroyers repulsed the attack, which had penetrated to the beach. It was generally agreed that gunfire at Gela was ‘absolutely invaluable’ and ‘avoided disaster at Dime beaches’; Hewitt declared that ‘the cruisers really saved the day’.61 Elsewhere, naval fire ‘exceeded expectations’ and it was ‘an important factor in ensuring the rapid advance of the army to Catania’; sceptical soldiers were converted to its importance.62 The American beaches enjoyed rather less fighter protection and enemy fighter-bombers delivered many lowlevel raids, but fortunately by D+3 Allied fighters were able to operate from Sicilian airstrips, and Augusta and Syracuse were also quickly captured.63 The only tragic hiccup was the premature release of paratroops and gliders over the sea, resulting in numerous drownings, compounded by the shooting down by friendly fire, during an air raid, of over 20 paratroop planes, foolishly routed over the beaches at night.64 Cunningham cruised round the various beaches in the minelayer Abdiel on the morning of D-day and again on 18 July, landing at Augusta. By this time, 500,000 men were ashore and on 19 July the landings phase came to an end; command reverted to Cunningham as C-in-C, Mediterranean. Ramsay noted that ‘valuable experience was gained, notably in regard to maintenance through the beaches, opening of captured ports and naval support of the army’.65 Montgomery had forecast the conquest of Sicily within ten days and ‘everyone was anxious to exploit our success at once’.66 Cunningham, who made numerous flights in his Beaufighter to confer on future operations, hoped to persuade the soldiers to exploit the mobility conferred by command of the sea to land behind enemy lines. However, only Patton, desperate to reach Messina before Montgomery, and to stop the enemy escaping to Italy across the narrow straits, took advantage of the resources available. Unfortunately, there had been serious casualties in landing craft and the survivors were heavily engaged in routine supply. Nevertheless,

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

124

Patton’s three landings on the northern coast were of ‘critical importance’ in the taking of Messina and Cunningham described them as ‘a striking example of the proper use of sea power’.67 Unfortunately, Montgomery was unwilling to undertake similar ‘leapfrogs’ and the one further success was the dismissal of Mussolini on 25 July.68 ‘The Germans are fighting toughly like they always do’, Cunningham reported, ‘but the Italians no longer have their hearts in it.’69 In a prolonged campaign, the Germans inflicted more casualties on the stronger Allied forces, engineered a complete withdrawal of not only men but also equipment, prepared to seize power in Italy and organised its defences. Cunningham remained ‘of the opinion, which I held strongly at the time, that the campaign on the East Coast could have been shortened by the proper use of sea power’.70 From 3 August, a fleet of ferries skilfully carried to the mainland 120,000 enemy soldiers and 10,000 vehicles, mostly at night, across the two miles of the Straits of Messina. The straits were defended by heavy guns, flak batteries and E-boats.71 The Axis were surprised to have got away with so little loss. On the Allied side, there was (and remains) considerable disquiet at the failure to prevent this escape. Allied command was divided and looking to the invasion of the mainland. Initially the air forces thought that they could stop it but the AA defences were too strong and it was difficult to locate the small craft by night. The navy employed only light coastal forces but they were unable to do the job unaided. Cunningham and Hewitt agreed that the operation did not justify the risk to cruisers and destroyers and Cunningham concluded, ‘There was no effective way of stopping them, either by sea or air.’72 The escape of forces of this size, with all their equipment, was surely worth the loss of one or two cruisers and destroyers, which had been expended in less worthwhile operations in the Mediterranean in the past.73 The landings were ‘phenomenally good in comparison with Operation Torch’, but ‘The planning and execution of Husky had demonstrated in no uncertain terms the intractable problems associated with coalition warfare on an operational level, and the tensions it could open up in the command sphere.’74 Communication was slow. Naval forces kept up vigorous patrols to frustrate U-boats, E-boats, minelayers and aircraft and to take the offensive against Axis shipping and coastal forces. Allied submarines sank 25 merchant vessels and MTBs swarmed around the coastline. Cunningham bemoaned the lack of tugs and lighters to assist follow-up operations but more importantly pointed to ‘the need to form, in advance, an ample force for the exploitation of outflanking opportunities and its existence and value to be firmly indicated in the plan’.75 The soldiers were far too optimistic of early success, but a naval planner had warned, ‘The rapid conquest of Sicily…does not seem possible.’76 It was regrettable that more attention was not paid to landings near the major ports, though the inability to provide effective air cover over the northern beaches was a considerable disincentive.77 It took an inordinate time and effort to subdue Sicily. ‘The best that can be said about it’, remarked Eisenhower’s biographer, ‘is that the campaign gave the high command in general, and Eisenhower in particular, badly needed experience.’78 It may have led to the diversion of

The invasion of Sicily

125

some German ground forces from the Russian front and it certainly pulled in Luftwaffe units badly needed elsewhere; however, many troops and vehicles were got away. It precipitated the fall of Mussolini and prepared the way for an early Italian armistice, while giving the Allies effective control of the route through the Mediterranean, airfields from which to attack enemy territory from the south, and a spring-board for the invasion of Italy proper.

12 The Invasion of Italy

September–October 1943 The invasion of Italy, a speculative, opportunistic adventure, with little thought for the long-term military consequences, took the form it did because of deep Anglo-American strategic differences.1 In May 1943, the CCS agreed on the early ‘elimination of Italy as a belligerent’, the acquisition of air bases in the north, the liberation of Sardinia and Corsica, the maintenance of pressure on the Germans, and indirect support of landings in north and south France.2 The invasion of Italy, Churchill and Brooke argued (again), would cement the Allies’ grip on the Mediterranean, save more shipping, bring about the surrender of the Italians, allow the transfer of the Mediterranean Fleet to the east, present the Allies with airfields from which to bomb targets from the south, support partisans in the Balkans, and draw German strength both from the cross-Channel landings and from the eastern front. Churchill hoped also to maintain the Mediterranean as a largely British sphere militarily and politically and aimed to restore the Italian monarchy and a conservative government. The Allies, anxious to prove to Stalin that they were carrying on fighting until the cross-Channel attack could be launched, thought the surrender of Italy would foster a prompt conquest of the peninsula.3 Roosevelt and Marshall appreciated the advantages of a rapid exploitation of the confused Italian situation but insisted that forces must be transferred to the invasion of northern France, while King was anxious to reinforce the east. Furthermore, the Americans, who had a sizeable and well-organised Italian population, wanted a truly democratic republic to be set up. They thought Italy, ideally suited to defence, was also a bad place in which to fight and, though acknowledging the inadequacy of the forces, were most reluctant to assign more to it. It was a transitional stage between British domination of

1. A Beagle-class destroyer leaving Valletta harbour, c. 1915. [IWM ref: SP 1436]

2. Nona Cunningham, née Byatt, about the time of her marriage, December 1929. [Courtesy of Sir Hugh Byatt]

3. Cunningham and his brother, LtGen. Sir Alan, Western Desert, late 1941. [IWM ref: E 3550E]

4. Cunningham broadcasting from Queen Elizabeth, 1942. [IWM ref: E 3550E]

5. Cunningham at a Mediterranean Cin-Cs’ meeting, Cairo 1942. [IWM ref: E 9350]

6. Plaque to memory of Cunningham, St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, Valletta. [Courtesy of Lawrence Phillips]

7. Cunningham and Admiral H.K.Hewitt, US Navy, Tunis, May 1943. [IWM ref: NA 3028]

8. Vice-Admiral Willis, General Eisenhower, and Cunningham, 1943. [IWM ref: A16627]

9. HMS Warspite entering Grand Harbour, Malta, 1943. [IWM ref: A20652]

10. Cunningham and Admiral H.R.Stark, US Navy, Dorchester Hotel, London, May 1942. [IWM ref: A8612]

11. Churchill and Cunningham aboard HMS Renown, November 1943. [IWM ref: A20663]

12. Cunningham and Somerville, Valletta, January 1945. [Courtesy of Admiral Sir Jock Slater]

The invasion of Italy

135

grand strategy and the coming American hegemony, supported by the Russians. That the Americans were persuaded to fight there was probably due to Dill’s close friendship with Marshall.4 Eisenhower and his subordinates had to decide whether landings should be in Sardinia, Corsica or peninsular Italy.5 Eisenhower, who was not strongly for the invasion and had to be persuaded by Churchill, Brooke and his three British subordinates, was also aware of the impending descent of the Mediterranean into a secondary theatre and concerned that he had been left with inadequate forces. Marshall had agreed only to an invasion of southern Italy; the rest of the peninsula was to be freed only on the authority of Eisenhower.6 Moreover, planning could not begin until the conquest of Sicily was complete.7 Much to the dismay of Eisenhower, Roosevelt was a rigid adherent of his own doctrine of ‘unconditional surrender’; it slowed down both the Italian armistice and the Allied landings.8 The assault on Italy proper, therefore, went off at half-cock and never recovered. Cunningham was also anxious to take quick advantage of Italy’s collapse and was particularly concerned to place the Italian Navy either under lock and key or to use its smaller vessels in an antisubmarine role. Strategically, he much preferred the acquisition of Sardinia and Corsica to an assault on the peninsula, being worried about the lack of landing craft for the latter and also, perhaps, having forebodings about the difficulty of campaigning in Italy proper. However, he viewed the naval element as the handmaiden of the armies and loyally agreed to land the soldiers where and when they chose.9 His connection with the landings was mostly at one remove, leaving Hewitt to command the invasion, with the American Rear-Admiral J.L.Hall and the British Commodore G.N.Oliver as his subordinate commanders. The initial command, however, was in the hands of the Flag Officer, Sicily, Rear-Admiral Rhoderick McGrigor, and there ensued a rather acrimonious correspondence with Alexander. At first they disagreed about McGrigor’s ability to plan both for the landings in the toe of Italy and the capture of Sardinia and Corsica at the end of August, followed by other complications, especially about the specific number of landing craft available. These disputes were settled largely in Cunningham’s favour but the admiral was greatly incensed by a message sent directly from Alexander, on the prompting of Montgomery, to Eisenhower. The impression created in the Supreme Commander’s mind was of confusion and disagreement on the British side, which was ‘deplorable’ and involved the short-cutting of the normal communications network. A proper naval broadside was therefore sent to Alexander on 26 August 1943, reminding him of the accepted pattern of communications and hoping for the early resumption of a good relationship.10 Cunningham made only occasional appearances in subordinate warships and acted as the longstop for big ship fire support or for reinforcement of the beachheads by sea. The one initiative he took was for the most part highly successful—the landing at Taranto of the 1st British airborne division, the only spare troops in North Africa, by cruisers on 9th September, supported by heavy ships in case the Italian battle fleet there should choose to fight; instead, it surrendered in Malta. The object was to seize Taranto undamaged and to take advantage of the Italian armistice and goodwill. In these respects, the operation was bold and imaginative, organised with efficiency and despatch by Cunningham and his staff from the communications ship Largs in Bizerta, and the troops quickly linked up with those from Reggio, landed, also unopposed, on 3 September in Operation

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

136

‘Baytown’. At last the Allies had set foot in mainland Europe, a feat whose ease— Cunningham described it as ‘rather like Henley Regatta’—may have contributed to the over-confidence with which they tackled the landings at Salerno, just south of the major port of Naples.11 The Salerno landings (‘Avalanche’, 8 September) were much more serious. Handicapped by being south of Naples and overlooked by high ground, it was also at the limit of fighter range, though it had good beaches. The date, dictated by an airborne drop on Rome (later abandoned) was less suitable for the sailors. There was also a shortage of landing craft, which had to be overhauled in Mediterranean harbours, regrouped and the crews hastily trained. Also complicating matters were the rushed planning (completed only on 19 August) and the confusion resulting from the wide separation of commanders, their absorption in the Sicilian campaign and the frequent changes in details. All depended on a rapid exploitation of the initial landings before the bad weather set in and the Germans reacted to the Italian armistice, news of which was broadcast on the eve of the landings.12 As the Germans were well aware where the Allies would land, since Salerno was ‘imposed by geography’, there was no surprise—indeed, the only surprise to Cunningham and Hewitt was the soldiers’ refusal of a heavy preliminary bombardment.13 However, the navies were well prepared. All the naval commanders were in command ships. Vian, in an anti-aircraft cruiser leading five small carriers, provided air support for twice as long as projected. The naval commanders were an experienced, assured, tough group and their calmness and efficiency made up for the slowness, insularity, pride, complacency and inexperience of their soldier colleagues.14 The assault was slowed down by considerable minesweeping inshore and by the tardy movement of stores off the beach. The landings, smoother than those for ‘Husky’, were delicate affairs, involving the crossing of the landing forces, and heavy naval forces and air cover were not really needed.15 Hewitt had good relations with the Fifth Army commander, General Mark Clark. The main problem was less the enemy than the winter storms, which held up loading and beach clearance. However, the armies lacked a sense of urgency, despite the foreboding of Eisenhower and the warnings of a strong and rapid German response both to the landings and to the Italian armistice from Cunningham and others.16 Furthermore, there was a potentially fatal gap between the American and British landings of some 15 miles. As Hewitt subsequently admitted, ‘In the early phase of the landings it became apparent the enterprise was a gamble.’17 The Germans effected a rapid and nearly successful counter-attack, almost throwing the Allies back into the sea. The veteran German troops, backed by an initial superiority in armour and with their artillery massed on the heights above Salerno, aided by E-boats, mines and the frightening new glider bombs—against which, as Cunningham admitted, there was no adequate defence— made the harbour of Salerno and the airfields of Monte Corvino unusable for several days and prevented the Allies from reaching Naples (which the Germans systematically wrecked). By D+4, both the Germans and the Allies thought the former were succeeding in their aim of driving the invaders into the sea and for a day or so the situation hung in the balance.18 They reached to within three miles of the sea and led Clark, who ‘panicked’, to request Hewitt to prepare plans for re-embarkation and proposed to switch British and American troops. This was nipped in the bud by the resolute refusal of Oliver to even contemplate such a manoeuvre, pointing out that it held even more dangers than

The invasion of Italy

137

fighting it out on the beaches. He was supported by his army commanders.19 Hewitt had the prudence to request Cunningham to send up post-haste heavy ships to lend formidable long-range gunfire support. Eisenhower also hurried reinforcements and ordered Montgomery to hasten to meet up with Clark’s beleagured forces.20 Cunningham responded, as ever, with alacrity. He ordered Warspite and Valiant to hurry to the beaches and shell the enemy. He held Nelson and Rodney in reserve and sent three cruisers to Tripoli to speed reinforcements. The shooting from all ships was accurate and devastating, forcing the Germans to withdraw; the heavy ships had ‘a psychological effect upon our troops’, wrote Cunningham.21 He claimed that ‘it was the naval gun, incessant in its effect, that held the ring’, a view confirmed by Hewitt and Oliver and by the German army commanders.22 Naval artillery delivered two and half times the air bomb-load—some 11,000 tons—but air attacks on German airfields and communications were also effective in halting the German advance.23 Cunningham himself went there in the destroyer Offa on D+7, the day after Alexander and the day before Eisenhower, telling his aunts that he saw ‘men working like ants on the beach’.24 Hewitt concluded magisterially that ‘it was touch and go whether a foothold would be held. The weight of sea power determined the issue.’25 By the time Cunningham re-visited the scene on 17 September, noting that ‘the assault had come very near to failure’, the worst was over—but at a high cost to the Allied navies.26 Just as Warspite was withdrawing from bombardment she was struck heavily by one of the German glider bombs (and narrowly missed by two others) and effectively left without power, with heavy casualties and considerable damage; she had to be towed to Malta and never fully recovered her strength during the war. Several British and American cruisers were put out of action and a well-lit hospital ship had to be abandoned.27 However, on 23 September, the Allies were at last able to use the small port of Salerno. Naples was operating the day after its capture on 2 October and through brilliant salvage work was soon exceeding its pre-war cargo handling. On 6 October, its objects achieved, ‘Avalanche’ was terminated.28 Salerno came too soon after Sicily for lessons to be drawn from ‘Husky’. The Allies learned again what ruthless, decisive and formidable fighters the Germans were.29 Nevertheless, as Hewitt remarked, ‘The story of Salerno illustrates what can be accomplished against great odds by real inter-service cooperation.’30 Cunningham described it as ‘the most ambitious combined operation so far launched’.31 For the most part, he admitted, he was confined to Largs, which processed an incredible volume of signals; when he did escape, it was generally by air, and he mused, ‘I wonder if any Admiral has flown as much as I have.’32 The Italian armistice, first bruited by the Italians in the summer, was a long-drawn-out affair, due to tardiness, confusion, backsliding and suspicion on both sides. The document drawn up was devoid of a naval input, much to Cunningham’s chagrin.33 He was sure that the Italian fleet was all set to scuttle itself and was wary of a backlash, despite the surrender, so he ordered A.J.Power up from Malta with two modern battleships to support the cruisers who landed troops at Taranto. He felt strongly that it was ‘of essential military importance that we should retain the good-will and co-operation of the Italian Navy’ and he showed considerable restraint and diplomacy in dealing with its leaders.34 A section of the Italian fleet was to leave Taranto for internment at Malta, being joined by ships from other Italian ports. The Italians had few major warships fit to sail and some

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

138

were destroyed to prevent the Germans salvaging them. The assembled fleet reached Malta on 10 September or shortly thereafter and was escorted by Warspite, Valiant and other units of the Allied navies who had fought against the Italians. The fleet from the west coast was attacked by German glider bombs on the way and the flagship, the battleship Roma, was sunk with heavy loss of life. Nevertheless, Cunningham was able to describe the arrival of the fleet as ‘a most thrilling and moving sight’.35 He took Eisenhower and a few others out from Bizerta on the destroyer Hambledon (LieutenantCommander Gordon McKendrick, later to marry Cunningham’s niece Hilly) to steam down the lines of the captured fleet.36 The Italians were resentful and mutinous and there was some talk of scuttling the ships but the senior officers, with an eye to the future and especially the eventual terms of a peace treaty, held firm and placed their ships in the hands of the Allies.37 The surrender gave rise to one of Cunningham’s most famous signals (and demonstrated his Nelsonian sense of history): ‘Be pleased to inform Their Lordships that the Italian Battle fleet now lies at anchor under the guns of the fortress of Malta.’38 But it was not really a time for rejoicing, as Cunningham arranged for the commander of the Italian fleet, Admiral da Zara, to see much of the damage caused to Valletta.39 On 22 September, Cunningham voyaged to Taranto for a meeting with the Minister of Marine, Admiral de Courten, a courteous man who, wrote Cunningham, was ‘Very downhearted’.40 Nevertheless, the Italians had little choice but to surrender the fleet on Allied terms, effectively delegated to Cunningham. Most of the larger ships were sent to Egypt and reduced to care and maintenance, while such vessels as were useful, including four cruisers, were employed. All Italian merchant ships joined the pool of the United Nations. The Italians proved very cooperative and the Allies enjoyed the use of ports and facilities in the southern tip. On 29 September, Cunningham was present on board Nelson when Eisenhower received the formal surrender of Italy from the pro tempore leader, Marshal Badoglio. At last the Allies could redeploy their major naval strength from the Mediterranean.41 Shortly after the Cunningham-de Courten Agreement was signed, Cunningham was summoned to London to take over from the dying Dudley Pound as First Sea Lord. Cunningham’s suggested relief, Sir John Cunningham (no relation but a firm friend) became C-in-C, Mediterranean. The new First Sea Lord (he was formally appointed on 5 October) flew to London, took soundings, saw Churchill and other leaders and, before flying back to Algiers to meet his successor, made a poignant visit to Pound in hospital. Thereafter there ensued a number of meetings in the Mediterranean before he flew home finally on 16 October. At his departure parade, Butcher remarked that he ‘had tears in his eyes’.42 He made an appropriately emotional signal to the forces in the Mediterranean, thanking them for their support through the bad times and the good. He expressed both ‘regret’ and ‘privilege’, and his ‘heartfelt thanks’ to his men and women were sincere; he would have preferred to stay in his beloved Mediterranean.43

13 Becoming First Sea Lord

October 1943–June 1944 The First Lord, Albert Alexander, was advised that there were three major candidates for First Sea Lord—Cunningham; his former deputy Jack Tovey, lately C-in-C, Home Fleet and currently C-in-C, Chatham; and Tovey’s former second-in-command, now C-in-C, Home Fleet, Bruce Fraser, well known to Churchill as a very successful Controller and Third Sea Lord. Tovey, a straightforward man, had earned the Prime Minister’s ire and received no further consideration. Churchill also rejected Cunningham on the ostensible grounds that he was still required in the Mediterranean, that he was ‘of the pre-air age’, and that he would be all at sea in the long, tedious and involved meetings of the COS committee.1 Alexander refuted the Prime Minister’s allegations, but the real reason why Churchill ‘did not want Cunningham as his principal naval colleague’ was that Cunningham had argued with him and was suspected of being as brusque and obdurate as Brooke—he would say a firm ‘no’ to the Prime Minister’s hare-brained schemes and brazenly face him down.2 Fraser was acknowledged to have ‘a first-class brain and a delightful personality’.3 He was younger, appreciative of air power at sea, had technical expertise, patience and possessed considerable war-time experience of command afloat. He was above all an accomplished administrator thoroughly familiar with the Admiralty and Whitehall. What Churchill left unsaid was that he expected to continue the comfortable relationship with Fraser that he had experienced with Pound.4 Alexander argued strongly that Fraser had only limited experience of command at sea and was virtually unknown to both the Americans and the British public.5 Fraser was also a man of uncertain judgement and volatility, while being something of a prima donna. Moreover, he was unlikely to be ‘amenable on matters on which he felt strongly’.6 What the navy needed was a safe pair of hands to guide it to certain victory and shepherd it into peace-time. Increasingly, it was the handmaiden of the army and less celebrated than the RAF. Naval attention now focused on the US Navy, by this time ruler of the waves. Arguably the awkward transition to peace would prove more difficult, for it would mean severe financial pressure on the navy, a new fleet for the atomic age, and almost certain relegation behind the RAF and the army. A leader was required who could manage the Prime Minister, play politics in Whitehall, respond articulately at the COS and CCS and use a staff effectively, delegating responsibility while concentrating on the

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

140

global strategic situation. He had to possess the confidence of the whole navy and British public opinion and to enjoy good relations with the Americans, increasingly supplying many of the navy’s ships, planes and equipment; he needed to be a charming beggar. A bluff if well-respected seaman was not wanted.7 How far was Cunningham able to meet these demands? By his own admission, he was happiest at sea, admitting that desk work was not his ‘strong suit’.8 He was known to be hard on his staff, irascible and somewhat old-fashioned. He was an arch delegator, simply because he could not be bothered with detailed work. Confessing to being somewhat inarticulate in high policy discussions, he did not possess the intellectual powers of Portal and Tedder. He was not a natural politician, unlike Beatty or Chatfield. His relations with Churchill were lukewarm at best and frequently frosty. However, he had considerable experience of the leading Americans and stood high in their estimation. He was well used to committee and staff work, if unacquainted with the Admiralty and Whitehall. Because of his early exploits in the Mediterranean, he was well known throughout the navy and by the public. Alexander could not prevent Churchill from seeing Fraser and offering him the post. However, Fraser was warned at the Admiralty by the Second Sea Lord, Jock Whitworth (a friend of Cunningham) that ‘he was not wanted’.9 Fraser, a shrewd man, told Churchill, ‘I believe I have the confidence of my own Fleet. Cunningham has that of the whole Navy.’10 It was a magnanimous gesture, for there was every likelihood that Fraser would not be offered the top prize again. Churchill now had no option but to accede to Alexander’s suggestion that he should see ‘the old man of the sea’.11 On 30 September, Cunningham flew home and took soundings in the Admiralty, and the Royal Navy generally, as to whether he was welcomed, before seeing the Prime Minister. The two had ‘a heart-to-heart talk’—at which neither is likely to have pulled punches.12 Churchill thereupon offered him the post, noting that Cunningham had a ‘grasp of the naval situation’ and that he was ‘in full sympathy and accord with the broad lines of policy and strategy’, though that was probably wishful thinking.13 Churchill’s true feelings were revealed in his characteristically petulant outburst to Alexander: ‘You can have your Cunningham but if the Admiralty don’t do as they’re told I will bring down the Board in ruins, even if it means my coming down with it.’14 From Washington, Dill counselled that ‘you will have quite a bit of difficulty in controlling your hackles!’ and the Head of BAD, Percy Noble, sagely commented that ‘a strong man is not always greatly welcomed in these days!’.15 Cunningham came to feel that the Prime Minister ‘bitterly regrets his choice. I think he imagines that I make the other COS intransigent; actually they are more against him than I am’.16 Cunningham had assumed the post out of duty.17 He regarded Alexander as ‘a queer fish rather a rough diamond’ and they had little in common; like most service professionals, Cunningham was antipathetic to Labour policies.18 He had his own ideas on the waging of war and post-war reconstruction—some of them quaint, others farsighted. He was rather bluff and conservative in his opinions but prepared to listen to arguments.19 The Admiralty found itself shaken out of Pound’s humdrum routine, but for the most part Cunningham either continued the procedures of his predecessor or discovered matters had gone too far to change.20 He was among old friends and that eased his acceptance and settling in considerably; it meant in particular that he was well briefed for his meetings, or that he felt safe in entrusting responsibility to subordinates. He left

Becoming first sea lord

141

command decisions to the man on the spot and he selected commanders well known to him and who had earned a warlike reputation. His day started with interviews from 9.00 to 10.30, followed by the daily COS meeting. After lunch, he pored over his papers, saw people and attended meetings. He worked again after dinner and was occasionally summoned to a COS meeting with the Prime Minister, starting, much to his chagrin, at about 10 o’clock, when he was ready for bed. He and Nona were able to settle at the Palace House quickly but it took some time before Cunningham was able to occupy a flat at the Admiralty.21 Most Saturdays he got down to Bishop’s Waltham and gardened vigorously until after lunch on Sundays, when he drove back to the Admiralty in his Bentley, rather fast and brooking no opposition.22 Though he and Nona disliked formal engagements and large parties, they often gave small lunch or dinner parties and also took their friends to the theatre.23 Cunningham’s immediate problem was the crisis in manpower, though having corresponded with Whitworth for over a year, he was well aware of it. Rear-Admiral Brind, Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Administration) (ACNS [A]), told him on 24 October that ‘drastic measures are necessary at once’ and that unless the intractable riddle was solved there would be a severe impact on operations and the introduction of new ships.24 The problems were that Britain was in a total war economy, the services were increasingly thirsty for manpower and there was a reduced number of young men becoming available. Senior officers were also reluctant to give up men. The British lead in strategy also had the uncomfortable side effect of placing more imperial forces in the front line and thus incurring higher casualties.25 The Prime Minister continually prodded the navy to release more men for the army. Moreover, the shortages were more severe in such grades as engineers, while the increasing flow of new equipment meant additional crew and larger shore establishments. By December, Cunningham was telling Somerville that ‘our principal preoccupation’ was manpower and ‘there is no question that we are now in the most straitened circumstances’.26 The peak of naval personnel would be reached at the end of 1944 (about 800,000) but the key issue was how many new entries would be allocated to the navy in that year. The Admiralty requested 288,000 but was allowed only 50,000. Many solutions were attempted. Older and severely damaged ships were de-commissioned, new construction from the United States was placed in reserve, or a half of it came over without working up. Canada and Australia were persuaded to man more ships. Stations combed out non-essential personnel and more Wrens were recruited—but the problem was never solved.27 Cunningham permitted operations in the Aegean (‘Accolade’) to continue but it was really Churchill’s project; the Prime Minister had immense visions of the advantages the seizure of the Aegean islands would confer. It would compel the enemy to divert forces. A successful campaign would clear a path to the Dardanelles, thus offering a safer supply route to Russia and probably bringing ‘Johnny Turk’ into the war. It would also bring the Balkans under British rather than Soviet sway. After the Italian surrender, it was considered that the Aegean garrisons would be co-operative and that the British would thus get there ahead of the Germans. The forces available were slender but Churchill urged commanders to dare and to improvise, while he attempted to secure additional support from the Americans. However, Eisenhower refused to weaken the already insufficient forces in Italy and insisted on the capture of Rome before adventures in the Aegean. It was particularly short of long-range fighters but Tedder would not allow any

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

142

to be transferred there. The Middle East commanders were ambivalent about their support several months before the campaign opened. Moreover, in General Wilson’s words, Rhodes was ‘the key to the situation’ and unless it was seized quickly, the whole enterprise was shaky.28 Cunningham’s tolerance of the campaign can be explained by his absorption in settling in as First Sea Lord and that it began well and was in measurable distance of coming off.29 He agreed on the significance of Rhodes and the importance of a quick takeover and was bitterly critical of the shortage of resources and the unhelpful attitudes of Eisenhower and Tedder.30 He had been at the conference of Allied leaders in Tunis on 9 October when, despite Rhodes and Kos falling into German hands, it was decided to continue holding Samos and Leros while they could be supplied.31 In the first phase (8–26 September) the British landed small parties on various islands to encourage the Italians to resist German seizures, while raiding parties were despatched to other islands. Unfortunately, but characteristically, the Germans reacted quickly, decisively with force. They bullied the Italians on Rhodes into surrendering and regained the other important air base, Kos. Luftwaffe reinforcements arrived and, though they suffered heavy losses in the air and on the sea, in the second phase (26 September–12 October), the Germans seized the initiative. In the third phase (12 October–3 November), during which Admiral Sir John Cunningham was succeeded by Admiral Willis, the Allies hung on to three islands, supplied chiefly by submarines. Severe casualties were suffered by the surface forces, mainly by air attack. In the final phase (3–16 November), the enemy enjoyed almost complete air supremacy and secured Leros. Samos was evacuated and the Allies were left with the small island of Kastelorizo. Willis, echoing the reports on Greece and Crete in 1941, concluded, ‘Throughout the operation our surface forces were unable to exercise that command of the sea to which their superiority to the enemy forces entitled them due to the complete enemy command of the air.’32 Six destroyers were lost, along with numerous smaller vessels, with five cruisers and five destroyers damaged, losses that caused Cunningham acute concern, especially as there was also a severe fall in morale—in late 1943, sailors did not expect to be bombed relentlessly as they were in 1940–1. The Italians, though well disposed, proved broken reeds in the struggle for the islands. The Turks, though helpful, remained neutral. The Americans refused to divert any forces. The British suffered from having insufficient force, their command structure was faulty and their main base (Egypt) was 350 miles away. Winter weather did not help. A few months later the islands fell into the Allies’ lap, as the Germans withdrew voluntarily from the whole of the Aegean.33 The abortive ‘Accolade’ operation was a case in which the enemy had ‘practically everything in their favour, distance, adjacent islands, good air reconnaissance and complete air supremacy’.34 He had only a marginal involvement in Operation ‘Shingle’, the landing just south of Rome on 22 January 1944. Churchill saw this as an ‘amphibious scoop’ on the west coast that would end the stalemate in Italy and compel the Germans to commit more forces from elsewhere.35 It was a way to exploit Allied sea power and save lives by landing behind the enemy and seizing Rome. A number of landing craft were kept back from transfer to the English Channel, thus delaying the invasions of northern and southern France and Indian Ocean operations but even so the lift was only two divisions. The naval part went smoothly, Hewitt being in charge, assisted by experienced subordinates. The navies, exploiting kind winter weather, achieved complete surprise on the beaches

Becoming first sea lord

143

and exceeded expectations.36 Thereafter, the weather and the topography favoured the Germans, who reacted more quickly and decisively, forcing the Allies to dig in for a long haul. Heavy naval losses were incurred and Anzio was ‘developing into another Tobruk so far as the Navy’s part is concerned’.37 There followed four months of supply by sea. John Cunningham reported to the First Sea Lord as early as 11 February that ‘the position at Anzio continues to stagnate’ and it was not until 11 May that the weary troops managed to break out of the bridgehead—but Rome was not captured until 4 June, by which time the whole operation was pointless.38 Cunningham shared the Prime Minister’s exasperation at the dismal outcome, writing that ‘the failure of the Army to take advantage of a wonderful opportunity is most irritating’.39 The forces committed were in any case marginal, the command structure was flawed and the aims of the operation were unclear.40 ‘Either it was a full job for an army’, said Morison, ‘or it was no job at all.’41 John Cunningham had been Cunningham’s nominee as C-in-C, Mediterranean. ‘I am convinced’, he told the Prime Minister, ‘of his suitability for this important command which I am sure he will fill with great benefit to the Allied cause and credit to himself.’42 Churchill, who knew of John Cunningham’s unfortunate associations with failed expeditions, was disposed to accept him temporarily but he soon became permanent. Eisenhower, who had implicit faith in ‘ABC’s’ judgement, was quite willing to have him.43 However, Eisenhower was translated to the supreme command in north-west Europe and asked for Tedder as his deputy. Cunningham, and others, were concerned to unify the Mediterranean commands, to have a British supreme commander, to maintain the essentially imperial character of Mediterranean operations and to ensure that British primacy there was carried over into the post-war years. General ‘Jumbo’ Wilson, supported by Cunningham, who had great respect for him and felt that he was an underrated soldier, was appointed but in November 1944 he followed Dill as Head of the JSM and Alexander, of whom Cunningham disapproved strongly, succeeded for the last few months of the war.44 The Americans, though able and co-operative, tended to take charge of Britannia’s own sea and the two Cunninghams agreed that they ‘need keeping in their place’.45 The Mediterranean strategy, with which Cunningham and other British leaders were completely associated, brought benefits and burdens. The U-boats now found it impossible to get past the air and sea patrols in the Straits of Gibraltar. The dozen based on Toulon enjoyed scant success because of the Allies’ co-ordinated and ample escorts. There were occasional encounters with E-boats but the main threat came from guided bombs, and the once-formidable Luftwaffe was beaten before the end of 1944.46 Most of the Allied naval forces were now engaged in putting armies ashore or supporting them with air cover, escorts, bombardments or supplies, much of the work unexpected. Conquering Italy, in fact, involved much of the shipping hopefully saved by the reopening of the Mediterranean, the use of landing craft for running in supplies, and the postponement of operations elsewhere.47 Churchill and Cunningham continued to have clashes in other directions. Churchill, a creature of eccentric habits and far-fetched strategic and tactical opinions, could be very forceful, persistent and exasperating. Cunningham was equally obdurate, gruff and determined but he handled Churchill with an unexpected guile, patience and coolness. It was the product of a characteristically shrewd assessment of how to get his way and stop the Prime Minister pursuing one of his wild schemes. ‘As usual when one gets alongside

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

144

him on a subject he knows nothing about’, he remarked, ‘I had my way.’48 On appointments he held firm. Churchill was ‘such a bad picker’ and of at least one senior post he confided, ‘I have no intention of changing him.’49 Moreover, Cunningham’s replies were ‘usually a good deal shorter and more firmly worded’ than those of Pound.50 When Churchill was absent, so were his absurd hours and manner of work; Cunningham noted with relief, ‘Such a change with Attlee in the chair. Everyone who wished to gave his opinion and yet business was expeditiously accomplished.’51 For the most part, he confined his exasperation to his diary: ‘What a drag on the wheel of war this man is. Everything is centralised in him with consequent indecision and waste of time before anything can be done.’52 He observed, ‘No wonder the U.S. Chiefs of Staff complain of delays in getting things through.’53 In the end, however, like almost everyone else, Cunningham was forced to confess that ‘with all his faults (and he is the most infuriating man) he has done a great deal for his country—besides there is no one else’.54 Brooke and Portal were long-serving members of the COS, had ample staff training and experience, and were intellectually able. Cunningham lacked a staff background and had an inadequate knowledge of the global strategic situation; moreover, he found ‘an inherent difficulty in expressing myself in verbal discussion’.55 Furthermore, as the other services assumed precedence and as naval warfare changed, carriers, escorts, landing craft and other humble warships became more significant than battleships and other fleet units. Finally, the COS existed in a permanent state of war with the Prime Minister; much of their time and energy was spent on fighting him. Fortunately, Cunningham found Brooke and Portal congenial companions. They welcomed him cordially—he was less trying than the frequently somnolent Pound and he was more of a formidable barrier against Churchill. The COS proved ‘a strong combination’ and, partly because of their mutual love of fishing, they were ‘firm friends’.56 That did not prevent them having severe wrangles but they settled their differences in committee, so they were able to present to the Prime Minister a solidly united front.57 They also faced the JCS as a bloc but Cunningham’s introduction to the CCS at Cairo in November was highly disconcerting. Most of the key strategic decisions having been made, the agendas of the meetings at Cairo, Tehran, Quebec, Malta, Yalta and Potsdam concerned post-war political arrangements; the military commanders’ meetings were largely redundant. The American fleet had grown spectacularly in strength during 1943 and with its overwhelming size had come a wave of self-confidence that caused some American officers to lose their awe and deference towards the British Navy, now playing second fiddle, and to display instead feelings of patronage, exasperation, superiority and independence. American equipment, ships and planes were generally superior to those of the British; their productivity was much higher. Cunningham found himself in the position of a supplicant and increasingly experienced difficulties over the repair and modernisation of British ships in American yards, the channelling of equipment to American forces, the cessation of vital supplies, and the growing disdain of the Americans for joint operations. It was a most unappetising position to be in, especially to one who embodied Britannia ruling the waves. He knew his opposite number, Admiral Ernest J.King, well but, though he appreciated what King had accomplished, he admitted, ‘I can’t bring myself to like that man.’58 Cunningham observed that King had had ‘a bad attack of swelled head’ and found him progressively more difficult to deal with, and even more peremptory.59 However, King and senior Americans generally welcomed

Becoming first sea lord

145

Cunningham’s appointment, for not only did he have a formidable fighting reputation but they appreciated, too, how helpful he had been to Eisenhower and how much he had sublimated himself to Allied co-operation.60 Cunningham proceeded first to Malta and then to Egypt aboard the battlecruiser Renown and talked to John Cunningham and Willis in Valletta, and travelled home again by sea, stopping off in Algiers to see John Cunningham again. He made relatively little contribution to the conferences at Cairo and Tehran but was reasonably satisfied with their outcomes.61 As a convinced Mediterraneanist, he was sympathetic to Brooke’s plea for an enhanced campaign there but he was equally drawn to the American point of view and believed with them that ultimately Germany must be beaten at home and was thus much in favour of the invasion of north-west France. Particularly pleasing to Cunningham were the successful objections of the British to the cumbersome and impractical enlargement of the CCS by the addition of China and the USSR. This was an American proposal, largely political and futuristic in nature, and the British were also triumphant in heading off the American suggestion that there should be one supreme commander for western Europe—it would be an unwieldy and unworkable arrangement.62 The Americans stated that they would concentrate on Liberty ships and certain types of landing craft, which broadly satisfied him. He was relieved that the operations in the Aegean were terminated and he gave it as his firm opinion, endorsed by King, that the Allies could not carry on more than two combined operations at once. The landings in north-west and southern France were thus agreed to as ‘the supreme operations for 1944’—evidence of American primacy in policy making, backed by the decisive intervention of Stalin.63 At the Tehran conference, sandwiched between two meetings at Cairo, the Americans and the Russians proceeded to make war and peace without much reference to the British; the era of the superpowers had dawned. Like most observers seeing Stalin at work for the first time, Cunningham was impressed by his grasp, shrewdness and ruthlessness, though he retained his conservative reserve and suspicion of the Russian leader.64 Churchill recognised Britain’s demotion and was consequently in a foul and spoiling mood.65 Cunningham subsequently had a long-drawn-out fight with the Prime Minister over the selection of a successor to Percy Noble in 1944; Noble, weary of fighting King, wished to retire. The First Sea Lord, aware that the war was tending to shift towards the Far East, required a representative who knew the operational problems there and had the experience of co-operating with the Americans. He also needed someone who was blunt, firm, jovial and at the same time had a high reputation as a fighting admiral. Somerville fitted the bill admirably, for he was frank, canny, humorous, experienced and had a good war record. He knew the Americans well and got on well with King when he attended the ‘Trident’ conference in Washington in May 1943. However, he had recently been reinforced with heavy ships in the Indian Ocean and his Eastern Fleet had been able to go over to the offensive, carrying out carrier raids on Japanese-held ports and installations. Churchill, who liked a ‘fighting admiral’ and was particularly gratified that a theatre which had so long disappointed him should show signs of life, wished to keep him there, much to Cunningham’s annoyance.66 He wrote furiously in his diary, ‘Such stupid reasons—he really is quite childish sometimes.’67 After a good deal of wrangling, Somerville was moved, reluctantly, to Washington in the autumn of 1944. He stayed for over two years and proved to be the most skilful of the heads of BAD—able to handle

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

146

King with a mixture of well-calculated bluntness and jollity, though Cunningham insisted that ‘had it not been necessary for Somerville to go to Washington, he would not have been moved’,68 The affable Admiral Harold R. (‘Betty’) Stark, commander of US naval forces in Europe, co-operated happily with Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake, the excellent liaison officer with US forces. In general, however, Cunningham though well disposed to Stark, who was useful for enlightening the Admiralty about King, was reluctant to allow him access to the Royal Navy’s councils or sensitive information. For the most part, too, King bypassed Stark. Cunningham, who thought Stark was ‘evidently terrified of King’, was sympathetic but preferred to deal directly with King.69 The British and the Americans were also concerned about the disposition of the Italian fleet, over which Roosevelt caused an embarrassing and exasperating crisis. The President had impulsively offered the Russians one-third of the Italian ships. The Italians were upset, as they had not been consulted and hoped to preserve their fleet intact, shoring up their ‘great power’ status and believing they should be rewarded for their ready co-operation with the Allies. It also angered Cunningham, as the mainspring of the Cunningham-de Courten agreement. Moreover, most of the ships required refitting and extensive modification before they were ready for Russian climes. Cunningham seems to have felt, too, that the Soviet Navy would make little use of them during the war and had unhealthy ambitions after it. He took immediate steps to nullify the President’s precipitate move. He told his commanders, You will have heard the disclosure by the President of the USA on the disposal of the Italian Fleet. This is as much of a surprise to us as it doubtless is to you. Urgent enquiries are being made. In the meantime you should be entirely non-committal and express ignorance.70 However, Stalin’s hopes had been raised and Churchill had to engage in substantial correspondence with Roosevelt; eventually the Russians received superannuated British and American ships temporarily and got their Italian ships after the war.71 Cunningham was equally tough on the Greek naval mutinies which occurred in Egypt and supported Churchill in his efforts to help the royalists in the subsequent Greek civil war, though characteristically King initially refused to allow American landing craft to be used for the transport of British troops to mainland Greece.72 A further thorny problem for him was the rapid deterioration in relations between his term-mate, Admiral Sir James Somerville, C-in-C, Eastern Fleet, since February 1942, and Acting Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia, from October 1943. At first, Somerville had loyally welcomed his appointment, recognising (like Cunningham) that he had abundant ability in several directions, that he was young and energetic, and that he enjoyed the warm support of the Americans. Mountbatten began well by promising to act merely as a chairman of the Cs-in-C with a miniscule staff, exercising control over the Eastern Fleet only when it was participating in combined operations. Soon his staff was not only growing massively but was arrogating to itself planning that the Cs-in-C felt should be shared with their staffs. There were differences between him and Somerville on publicity and visits to naval units. As Somerville’s responsibilities covered a far wider area than South East Asia Command

Becoming first sea lord

147

(SEAC), he naturally appealed to Cunningham. The First Sea Lord showed unusual tact, first persuading the Prime Minister to be more precise in his directive to Mountbatten. Then he advised Somerville gently to be more accommodating, to recognise the Supreme Commander’s difficulties in welding together multinational and multi-service forces. In general, however, Cunningham supported his old friend against Mountbatten, whom he never fully trusted.73 Though Somerville did receive substantial accretions of offensive forces and he and his successor, Arthur Power (another Cunningham favourite), struck some useful blows against the Japanese in 1944–5, the South East Asian theatre was never crucial and therefore low on the agenda for resources and action.74 Much more important strategically was the Battle of the Atlantic, largely won in May 1943. It was co-ordinated by a committee, usually chaired by the Prime Minister and on which the First Sea Lord sat. The key command was Western Approaches, headed by the impulsive but shrewd ex-submariner Max Horton, even harder on his staff than Cunningham. It was perhaps unsurprising that Cunningham and Horton should have an early disagreement, as their backgrounds and personalities were so very different.75 Coastal Command of the RAF, which had just become fully effective, was under Admiralty operational control, though Cunningham experienced some jurisdictional difficulties. The Americans had charge of the western Atlantic and the Canadians, who provided about one-third of the escorts and many of the squadrons by the war’s end, were growing increasingly proficient—‘the relative effort of Canada was colossal’.76 There was an increasing margin of new merchant tonnage (partly offset by heightened demands for it as new offensives were launched), a sufficiency of aircraft and escorts, an experienced and well-trained personnel, powerful anti-submarine weapons and tactics, the skilful use of operational research, immediate, regular and revealing code breaking and high frequency/direction finding (HF/DF), and the acknowledgement all round that the Atlantic was the vital area. Cunningham had to keep the smooth-running system on its toes and prevent any recrudescence of U-boat warfare. He appreciated its importance but had no first-hand experience of the battle, relying heavily on his specialists for accurate information, while he acted as interlocutor, scourge and sceptic. He trusted Captain John Edelsten, his former Chief of Staff, now ACNS (Anti-U-boat Warfare), implicitly and came to regard Captain Rodger Winn, in charge of tracking and code breaking, as ‘uncanny…His prescience was amazing’, though he was initially distrustful of what he termed ‘black magic’.77 Since Doenitz had moved his U-boats to less well-escorted areas, such as the Indian Ocean, ‘the campaign was virtually over’ by the spring of 1944.78 His ‘milch cows’—supply U-boats, enabling operational craft to remain on station—were hunted down. When Doenitz attempted to intervene off Normandy, he lost heavily, though he succeded in tying down considerable Allied forces.79 Priority in ship-building swung from escorts to landing craft but problems remained for Cunningham.80 The new (largely American) ‘hunter-killer’ groups based around escort carriers were especially effective, though the Royal Navy’s units were noticeably slower getting into action and less productive than the US Navy’s. Much of the equipment was American by then and they also excelled in decryption. The Allies added the Azores airfields to their comprehensive coverage in 1943, though the aerial ‘Bay offensive’ had stalled and was closed down by the end of the year.81 Anglo-American co-operation was also more effective on a technical or operational scale than at the command level.82 Indeed, it has been well said

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

148

that ‘the Battle of the Atlantic [was] won in spite of Allied co-operation rather than because of it’.83 Even so the Admiralty was able to declare that the Allies were ‘prepared to accept battle with the U-boats in the confidence that we shall be masters of the situation’.84 The Germans helped by failing to meet their sinkings targets, by lacking sufficient U-boats (Cunningham reported that new boats barely covered losses), by having insufficient air reconnaissance, by innocently exposing their vaunted ‘Enigma’ code to cracking, and by failing to devise new tactics and weapons soon enough and to bring forward new types of submarine (of whose imminence Cunningham was uncomfortably aware).85 Indeed mines, E-boats and aircraft and the surface fleet were currently a more serious menace. The big warships, concentrated in Norwegian fjords and supported by U-boats and aircraft, threatened the Arctic convoys, already contending with very harsh weather. Though essentially a political device—Stalin made somewhat offensive protests when they were suspended—they fared relatively well in 1944, only nine merchantmen being lost for 20 U-boats.86 Thanks largely to escort carriers, the convoys were used increasingly in an offensive capacity. The Home Fleet also became more aggressive off the Norwegian coast, making carrier raids on bases and severely mauling coastal shipping, suggesting to the Germans an imminent descent on Norway.87 The immediate threat, however, was the fast, well-armed battlecruiser Scharnhorst.88 When she made an attempt on a convoy, she was hunted down by Admiral Fraser and the Home Fleet. Cunningham, though he spent most of Boxing Day, 1943, on the teleprinter installed at the Palace House, merely saw that Fraser was provided with all the relevant intelligence and left the commanders on the spot to fight the battle. He was also encouraged by the sinking of three German destroyers in the Bay of Biscay by Glasgow and Enterprise. Part of a formidable group sent out to escort a blockade runner home, they were put to flight in a running battle. He had much to do with the success, for on seeing the Admiralty orders to the cruisers, he noticed that they were instructed to steer some 400 miles off the coast to escape the Luftwaffe; he promptly ordered a halving of the distance, thereby making certain of an encounter and calculating that the cruisers might do more damage to the enemy than they would suffer. He observed sharply that ‘had the enemy shown any initiative’, the cruisers would have ‘had a very tough proposition’ and the result confirmed his view that ‘in this war the German navy was a very pale shadow of 1914’.89 However, he showed his old-fashioned side when he accepted the exaggerated claims of his captains over the objective data of the code breakers, remarking gruffly that he did not believe in ‘that black magic’.90 He was justifiably a little self-satisfied when he told his aunts, ‘Well, we have finished our year well.’91 There was still the Tirpitz, less willing to expose herself on the high seas, in part because a midget submarine attack of September 1943 had put her out of action for six months. However, she was being made seaworthy and absorbed many British ships and aircraft, not to mention War Cabinet attention. It was necessary to render her finally unseaworthy and a FAA raid was laid on in April 1944, but, though it combined squadrons from two fleets and three escort carriers and was pressed home with the utmost gallantry, it did not sink her, primarily because the bombs were too light; however, she was rendered unfit to return to Germany for major repairs. She became a floating battery in Altenfjord but, despite further attempts by Home Fleet fliers, it was left to the RAF, flying from Russia with outsize bombs, to despatch her in November 1944.92 Though

Becoming first sea lord

149

Cunningham was glad to have her destroyed, he was no doubt a little galled that the junior service achieved it; he told Roskill that the navy had effectively dealt with her by the X-craft attack.93 The attacks on Tirpitz occasioned a quarrel between Cunningham and Fraser. Cunningham called for a second raid immediately after the partially effective one of 3 April 1944 (‘Tungsten’). Fraser refused, citing the bad weather and the alertness of the defences; the raid would be costly without achieving its objective. There was some distrust between Cunningham and Fraser, arising perhaps from Fraser’s supposedly cordial relationship with Churchill and the prior offer of the First Sea Lordship but more probably from the fact that they hardly knew each other. Cunningham had not been amused by Fraser’s tardy report on the Scharnhorst and was aggrieved over Fraser’s peremptory refusal to repeat ‘Tungsten’. According to Cunningham, he threatened to haul down his flag if ordered to carry it out (though Fraser’s biographer denies this).94 On 13 April, Cunningham called Fraser and ‘found him in a most truculent and obstructive mood’.95 The First Sea Lord was unusually patient, urged him to reconsider and pointed out ‘that the Admiralty must be allowed some voice in what operations were to be carried out’.96 Ironically, Fraser’s attitude replicated Cunningham’s in the Mediterranean; he was proved right by the abortive attack launched later in the month. On 14 April, there was a further misunderstanding when Fraser called back but when the two met ‘wiser counsels had prevailed in the Home Fleet [and] had made Fraser more tractable’ but the episode had confirmed Cunningham’s reservations about Fraser and contributed to his reluctance to have Fraser follow him as First Sea Lord.97 The FAA’s performances in the Tirpitz and Arctic convoy operations were certainly gallant and telling.98 However, the fracas with Fraser reinforced Cunningham’s concern, shared by the Prime Minister, that huge resources were expended in training the navy’s fliers without commensurate results, despite the appointment of Denis Boyd, well known to Cunningham from Taranto, as Fifth Sea Lord. Many of the ablest senior figures had been transferred to the new RAF in 1918. The aircraft provided by Britain were either RAF cast-offs, obsolete, delayed in entering service or just plain unsuitable, and the Americans, who supplied the best aircraft, were uncomplimentary in their comparisons of the respective use of carriers and planes. Cunningham was also perturbed about apparently low morale and at the demand of FAA aircrew for relief from operations at what he considered an inordinate rate. He recognised the value of air at sea—he could hardly do otherwise, given his Mediterranean experience—but he was disinclined to treat fliers as an élite frequently rotated in the manner of the Americans.99 He was also dismissive of a suggestion that the navy should promote itself but, equally typically, mellowed shortly afterwards; having been told that 80 officers were required for an Admiralty public relations department, he observed resignedly, ‘Well they must be found.’100 In the spring of 1944, even weightier questions had to be answered—the landings in north-western and southern France, the organisation and deployment of a British Pacific Fleet, the threatened recrudescence of the U-boat campaign and the shape of the post-war Royal Navy.

14 The Pinnacle of a Career

June 1944–May 1946 From 1944, Cunningham kept a diary, justifying it by remarking, ‘So many interesting things are happening that I think it behoves me to keep a diary’.1 It was illegal to do so but it was a major means of letting off steam, particularly against the Prime Minister. Cunningham acknowledged that he had been ‘Very crotchety these last few months and difficult in temper but we have had much to try us’.2 The war was fast approaching its climax, post-war issues were beginning to over-shadow military concerns, and the leading personalities, increasingly exhausted, often displayed exasperation. The greatest naval operation of this period was undoubtedly ‘Overlord’/‘Neptune’, the cross-Channel invasion, launched on 6 June 1944—‘D-day’. The Americans, now predominant, were insistent that ‘Overlord and Anvil are the supreme operations for 1944’.3 Cunningham’s role in ‘Neptune’/‘Overlord’ was marginal, confined to liaison with King, to finding the men and ships required, cheering those about to sail, and to supporting the Allied Naval Commander Expeditionary Force. For this post, ‘one name stood out above all others for his ability, character and experience’—Bertram Ramsay, readily accepted by all concerned.4 A rather remote, deep-thinking, ultra-sensitive man, Ramsay had ‘unrivalled knowledge and experience of combined operations’.5 Montgomery, commander of the landing forces, said to him, ‘You understand us soldiers.’6 Though Cunningham, like the Americans, was concerned at Ramsay’s elaborate insurance, he gave him his unstinting support. He agreed with Churchill that as D-day neared he should stand at Ramsay’s shoulder; fortunately, Ramsay’s headquarters at Southwick Manor were within easy reach of Cunningham’s home and Ramsay became a frequent dinner guest at Bishop’s Waltham.7 ‘A delightful rest and change’, noted Ramsay, who was otherwise busy for several months with ‘a never surpassed masterpiece of planning and staff work.’8 Ramsay’s subordinates were as difficult as their chief; Vian was rather quirky and irritable, while ‘Bertie Ramsay and Kirk did not hit it off’.9 Kirk, who commanded the American landings, knew the British well but was highly critical of them and shared what seemed to Cunningham an American inclination to act independently; the First Sea Lord was quick to insist on Ramsay’s overall command. He was rather exasperated at the American tendency to flood D-day with spare admirals who had little to do.10 However, the Royal Navy, which hoped to cover most of the invasion, was forced to call for substantial American aid in the light of Montgomery’s insistence on

The pinnacle of a career

151

a five-division landing in place of the original proposal for a three-division assault. The US Navy leant substantial and invaluable support, though initially King was reluctant to assist, feeling that the Home Fleet should be denuded of its major vessels. King also desired to control his own forces but was largely thwarted by Cunningham, Ramsay and Eisenhower.11 The invasion was due to be launched in May 1944 but was postponed until June to take advantage of another month’s landing craft production and a Red Army offensive. In the end, a 24-hour postponement had to be endured because of adverse weather conditions. Cunningham approved of the delay—‘I was not surprised because it was blowing 5–6’—and observed, ‘It looks as though the bad weather has lulled the Huns’ suspicions.’12 On D-day, the First Sea Lord was at the Admiralty’s war room, having been visiting commanders and assembly ports on the previous day. He was as relieved as anyone that the landing had gone more or less to plan, remarking, ‘We certainly seem to have achieved tactical surprise.’13 Some 1,200 warships, 1,300 merchantmen and 4,000 landing craft swarmed across the Channel on 6 June, landing at five beaches around the Bay of the Seine, commencing at dawn low tide. After 11 days, over 600,000 men had been landed, together with vehicles, equipment, ammunition and stores. The one blot was ‘Omaha’ beach, where ‘the situation…did not seem to be clearing up well’.14 Thanks to American courage and tenacity, ‘Omaha’ soon righted itself, though at a heavy cost in life and equipment.15 ‘Neptune’, the naval part of the landings, was closed on 24 June and by 5 July the millionth soldier had crossed the Channel.16 Most of Cunningham’s difficulties were with Churchill. The Prime Minister was ‘very worked up’ about the landings and in an ‘almost hysterical state’.17 He announced his intention of landing on a beach on D-day but Cunningham called the old lion’s bluff, surmising, ‘I doubt that he really means to go.’18 In the end, the Prime Minister was persuaded to go at about the same time as King, who was accompanied by Cunningham on 15 June.19 The First Sea Lord came under fire and, with other distinguished guests, scrambled about on the beaches. True to his somewhat mean nature, he grumbled about ‘the shocking waste of naval ammunition’ but was otherwise impressed by the number of ships and generally good organisation.20 Churchill continued to bombard Cunningham with outlandish suggestions for weeks. ‘I am convinced’, the Prime Minister asserted, ‘that opportunities are passing.’21 Cunningham told him politely that the bombarding position was satisfactory and that he would not support a bombardment of Cherbourg, a port the Allies could use when cleared. Fed by Cherwell, the Prime Minister also made bizarre recommendations for the defence of the landings, badgering Cunningham to employ nets against human torpedoes. When Cunningham intimated that he preferred patrol boats, Churchill replied peevishly, ‘Well do not say I did not tell you.’22 However, unaccountably, Cunningham supported Churchill’s attempt to switch the landings in southern France to the Bay of Biscay. They were opposed by the rest of the CCS and by Ramsay and the idea came to naught but Cunningham may have hoped to snuff out the German U-boat and E-boat bases in the Bay of Biscay.23 Cunningham also experienced further difficulties with King, who assumed the right to withdraw American warships to support ‘Anvil’ and operations in the Pacific. As early as two weeks after the landings, King instructed US ships to leave. Cunningham informed the Prime Minister,

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

152

The unilateral action taken by Admiral King amounted to withdrawing the bulk of the American forces involved in Overlord and allocating them to Anvil without consultation with the Admiralty or the CCS and before the SAC, Mediterranean, had stated his requirements.24 Ramsay called it ‘a perfectly stupid unilateral action’ and Churchill protested to the President.25 The Americans believed, however, that they had signalled their intention long before and in any case would pull out the ships only with the consent of the CCS.26 The obstacles ranged from shore defences, destroyers, torpedo boats, E-boats and mines to a variety of conventional and midget U-boats. Much the most difficult weapon to counter was the oyster mine, to which the Allies had no real answer. Doenitz’s plan was to disrupt and if possible stall the landings.27 Fortunately, few aircraft were met, though the Luftwaffe did deploy guided bombs against bombarding ships and their ports. The Atlantic Wall was dealt with partly by bombing and in part by bombardment. Churchill was particularly insistent on shelling the enemy batteries but Cunningham, like most sailors, was sceptical of the effects of naval bombardment, though he suggested the use of Warspite and called for an intensive bombardment. The evidence, however, was that naval gunnery was highly disruptive and destructive.28 Rommel told Hitler, ‘Up to 640 guns have been used. The effect is so immense that no operation of any kind is possible in the area commanded by this rapid fire artillery, by either infantry or tanks.’29 The U-boats were utterly routed, as Cunningham had hoped, aircraft and ships having been recalled from Western Approaches and other commands; some risks were run elsewhere but losses in this great operation were slight.30 ‘The whole area had been filled by the aircraft of Coastal Command, RAF’, wrote Cunningham. ‘…Our comparative immunity to submarine attack was principally due to the enthusiastic efficiency of Coastal Command.’31 Nevertheless, he remained anxious about the German destroyers and the large number of U-boats in the Biscay ports and monitored closely reports of encounters between British light forces and the enemy. He was notably critical of the Channel commanders for their lack of enterprise and he exhibited the same bold attitude he had displayed in these waters in the First World War.32 By 12 June, Cunningham observed that the armies were making good progress and supplies were flowing well across the Channel. Having got the armies ashore, it was a major concern of Cunningham and Ramsay to ensure that they were regularly and adequately supplied and they backed Mountbatten’s plan for ‘Mulberries’ (artificial harbours), though they proved expensive and unwieldy and Cunningham was ultimately doubtful of the wisdom of spending so many of Britain’s scarce resources on them. He was satisfied with their general success, as with the ‘Gooseberries’ (breakwaters formed out of sunken ships) and PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean), though a great storm wrecked the American ‘Mulberry’ and in the end most supplies reached the troops across the sands via beached craft.33 Despite Ramsay’s constant complaint that ‘ABC has a strain of manner in his nature which makes him do things on the cheap’, the two were agreed that ‘we must not give the Army any possible excuse for saying we are slow’.34 By the end of August, over two million men, 438,000 vehicles and three million tons of supplies had been landed.35 When Montgomery criticised the sailors over their alleged dilatory clearing of Cherbourg harbour, Cunningham, incensed by Pound and Montgomery in North Africa, handled Brooke (who conveyed Montgomery’s complaint)

The pinnacle of a career

153

with total resolution: ‘I was very firm with him and told him… I wasn’t going to have another Tripoli nonsense.’36 The increasingly parlous state of logistics in the north could have been remedied by the early capture of Antwerp, an unscathed port 70 miles from the sea.37 Cunningham and Ramsay recognised its importance and ‘again impressed upon the COS that Antwerp though completely undamaged was as much good to us as Timbuktoo unless the entrance and other forts are silenced and the banks of the Scheldt occupied’.38 Antwerp was captured as early as 5 September but it was not until 6 November that Ramsay, with a Royal Navy landing flotilla, Royal Marines and Canadians, seized the key island of Walcheren and the port, vulnerable to German rockets, was finally opened on 28 November.39 The soldiers, obsessed with the defeat of enemy armies, were oblivious to the looming supply problem. ‘I fear’, said Cunningham on 4 September, ‘that there will be a long pause for logistical reasons shortly’.40 A month later, he concluded, ‘Well, they are paying for it by the slowing up or even halting of the advance into Germany.’41 He observed grimly, ‘The fact appears to be that Monty has not given the clearing of the estuary of the Scheldt the attention it should have had’, and 15 years later he was firmly of the belief that the delay was ‘purely an Army idiocy due to the hard-headedness of Monty and the weakness of [Eisenhower]’.42 Cunningham, supported by Tovey and Ramsay, was right, for the consequence of this strategic folly was that ‘all hopes of finishing the war in 1944 were lost’.43 Cunningham, seconded by King, also advocated the seizure and opening of the North German ports in preference to the Eisenhower strategy, eventually adopted, of advancing on a broad front.44 The Royal Navy thus played an amphibious role in the crossing of the flooded Rhine early in 1945.45 Cunningham also kept up the pressure on his commanders to operate close inshore on the Dutch, German, Danish and Norwegian coasts, to harry surviving German surface and submarine forces and sink coastal convoys. As late as 4 May 1945, shortly before the German surrender, he noted, ‘Spent the time before the COS meeting in gingering up all and sundry.’46 He also had a strong humanitarian streak. ‘We can’t allow four or five million of the Dutch people to die of starvation without raising a finger to help them’, he declared, and arranged for their relief by landing craft.47 Cunningham had persuaded Ramsay to take charge of post-war naval affairs in Germany.48 Unhappily, Ramsay and all his party were killed in an air crash on 2 January. Cunningham, stunned, had lost a close personal if temperamental friend.49 He insisted that a new Allied Commander Expeditionary Force (ANCXF) was required, if only to deal with the complexities of German naval disarmament and relations with the Americans and Russians.50 Churchill, who had gone ‘all Army’ now that the war was chiefly in the air and on the ground, demurred, much to Cunningham’s disgust: ‘How he works in such complete ignorance and disregard for facts beats me’, he snorted.51 He recommended a trusted old friend, Vice-Admiral Sir Harold Burrough, a nomination quickly endorsed by Eisenhower and ultimately by Churchill, too.52 Meanwhile, ‘Anvil/Dragoon’, the landing in the south of France, had taken place (15 August). It had been hotly disputed between the British chiefs, who resisted any weakening of the Italian campaign, and the JCS, who insisted on supporting ‘Overlord’ from the south. Cunningham leaned to the American view but said, ‘On the whole I was neutral though when it came to a collective opinion I was at one with my colleagues.’53 Though not ‘deeply implicated’ in the acrimonious debate, he ‘found the arguments so

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

154

evenly balanced as to have difficulty in making up my mind’.54 After the war, he reflected that the British Chiefs of Staff did not come out of it very well. They tried to go back on what they had agreed at Teheran. The reasons were paucity of LSTs and the PM’s desire to go to Austria and I think the Army’s wish to keep the Italian campaign under British command a major one.55 To avoid continuing wrangles and to switch ‘Anvil’ forces to the Bay of Biscay, he favoured the cancellation of ‘Anvil’ and after one COS meeting with the Prime Minister wrote, ‘I hope we have convinced him that the only thing we can do is make a clean cut and abandon Anvil.’56 The Americans would not permit this. However, the ‘Over-lord’ campaign was so demanding that Cunningham realised the Allies could mount only one further combined operation in 1944—and that a minor one. ‘Anvil’ was so long delayed and so limited that it could no longer ‘assist Overlord by containing the maximum German forces’.57 The Royal Navy, somewhat reluctantly, supplied the bulk of the naval forces. The caustic C-in-C, Mediterranean, John Cunningham, hoped to ‘inject some good British carefulness and “make do” into the U.S. rigidity’ and was scornful of French bombarding competence.58 The First Sea Lord himself was concerned about American failure to co-operate but managed to obtain 19 American Landing Ships (Tank) (LSTs) for ‘Anvil’.59 It was of restricted size—some 60,000 troops, 2,250 ships and 4,056 aircraft—but by the end of September over 300,000 men had been landed, together with 500,000 tons of stores and many thousands of vehicles.60 ‘Dragoon appears to have been a great success’, wrote Cunningham to the C-in-C, Mediterranean, ‘but did not have quite the effect which was expected of it.’61 Its chief benefit, in fact, was to make available large, undamaged ports (Marseille and Toulon), partly offsetting the failure to obtain them on the Channel. In the Mediterranean at large, John Cunningham was able to iron out the wrinkles in Andrew Cunningham’s agreement with the Italian Navy, ensuring a tighter control of that service and disabusing the Italians of a rebirth of a fleet after the war.62 The First Sea Lord placed people whom he trusted in control—John Cunningham, and Willis, then Rawlings, in the Levant—and was instrumental in getting the area seen as one command.63 He was already looking to the post-war era and intending to base the fleet once again on Malta, which would need significant repair and expansion of facilities. Cunningham was shrewd and experienced enough to realise that he was unlikely to obtain all he wanted but on his shopping list he numbered a graving dock, a revamped dockyard, submarine shelters and better airfields.64 Cunningham visited the Mediterranean again at the end of January 1945. The CCS (enlarged by the JSM) held a brief meeting at Malta before flying on to the Yalta conference with the Russians. Seeing the inside of the house of the C-in-C, Mediterranean, Cunningham noted, ‘Never have I seen the old house looking better. It would have warmed Nona’s heart to have seen it again in all its glory. It was just like old times.’65 As to the conference, ‘We had no serious difficulties’, and that in Yalta, despite many privations, ‘went as merrily as bell’ ,66 His most profound disagreements were with Lord Leathers, Minister of War Transport, who was a real thorn in the navy’s flesh, this time on the fuel likely to be available for the British Pacific Fleet.67 The meetings were

The pinnacle of a career

155

cordial because the major strategic issues had been settled earlier and the CCS’s presence was redundant. Yalta and the final summit of the war, Potsdam, were essentially political and concerned mainly with post-war questions. The only strategic issue of consequence at Potsdam was ‘the very thorny subject of control of strategy in the Pacific’.68 In a meeting dominated by the advent of nuclear weapons, it was agreed that the JCS should make the ultimate decisions but that the British chiefs should have the right to be consulted. Cunningham, conspicuously fair, observed, ‘In view of the disparity in the size of forces to be employed this is I think reasonable.’69 The prolongation of the German war into 1945 caused headaches for Cunningham. The country had been winding down its war effort and the Admiralty had begun to concentrate on the war against Japan. As Cunningham observed of the U-boat campaign, ‘we were well aware that the lull was only temporary’ and that ‘a recrudescence must be expected’.70 Production of conventional U-boats actually increased in 1944 and Doenitz sought to maintain morale. Germany’s main hope, however, lay in new types of U-boat, equipped with sensitive radar, schnorkel and acoustic torpedoes but whose principal merits were high underwater speed, the potential to outrun most escort vessels, the ability to stay submerged for long periods and the capacity to stay on station longer. The Type XXI displaced 1,600 tons, carried 26 torpedoes, reached 15 knots submerged and had greatly increased underwater endurance. The Type XXIII displaced 180 tons, carried two torpedoes, made 13 knots submerged and also enjoyed long underwater endurance. Several types of midget submarine were also produced. Mines, including the unfathomable oyster mine, and E-boats were also effective.71 More ominous still was the Walther boat, powered by hydrogen peroxide, probably not operational until 1946 but a true submarine.72 Cunningham acknowledged, ‘The Walther [boat] would certainly have been a menace if it had been successfully produced, as it was supposed to have almost unlimited endurance under water.’73 In the interim, the Types XXI and XXIII, ‘the pinnacle of U-boat design’, streamlined, capable of rapid fire, deep diving, and with better detection gear to locate convoys, while themselves remaining silent and with their schnorkels coated to render them invisible to aircraft, would lead the revival.74 Both types were expected to become operational in February 1945, being held back ‘until he has sufficient numbers to deliver a really telling attack’.75 About 80 boats were expected to be at sea (in addition to 180 conventional boats) and mercantile losses might reach 250 per quarter, including 35 tankers; it would lead to an 8 per cent deficiency.76 There was no effective counter to the new boats. ‘There can be little doubt’, writes Jock Gardner, ‘that the Type XXI especially represented a potential threat to the Allied dominance established in mid-1943.’77 It was also admitted, ‘The Schnorkel and other new technical developments have increased the U-boats’ potential for offensive action and have considerably reduced the effectiveness of our present naval and air counter measures’.78 Once U-boat commanders discovered that they could detect attackers without being themselves located, it was feared that they would become bolder.79 The new boats would probably hunt in packs, with the older boats diverting Allied forces. It was gravely stated, ‘The CCS consider that the current German U-boat programme, if not countered, will present a threat to North Atlantic shipping lanes’.80 Cunningham, not directly acquainted with the Battle of the Atlantic and little interested in either anti-submarine warfare, technical wizardry or the black arts of intelligence, admitted that ‘our present counter measures to the U-boats were not

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

156

effective’.81 Even the unruffled C-in-C, Western Approaches, Admiral Horton, confessed that the U-boats’ new tactics—bottoming close inshore—were hard to overcome.82 Cunningham told Fraser that ‘there is no doubt that this Schnorkel has given them a greater advantage than we first reckoned on’ and conceded that ‘the scientists have not yet caught up and the air are about 90% out of business’; moreover, ‘the asdic is failing us’.83 The new boats could also out-fox both Ultra and HF/DF.84 The Allies also believed that the fuel needs of the U-boats were met. The Germans’ new torpedoes, circular and acoustic homing types, though less successful than the enemy hoped, accounted for a substantial proportion of losses, particularly among escort vessels, specially targeted. ‘Our successes compared unfavourably with our losses’, lamented Cunningham.85 Given the absence of technical counter measures both to the conventional boats’ schnorkel, their inshore bottoming ploy and their enhanced weaponry, and the total incapacity to deal with the new U-boats, Cunningham could only throw the kitchen sink at the problem, utilising all means to frustrate Doenitz and seeking ‘the flooding of likely areas to the maximum density’.86 He was aware that this was a stiff test of the Royal Navy, that the other services and the Americans would hold it responsible for the safe passage of traffic to Europe, and that it was a race to finish the German war before the new boats were ready. He told A.J.Power, who like all commanders was denied escorts, ‘It means making a big effort for the next two or three months’.87 He monitored the situation constantly ‘just to assure myself that all steps that can be taken are being taken’.88 The Prime Minister was equally agitated ‘and inclined to lash out at all and sundry and rather petulant’.89 After one meeting, ‘the scientists came in for a bottle for letting the Germans get ahead of them’; Cunningham added that ‘I had already given ours one the day before’.90 He attempted also to ginger up both the Admiralty and the forces on the front line. Cunningham strengthened convoy escorts and support groups and combed the dockyards for mines. He felt that ‘the policy of putting the escorts where the U-boats were operating was undoubtedly right’ and gave orders that all small ships, regardless of problems, should keep going and that overseas stations should have their allocations severely reduced.91 Coastal Command’s planes had to be re-equipped with magnetic anomaly detectors, more Leigh lights and new ASV radar. Otherwise, Coastal Command could promise only to flood the Bay of Biscay to force the U-boats to exhaust their batteries. Though the various devices achieved some success against slow conventional boats, they provided few answers to either the Type XXI and XXIII boats or the threatened Walther boat. Cunningham also used the Malta and Yalta conferences to seek American and Russian help and signalled Somerville that pressures should be put on the armies to capture German ports quickly ‘in order to hinder the U-boat war’.92 King offered additional naval air squadrons but wished to place them under Kirk but Cunningham, convinced that all air forces should operate under a central command, vowed to ‘firmly resist any such idea’.93 However, the newly acquired Azores base proved particularly useful, offering ‘great scope for evasive routeing’.94 Heavier bombs to penetrate U-boat shelters were promised in 1945 and Cunningham ‘emphasised strongly the importance of getting the first batch very so on’.95 The diversion of strategic bombers was resisted keenly by Portal but he agreed to co-operate in the bombing of U-boat yards and was encouraged to do so by Churchill. Bombing the yards was not regarded as an effective immediate solution but

The pinnacle of a career

157

Bomber Command did double its mining offensive.96 The Admiralty claimed, however, ‘Any intensification of the bombing of construction slips, repair yards, and U-boat bases will, of course, have a marked effect on the enemy’s ability to carry out his intentions.’97 Allied bombing did delay the introduction of the new boats, aided by a shortage of labour and materials. The U-boat arm was also increasingly short of oil and of assembly yards, bases, training areas and bold crews. Some 150 boats were lost in 1945 and the expected shipping losses did not occur, most U-boats seeming more intent on survival than on aggression.98 Nevertheless, in March and April 1945, some 146,000 tons of shipping was lost to submarine attack, the highest monthly figures for two years.99 The combined effects of Allied bombing and mining and the advance of the armies in east and west did much to frustrate Doenitz’s last throw. Cunningham, reliant on yesterday’s technology and saturation, had experienced an uncomfortable four months of pressure. ‘The end arrived none too soon in the maritime war’, concluded a historian of the RAF.100 From the German capitulation on 8 May 1945, however, the U-boats were being scuttled or surrendered. In order to prevent them falling into Russian hands, Cunningham, with the approval of the Americans but possibly illegally, arranged for all U-boats surrendered in Norway to be sailed to Britain.101 Having demonstrated the possibilities of his boat to Cunningham, Walther, together with his laboratory, was whisked off to Britain. Cunningham breathed a sigh of relief: I was supremely thankful that the war ended when it did, and that no more than a handful of the new type U-boats had been completed. With their high submerged speed, they would have presented a serious problem for our convoy escorts.102 The resolution of the Somerville-Mountbatten confrontation was not the end of Cunningham’s difficulties with the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia (SACSEA). He agreed with the C-in-C, Ceylon, Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton, that SEAC was rather purposeless and its elaborate plans were never likely to be implemented.103 Moreover, Cunningham opposed operations that ‘would not further the assault on Japan’ and pointed out that ‘it had been agreed that the main effort should be made in the Pacific’, and that therefore ‘neither amphibious operations against the Andamans nor against Ramree were worthwhile’.104 Amphibious operations would be prohibitively costly and require much American aid (unlikely to be forthcoming). Moreover, America’s unexpectedly swift advance across the Pacific rendered the Indian Ocean proposals redundant and Roosevelt (much to Mountbatten’s chagrin) concluded that largescale operations there should be abandoned.105 Cunningham also ‘poured some cold water on the planners’ optimistic estimate that his resources could probably be met’.106 On 7 March he recorded that the COS rendered Mountbatten ‘a pretty sharp rap on the knuckles for addressing the U.S. COS directly’ and, more darkly, noted that the Supreme Commander was ‘allowing himself to be used as a catspaw to help the elements in the Navy Department to prevent the Fleet operating in the Pacific’.107 Indeed, a frustrated Mountbatten tried to purloin the new light fleet carriers on their way to the Pacific and the First Sea Lord admonished A.J.Power, ‘You must keep the Supreme Commander in order in these matters.’108 Recognising Singapore’s strategic value, he instructed Power also, ‘It is of the utmost importance that there should be no delay in the capture of

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

158

Singapore’, as it would cut off the Japanese in the Indian Ocean, but on the proposal to seize Rangoon, he ‘expressed considerable doubts as to its feasibility’.109 It was more difficult to counter American criticism of the Eastern Fleet’s inactivity in 1943. As soon as he became First Sea Lord, Cunningham was confronted by it and was sufficiently concerned to order his cerebral Director of Plans, Captain Charles Lambe, to prepare a memorandum on its employment. Lambe advocated a carrier strike shortly, mainly to convince the Americans the Royal Navy meant business and to give the muchenlarged and re-equipped FAA practice against Japanese opposition. Only after the surrender of the Italian Fleet and the neutralisation of the German surface fleet, together with the return of the Eastern Fleet to Ceylon, was it possible to reinforce Somerville and transform his force from convoy escort to offensive operations (in which King assisted by making available the Pacific’s veteran carrier Saratoga).110 Another major headache was the British Pacific Fleet (BPF). The germ of the idea had been aired in Washington in January 1943 by the JSM. In November 1943, the COS produced a 12-month plan for the defeat of Japan. It was refined in Cairo by the CCS, the Americans agreeing that the main British effort should take place in the Pacific.111 Planning was given greater urgency by Dill’s warning that the United States had ‘much accelerated’ its programme.112 The COS informed Churchill that ‘our decision should be determined by the contribution which we could make to the strategy best calculated to bring about the overthrow of Japan’.113 The Prime Minister, an unreconstructed imperialist, supported by the War Cabinet, Mountbatten, Somerville, Chiang Kai-shek, Roosevelt and some other Americans, felt that the obvious course was to mount combined operations from India, regaining control of British territories in south-east Asia. In fact, Churchill, typically, wanted both a BPF and Indian Ocean landings. Cunningham was clear that only a BPF could secure Britain’s participation in the forthcoming occupation of Japan, the return of Hong Kong, the renewed confidence of Australia and New Zealand and the re-establishment of the prewar British stake in China; the colonies in south-east Asia would fall into Britain’s lap with the defeat of the Japanese at home. Not only was Cunningham’s strategic perception sharp, the Royal Navy was the only service that could furnish a force and despatch it by late 1944.114 Cunningham played the old imperial lion cannily, resolving to be patient but firm, letting the Prime Minister get the Indian Ocean strategy out of his system. It was a lengthy and exasperating struggle. Cunningham began it en route to the Cairo conference in November 1943. Churchill seemed agreeable ‘but afterwards he denied all knowledge and till the September [1944] Quebec conference refused to have anything to do with sending a fleet to the East except to the Indian Ocean. We had several rows.’115 These occupied most of 1944 and became circular: We were treated to the same old monologue of how much better it was to take the tip of Sumatra and then the Malay States and finally Singapore than it was to join the Americans and fight Japan close at home in the Pacific.116 British leaders were mostly ignorant of the Far East, ‘a part of the world half forgotten in England’, and Cunningham declared testily that the politicians ‘prefer to hang about

The pinnacle of a career

159

outside and recapture [their] own rubber trees’.117 Brooke and Portal loyally supported Cunningham and the COS were ‘firmly of the opinion…that we should put in our maritime effort in the Pacific on the left of the American forces’.118 The impasse between the COS and the Prime Minister was disturbing, because the want of a decision prevented taking advantage of an early peace in Europe, planning for a Far Eastern force, and, given the pace of the American Pacific advance, a possible part in the final defeat of Japan. By August 1944, the COS were determined to have it out with the Prime Minister. It was ‘perhaps the most serious disagreement of the war’ and the chiefs even considered resignation.119 Brooke related that ‘dear old Cunningham was so wild with rage that he hardly dared let himself speak!’.120 Fortunately, the COS offered a ‘middle strategy’, involving a British advance from Australia and through the south-west Pacific, thus supporting the main American thrust through the central Pacific. The JCS endorsed it and so did MacArthur (viewed by many with suspicion), as it would give him a considerable boost in naval strength. Cunningham found the middle way ‘quite attractive’ as it would employ substantial naval forces and demonstrate the Royal Navy’s power and flexibility to the other services, the Americans, the Antipodeans and colonial peoples.121 Even the Prime Minister was ‘favourably inclined’ and a compromise seemed on the cards.122 The middle strategy, however, proved impractical for military and political reasons and Churchill began to come round to the BPF option in September 1944.123 At Quebec, ‘He offered the British Fleet for the offensive against Japan and in the Pacific and it was at once accepted by Roosevelt.’124 The President acted with alacrity less because of American need of the BPF than to sweeten Churchill for other decisions made there or at forthcoming conferences and because he realised that it meant much to Churchill to have a hand in the final defeat of Japan.125 The Prime Minister ‘proposed to emphasise the importance that we attach to having a fair share in the war against Japan’—important, in that the Americans doubted Britain’s resolve to continue the war after Germany had been defeated.126 Cunningham’s triumph was complete—but only after nine months of ‘muddle and mismanagement’.127 ‘Between August 1943 and August 1944 the British planning effort for the war against Japan was plagued by distraction, confusion and fundamental political differences’, writes Willmott, and ‘the Prime Minister’s conduct in 1944 was obstructive, wilful, and altogether lacking realism and vision’.128 Cunningham would have endorsed that judgement. Roosevelt did not anticipate a need for the BPF until 1945 but at least he was supportive, whereas Cunningham felt that King and most of his subordinates were grudgingly acquiescent. Although King cited doubts about the BPF’s self-sufficiency, Cunningham believed that the underlying reason was the US Navy’s unwillingness to share the glory of Pacific victory. At the subsequent CCS meeting, King, who had ‘glowered’ following the President’s airy acceptance of the BPF, ‘lost his temper entirely and was opposed by the whole of his own committee’.129 Cunningham recollected, All went well till the issue of the use of the British Navy in the Central Pacific was raised. King flew into a rage. It couldn’t be allowed there. He wouldn’t have it, and so on. I called his attention to the President’s acceptance of the Prime Minister’s offer. He tried to make out that the acceptance didn’t mean what it said…. In fact King made an ass of

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

160

himself…[though] he gave way to the fact that the British fleet would operate in the Central Pacific but with such a bad grace.130 Later meetings were smoother and agreements about the BPF were made between the two naval chiefs, specifying that the BPF should operate as an independent task force, that it should operate against metropolitan Japan, and that it should be both balanced and self-supporting. King has been accused of being anti-British but it is best to see him as a fierce nationalist; as Admiral Leahy admitted, ‘The war with Japan was pretty much of an American show.’131 Moreover, the JCS was unable to agree until the spring of 1945 on a strategy for the defeat of Japan, ultimately dividing the final advance between Nimitz (central Pacific) and MacArthur (the south-west).132 The US Navy’s spectacular triumphs meant that King ‘does not get any easier to deal with as time goes on and the strength of the American Navy grows’; since the time of Cunningham’s accession to the First Sea Lordship, the US Navy had become undoubtedly the world’s mightiest navy.133 The Chief of Naval Operations (US) (CNO) thought it strategically wiser also for the British to regain their own colonies in south-east Asia and to provide MacArthur’s South West Pacific command with a powerful fleet. He rejected Cunningham’s argument that ‘for political reasons it was essential that the British Fleet should take part in the operations against Japan’.134 Finally, King was ‘not prepared to accept a British Fleet which he could not employ or support’.135 He informed his commander in the Pacific, Chester Nimitz, ‘The British should be told what they can get, not asked what they want.’136 Cunningham continued to suspect that American alternatives and objections were ploys designed to prevent the BPF operating in the central Pacific, or at least to delay its arrival there. He remarked acidly, ‘As I thought King had no objection to the middle strategy (Amboina) though they would have preferred Surabaya. Anything to keep the British out of the Pacific.’137 Cunningham was quite prepared for the fleet to assist the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) from time to time but never lost sight of its main objective. Nimitz, though sympathetic to the idea of a BPF, was the cause of delaying its entry into the central Pacific because he requested strikes at the oil refineries at Palembang en route.138 The obvious man for the command of the BPF was Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser. The recent victor of the battle off the North Cape, he commanded the Home Fleet. With Somerville’s imminent move to Washington, an opening in the east was available.139 Churchill wanted to subject Fraser to a strategic inquisition. Cunningham, though commenting that Fraser was ‘very staff minded’, stood firm and the Prime Minister at last gave in.140 Fraser arrived in Ceylon on 22 August, and, after a brief spell in command of the Eastern Fleet, sailed for Australia on 20 November. He was to have four modern battleships, six armoured fleet carriers, four of the new light fleet carriers, 16 cruisers, 40 destroyers, 90 escort vessels, together with submarines, auxiliaries and a fleet train. The fleet, which would include Commonwealth units, would be built up by July 1945. As Fraser was about to leave for Sydney, Cunningham confessed that ‘I do not understand Fraser. It may be the climate but he has been dilatory in all his dealings particularly changing the carriers over to Avenger squadrons.’141 Later he commented at receiving An unpleasant letter from Fraser complaining that the Admiralty consistently turned down all his proposals and saying if we couldn’t trust

The pinnacle of a career

161

his judgement we had better appoint someone else. I am in doubt myself if he is the man for the job the way he has behaved recently.142 When Fraser appointed officers at sea, Cunningham accused him of ‘trying to be a law unto himself ’.143 Fraser was very enthusiastic about American arrangements and advocated the modernisation of practices and facilities aboard HM ships, besides accepting American signalling and khaki uniforms, much to the First Sea Lord’s disgust.144 Cunningham, aware that Britain could not afford sophisticated amenities, was also scathing and old-fashioned about their adoption. ‘I hope our people will not get too blinded by American lavishness’, he remarked. ‘I am sure that soda fountains, etc., are very good things in the right place, but we have done without them for some hundreds of years and I daresay can for another year or two.’145 Men fought better, however, when appropriate amenities were provided, especially in inhospitable climes. Fraser was certainly mercurial and his judgement was unreliable but Cunningham was stricter and more conservative. Their relative lack of acquaintance and background of friction were compounded by different perspectives—the view from ‘head office’ against that of ‘the man on the spot’. Fraser commented, ‘I think the main point is that things which loom large out here apparently seem small at home.’146 Though both acknowledged that maritime warfare had become carrier-led, Cunningham, who had never served east of Suez, failed to grasp all the realities of modern war in the Pacific.147 Fraser’s subordinates were chosen largely by Cunningham, men he trusted. Second in command and leading the fleet at sea was Vice-Admiral Sir Bernard Rawlings. In charge of the carrier squadron was Vice-Admiral Sir Philip Vian (who scarcely got on with Rawlings). Rear-Admirals Brind and Servaes commanded the cruisers and Edelsten the destroyers. Vice-Admiral Charles Daniel looked after the Australian base and RearAdmiral Douglas Fisher commanded the fleet train, with Rear-Admiral R.A.Portal heading the FAA contingent. Fraser took Captain Edward Evans-Lombe, a tried acquaintance, as his Chief of Staff and handled all his staff and subordinates with skill and tact.148 The BPF caused Cunningham many other problems. Its role was uncertain until Cunningham met with King in November 1944, arranging that Fraser should settle details with Nimitz; a final decision was not reached until the JCS had allocated the central Pacific to the US Navy. Cunningham made it clear to the BPF’s commanders that it was ‘important to stress that the War Cabinet insist on the BPF taking part in the main operations against the islands of Japan’.149 He was anxious to get the BPF fighting, though Fraser would be subordinate to Nimitz and the BPF would operate as a taskforce of the mighty American Pacific Fleet. At home, Cunningham struggled to find resources for it. As he told Fraser, the prolongation of the German war had fouled up manpower, materials and shipping plans. The navy was forced to yield to the army some 20,000 men. Thus Cunningham informed Fraser that only about 60 per cent of the necessary manpower could be supplied, though it would be a severe blow to the Royal Navy’s pride if it was compelled to leave BPF ships unmanned. ‘What will the USA say if they hear about it?’ mused Cunningham.150 After the end of the war in Europe, the navy would have to compete with civilian full employment and it would be difficult to sustain morale until Japan was defeated. Cunningham pressed for higher pay in peace and war and fought the Treasury and the

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

162

Ministry of Labour. In an effort to secure the lower deck’s support, he sent a message to the fleet detailing the Admiralty’s proposals.151 The size of the fleet depended also on how many warships a cobbled-together fleet train and underdeveloped shore bases could maintain. Cunningham acknowledged that ‘there were many logistical implications which would have to be taken into consideration’, and, calculating that 100 merchant vessels were required for the fleet train, had several tussles with Leathers before Churchill ruled ‘that the fleet train must be done on a handsome scale’.152 Leathers found it difficult to supply the ships; his priorities were 24 million tons of imports per annum and the support of the landings in Europe.153 Moreover, Britain did not have sufficient fast, large cargo ships and especially tankers capable of keeping up with the fleet at sea and refuelling it under way. The navy had to hand back 293,000 tons of shipping in order to obtain the vessels but the BPF had a fleet train of no more than a third of the necessary size.154 Cunningham told Fraser ruefully that shipping ‘is going to be the bottleneck in all of this next year’ and Fraser complained constantly about the fleet train’s inadequacies.155 As Marc Milner has said, ‘The BPF went to war on a shoestring.’156 It was easier to assemble the warships but even they were delayed in the dockyards and in despatch by the unexpected continuation of the European war and the revival of U-boat warfare; they were generally unsuited to the tropics, too.157 Australia was the best rear base for the fleet, as it had space, facilities and amenities. It was also desirable politically to restore Australia’s faith in the Royal Navy and to have a headquarters separate from Nimitz’s at Pearl Harbor. However, Australia was warweary, too, and somewhat aggrieved at having to play second fiddle first to MacArthur (who had acquired many of the prime sites) and now to the BPF. Cunningham complained that ‘there is a sort of passive resistance about the Australian Government’s attitude’.158 The Australians were apprehensive also about finding the labour and resources for it. Churchill and the COS distrusted the Australian Government, disliking its strident independence and Fraser had a rather chequered relationship with the host nation.159 Cunningham was also concerned that ‘we may dig ourselves too deep in Australia’ and urged that the forward base should be as close to the front line as possible and convenient for direct shipping from home.160 The main forward base, Manus in the (British) Admiralty Islands, was terribly humid and had poor leave facilities; moreover, the BPF was heavily dependent on the generosity of the local US Navy command.161 Edelsten called it a ‘godless spot’ and complained, ‘I abominate being subservient to the Yanks.’162 Manus, said Fraser, was ‘a dismal place’, with its airfield over 40 miles away and lacking fresh water, though ‘the Americans are most co-operative’, which was just as well, since British logistic support was ‘about two months behind’.163 The Americans tried to persuade the British to seize Brunei but Cunningham wrote that ‘I fear this is just the same story to keep the BPF away to the south’ and for that, together with logistic inadequacies, rejected it.164 The United States, for political reasons, refused the Admiralty’s request for a Philippines base.165 The Americans made available Avengers and Corsairs to supplement or replace the FAA’s somewhat unsatisfactory Barracudas and Seafires but they were also in high demand in American carriers; replacements were hard to obtain. Cunningham pushed for ‘things from our carriers that the Americans can’t do from theirs’, such as the use of twin-engined Mosquitoes for long-range attacks—an abortive scheme.166

The pinnacle of a career

163

Cunningham’s intention was that ‘if we were to have the say we desired at the peace conference, it would be essential for us to take part in the main operations against Japan’.167 Its realisation owed much to a meeting between Fraser and Nimitz on 20 December 1944, at which agreement was reached on the employment of the BPF Though Nimitz was unable to say when or where the BPF would operate, and remained somewhat unsure about its logistic support, he was much more amenable than King, welcoming the British, interpreting self-sufficiency liberally and becoming a firm friend of Fraser. They agreed that Nimitz would exercise strategic control of the BPF but ‘to the maximum possible extent the British ships will constitute a separate task force with no more direct tactical co-ordination with United States task forces than the situation requires’.168 The Palembang strikes were a success but hardly vital; they were an unwelcome sideshow for the BPF but furnished useful practice. More worrying was the JCS’s inability to determine until March 1945 how the final approach to metropolitan Japan should be made. The two months’ hiatus was ‘a most unpleasant period of suspense’.169 Apart from the fact that ‘the inaction was getting people down’, there was also …a possibility that the Japanese might collapse in the face of a vigorous onslaught by the Americans and the Russians and that we should then be left to clear up the remaining areas of Japanese resistance in the South West Pacific.170 Finally, Nimitz ordered the BPF to keep quiet airfields and aircraft in the Sakishima Gunto, in support of the invasion of Okinawa; it sailed from Ulithi on 23 March 1945 and continued in operations against the Japanese homeland until August.171 Though the BPF struggled to keep pace with the Americans, destroyers alone were at sea continuously for 60 days and at the end of the war Fraser signalled Cunningham that ‘the Fleet is grand but undoubtedly tired’.172 The war was brought to an end by the dropping of two atomic bombs. Cunningham said later, ‘I consider now that it is a pity and a mistake that we dropped them.’173 He felt that Japan was already on the verge of collapse through conventional air raids, bombardments and submarine and mine decimation of shipping. He thought also that an invasion would have been unnecessary; the Americans dropped the bombs because they had been concerned at the likely level of casualties they would incur—and because they had them. They were worried, too, about the rapid advance of the Red Army. Russian intervention after VE Day had been greatly desired but was now surplus to requirements; the Soviets had also become potential postwar opponents.174 Was the BPF a worthwhile naval enterprise? It cost Cunningham—and Britain— dearly in terms of time, effort, stress and resources. It was the source of a long, wasting quarrel with the Prime Minister. It was difficult to furnish—lacking warships designed for the Pacific, enough merchantmen of speed and capacity, fast tankers, carrier aircraft of adequate range and robustness, adequate anti-aircraft radar and armament, ample manpower, sufficient water and satisfactory rear and forward bases. It had only a marginal role in the final assault on Japan. As Fraser reported, We had little more than the opportunity to prove that we could assemble, train, support and put into action, in the short space of four months, a

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

164

formidable fleet capable of operating at sea for long periods in conjunction with similar forces of the United States Pacific Fleet.175 As an act of war, the BPF was not a cost-effective enterprise. As a diplomatic vehicle, it was also a failure. The Americans regarded the Pacific, China and Japan as their concerns and refused to allow other nations more than a token presence after the surrender ceremonies. Moreover, neither Nationalist nor Communist leaders were disposed to permit Britain to resume its pre-war role in China, and imperial territories were on the march to independence, while Australia and New Zealand were increasingly identified with their saviour in 1942, the United States.176 Britain struggled to play a ‘great power’ role, though for a decade it aspired to do so. Cunningham was firm about maintaining British control in India and south-east Asia and wished also to help the French and the Dutch to regain control of their colonies.177 The Americans wished to hand Hong Kong over to the Chinese but Cunningham, instructing forces to move there quickly, forestalled them and he resisted their imperious claims elsewhere in the region.178 As he told Fraser, Our final stake in that ocean was fully the equal of theirs. We must do all we can to counter the impression held in some quarters that we tacitly admitted the right of America to claim over-riding interest in, and probably responsibility for, affairs, cultural and political, in the Western Pacific.179 He was prepared to allow the Americans to use bases in the Pacific but resisted sternly American attempts to gain civil air landing rights on islands; since the Americans were reluctant to share facilities with the British, he regarded their requests as ‘a bit impertinent’.180 Though Cunningham, like most British political and military leaders, behaved as if the war had never happened, the country’s parlous economic state soon disabused him. ‘There is no question’, he told Fraser, ‘that our financial set up is so bad that it is most urgent that we are reduced to essentials only…. I want to get out of Australia as soon as possible, basing the BPF on Singapore and Hong Kong.’181 The BPF, after being used for ferrying back prisoners of war, was subject to swift and heavy economies and Admiral Sir Denis Boyd succeeded a very tired Fraser in command. Cunningham was keen also to ‘control the movements of Allied shipping in the most economical way’, as there was a post-war shipping shortage.182 What, then, did the BPF achieve? It passed American muster, Rawlings telling Cunningham proudly that ‘there is nothing that they poke charlie at the White Ensign over…. I do mind that we came through high in their opinion—it’s so absolutely important for our future.’183 He acknowledged further, ‘Had we lowered the White Ensign even a little in American eyes, nothing on God’s earth could have raised it again.’184 His remark was ironic; for much of the last 150 years, the US Navy had been overawed by the Senior Service, and now the roles were reversed. To perform satisfactorily in the Americans’ back yard at a game which they had made their own was no mean feat; Nimitz was full of praise for their efforts.185 For the Royal Navy, the only one of the British services in at the death, it was a first-rate publicity opportunity,

The pinnacle of a career

165

particularly since the RAF, always keen and able at self-promotion, was likely to challenge strongly for scarce resources after the war, and the army, the focus of much of the attention in Europe, was certainly going to be large and important after the war. What was of crucial importance, however, as both Cunningham and Fraser realised, is that the Royal Navy was able to learn from the US Navy about many aspects of modern sea warfare: the operation of carriers, satisfactory types of plane and more of them, heavier levels of armament, rapid improvisation, better equipment and engineering, a higher level of amenity provision, suitable cruising dispositions and, not least, a purpose-built fleet train of sufficient strength, speed, capacity and radius of action to maintain the fighting fleet at sea for at least two months. The BPF came to be less about defeating Japan than about preparing the Royal Navy for the future.186 As for lessons the BPF taught the Americans, there was only one of any significance; the US Navy was so impressed by the armoured carriers’ ability to shrug off kamikaze attacks that they began to build them at the point at which the Royal Navy rejected them in favour of American standards of plane capacity.187 Future carrier design, however, was an issue for the post-war Admiralty.

15 Facing the Future

January 1945–June 1946 At the beginning of 1945, Cunningham was appointed a Knight of the Thistle. ‘I am very proud of the Thistle’, he told Cowan, ‘it’s rather the ideal for a Scot.’1 On Victory in Europe Day (VE-day) (8 May), he celebrated with the Board of Admiralty by the ‘drinking of bottle of Waterloo brandy’, presented by the First Lord.2 The end of the war, however, found the Cunninghams exhausted and depressed, a common phenomenon, hardly surprising after six years of privation, stress, defeat and the long, hard road to victory.3 He resolved, however, to pilot the Royal Navy through the transition to peace before retiring. A viscountcy, somewhat undesired, was conferred on him at the beginning of 1946; he chose the obscure Scottish village of Hyndhope for his title, a distant family home, in keeping with his maturing sense of Scottish ancestry.4 The General Election brought to power a Labour government for which, like many military men, Cunningham had little sympathy. Labour’s considerable domestic agenda did not augur well for the services, who would have to fight each other for a reduced defence budget and were under pressure to reform their terms and conditions to meet reformers’ demands and civilian competition. Cunningham abhorred publicity and preferred the Royal Navy to remain ‘the Silent Service’.5 Britain was also bankrupt— drastic immediate cuts were required in the armed forces. Cunningham acknowledged that ‘the country’s financial position is just frightful’ and remarked, ruefully, ‘We very soon came to realize how much easier it was to make war than to reorganise for peace.’6 Manpower remained one of the First Sea Lord’s worst headaches. The Admiralty had argued for a peacetime strength of 375,000 but a combination of the heightened requirements of the other services, labour shortages, the need to rebuild a shattered economy and infrastructure, and financial stringency, kept it down to 98,000 by the end of 1947. It was not enough to meet post-war demands for occupying Germany, repatriating troops and PoWs, renewed imperial obligations and new duties. Cunningham urged station commanders to send home ships and personnel not required for peacetime duties. Adoption of national service produced headaches of training and supervision for the regular navy. The growing pull of wives and families militated against long commissions and long-service men were reluctant to re-engage. The regular lower deck was dissatisfied with pay—particularly the erosion of the distinction between the lower and higher rates; Cunningham also favoured a wider differential as an incentive to earn

Facing the future

167

promotion.7 Though steps were taken to improve the flow of engineer officers and ratings, the shortage of skilled technicians continued. Cunningham endeavoured to reduce red tape and inveighed against excess personnel. Deploring the decline of discipline in navy and society, he lamented the enhanced shore-based ‘tail’ and resented the increase in ships’ companies demanded by new gadgets, complaining, ‘We have gone equipment mad.’8 He endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to preserve Dartmouth entry at 13; Alexander and the government favoured 18, in line with other professions.9 Labour’s lower deck proposals met with his contempt. The Civil Lord, he told Cowan, was an ex-stoker: ‘he is the embodiment of common sense and blows away the socialistic ideas which his colleagues try to introduce into the Navy’.10 A more far-sighted decision was the retention of the WRNS, in part as an answer to the manpower problem but also as recognition of their outstanding contribution to victory.11 There were unwelcome problems in high command, too. Kennedy Purvis, the invaluable Assistant First Sea Lord, and Wake Walker, a redoubtable Controller who was about to move from Third Sea Lord to C-in-C, Mediterranean, died suddenly, necessitating the appointment of the Second Sea Lord, Willis, to the Mediterranean. Other changes saw Somerville retire from BAD, being replaced by Moore, C-in-C, Home Fleet, while Fraser returned to become C-in-C, Portsmouth. Syfret moved from being Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff (DCNS) to the Home Fleet and into the Admiralty as Second, Third and Fourth Sea Lords came A.J.Power, Charles Daniel and Douglas Fisher. The seagoing and desk commands therefore remained very largely in the hands of Cunningham disciples.12 The budget for new vessels was just £85 million. When he and Alexander told Attlee, the new Prime Minister, that the Royal Navy, which could no longer rely on American assistance, had considerable post-war burdens, they were informed that the Americans could be counted on to be friendly and that the Government did not anticipate a major conflict for two or three years; they came away empty-handed.13 Cunningham laid down, however: The general aim is to press on with all ships that can be commissioned by the end of 1946 and space out the construction of the ones already approved so as to allow of the increased building of merchant ships and also in the lean years following the war to keep the industry going.14 There were many new ships, and others building were far advanced but much new construction could not be manned. Though the navy fought off Cherwell’s indictment of battleships for their supposed vulnerability to bombs and torpedoes, they were expensive to maintain and man and all except the four King George V ships soon went to the breakers.15 Cunningham, though a staunch defender of the ‘all big gun’ ship as the epitome of maritime power, called the new battleship Vanguard ‘a waste of labour and money’.16 His assessment of her softened but he and many admirals were convinced that carriers were the new capital ships. Carriers of the next generation would shed armoured decks in favour of greater carrying capacity and better flying off facilities. Cunningham favoured also the cheaper light fleet carriers, quicker to build and requiring less manpower to operate.17 Furthermore, carriers offered the best means of defending surface units. Long-range radar, variable time fuzes and a host of close-range AA weapons would

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

168

help but it was claimed, gloomily, ‘The ways of destroying a ship are developing far faster than the methods of protection.’18 It was also predicted that in a nuclear war ships might not get into action; moreover, the nuclear deterrent was seen as an air force preserve for the foreseeable future, cost and the absence of a suitable delivery system ruling out seaborne atomic weapons.19 Cunningham was unhappy with the design of British warships, observing that ‘French and U.S. ships are better than ours’.20 He had little chance to influence designs, however, since most of them were well advanced when he became First Sea Lord. He was able only to call back the cruiser designs and approved a new heavy cruiser (14,000 tons, 12 six-inch and a powerful AA armament) but criticised the inability of the constructors to design an efficient light cruiser for inshore work.21 He believed new cruisers and destroyers ‘sacrificed fighting power for endurance’ and was especially disappointed with the ‘Battle’ class.22 He grumbled, These ‘Battles’ fulfil my worst anticipations. An erection like the Castle Rock, Edinburgh, on the bridge they call a director and all to control four guns firing a total weight of about 2001bs…. We must get back to a reasonably sized destroyer well gunned.23 His preference was for something like recent American destroyers with six or eight fiveinch guns and 10–16 torpedo tubes—an offensive vessel. To supplement this type, he called for more ‘Hunt’-class destroyers—lighter, cheaper, quicker to build, though with a bit more speed.24 The ‘Battles’ had been designed for Pacific service and reflected wartime experience—greater endurance, heavier AA armament and sophisticated technology; Cunningham’s classic fleet destroyer and its spirited actions had been superseded.25 The slim post-war building programme contained four fast submarines, experimenting with the latest German technology.26 The navy had to consider, too, how to combat and exploit guided weapons and atomic warfare. In Cunningham’s time, however, the fleets looked much as they had done. It was envisaged at first that the peacetime navy would consist of eight battleships, eight fleet carriers, over 20 light fleet carriers, almost 40 cruisers, over 100 destroyers, nearly 100 submarines and over 200 escort vessels, together with 2,500 aircraft and numerous auxiliaries.27 Shortages soon slimmed this ambitious plan to a skeleton. As early as February 1946, Rear-Admiral McGrigor was reporting, In addition to naval forces in the Mediterranean and Far East being reduced to the minimum acceptable, only token forces would be available on other foreign stations and freight shipping would have to be provided in SEAC to replace the assault lift which the Navy could no longer provide.28 The Royal Marines had played a major but not leading part in combined operations. Cunningham was anxious both to give them a fresh, purposeful start and to claim back for the navy the leading role in combined operations which had been usurped by Churchill’s ‘private navy’ in the war, a seizure of the initiative resented by senior naval

Facing the future

169

figures.29 He had been impressed by the US Marine Corps, which had distinct landing and aerial functions. Declaring that there was ‘a need for a clearer policy’, he outlined ‘special amphibious tasks necessary for the assault phase’ of a combined operation.30 At the Board of Admiralty, he ‘put forward the case for making the Royal Marines the amphibious experts’.31 An inter-service report proposed a specialist corps of 8,000.32 Cunningham favoured also the construction of new merchantmen designed for conversion to landing ships and the continuance of engineer, mobile naval and airfield defence units, and a training unit in the Middle East.33 He held, too, that the FAA, although they were ‘an important part of the Royal Navy’, must also ‘remember that they belong’.34 Part of the trouble was that the FAA had not had effective representation in the Admiralty and its structure was unwieldy. Once again, he made unfavourable comparisons with the Americans. Its changeover to new aircraft (mostly American, and far superior) had been slow, it was equally tardy at getting American-built escort carriers into operation and was demonstrably much less efficient at using them, while it used 40 per cent more skilled labour.35 Over-dependence on uncertain and finite deliveries of American aircraft was compounded by RAF control over the supply of British planes and the concentration of production in two firms that had struggled to make deliveries.36 He conceded that American criticisms of the FAA had some justification, telling Noble that he was ‘dissatisfied with the way they build up costly establishments and commission large numbers of ships all to no purpose’.37 The First Sea Lord told Churchill, however, that ‘we looked on it as our future principal weapon’ and was determined to maintain a strong naval air component.38 The advent of nuclear-armed jet aircraft heightened its importance. Even in its run-down form there were likely to be around 500 aircraft; it required strong shore-based training and servicing facilities, and there were a lot of carriers to maintain. A report on its organisation was commissioned from Lord Evershed but other than its recommendation that the FAA should be more closely integrated with the navy, Cunningham accepted few of its conclusions but appointed Boyd as Flag Officer (Air) and Troubridge as Fifth Sea Lord, feeling strongly, ‘We must get some acute brains on to the Air side to withstand the attack of the Air Ministry that will surely come, and lead the counter-attack.’39 He had to battle Portal over airfields in Malta allocated to the FAA, but in general he held that ‘we do not want perpetual friction between the services’, agreeing to perpetuate the Ministry of Aircraft Production and, provided the Admiralty retained operational control of Coastal Command in wartime, he resolved not to demand naval possession.40 It was necessary first to deal with the old enemy, the German Navy. The British were ambivalent about the Kriegsmarine. It had caused them near-starvation in two world wars and they wanted to crush it so completely that it would never rise again. On the other hand, they needed its co-operation to learn technological secrets, especially submarine ones, and to sweep the many thousand mines around Europe’s coast, and in the longer term they might require its assistance against a new foe, Soviet Russia. Ancillary to this was a determination to deny the Russians ships, submarines, equipment and expertise.41 ‘The Admiralty’s aim’, it was announced, ‘is to satisfy British requirements and to keep U-boats out of undesirable hands, particularly Russian hands.’42 ‘In particular’, Cunningham made clear, ‘the Russians are not in any circumstances to be allowed access to the research laboratory, establishments or equipment of the Walther Werke.’43 He was equally cynical about captured German scientists: ‘There is no question that by bringing

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

170

them over here we prevent the Russians getting at them and also take advantage of their brains and knowledge.’44 Only if the Russians reciprocated would there be an exchange of information.45 Cunningham took a deep personal interest in the disposition of the German Navy, placing favoured flag officers in control of its bases, inspecting its facilities, urging inter-service and international co-operation, Allied control of key ports and strategic waters, de-nazification and a Naval Control Commission but turning a blind eye to some cavalier behaviour.46 He prevailed upon Ramsay to accept responsibility in Germany and told Tovey the Nore must take charge on this side.47 He believed that ‘the larger part of the German surface fleet should be sunk’ and otherwise distributed equally between the three principal allies.48 The merchant marine was to be used against Japan and to relieve shortages elsewhere.49 Most of the burden fell on Burrough, Ramsay’s successor, who had some lively encounters with the Russians, one of them ‘a fairly fierce duel with [Marshal] Zhukov’, to whom Burrough ‘did some straight talking for an hour’; a firm stand was evidently the way to secure Soviet respect and co-operation.50 Together with other British military leaders, a conservative caste, Cunningham was deeply opposed to the Stalinist regime and highly suspicious of Soviet policies, condemning Eden’s ‘ostrich-like attitude’, remarking that ‘one cannot close one’s eyes’.51 Accordingly, he instructed Vice-Admiral Miles, a former naval representative in Moscow and now the senior British naval officer on the Tripartite Naval Commission that ‘you should be aware that the Admiralty and other Departments of H.M. Government have learnt by bitter experience that it is useless to negotiate with the Russians in a spirit of reasonable compromise’.52 Strategically, he argued that ‘the major military interest was in keeping any powerful potential enemy away from the shore of the Mediterranean’—a reference to Russia’s traditional policy of securing rights of passage through the Dardanelles.53 The United Nations was a fine principle but it might enable the Russians to demand a quid pro quo on facilities.54 Cunningham was a long and strong believer in the strategic importance of the Mediterranean. He argued for the retention of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Somaliland as British UN trusteeships and took firm action against Gaullist pretensions in the Middle East but in fact Britain’s Mediterranean position was crumbling. Her extensive Middle East ‘informal’ empire was moving rapidly towards independence, notably in Egypt.55 Financial limitations hampered control, too, and though Cunningham railed against Attlee’s sceptical observation that the Mediterranean should be abandoned as it could not be kept open in wartime, the truth was that the Mediterranean was not vital to either Britain’s or the Commonwealth’s security. Attlee’s ‘attitude to the Mediterranean is past belief’, Cunningham fulminated, ‘He seems to think it is an idea maintained for the benefit of the Navy.’56 Much of his time, to his annoyance, was spent on the problems of the newly-freed countries of Europe.57 Cunningham displayed little realisation also that the Common-wealth was dissolving. Australia and New Zealand could not forget the Royal Navy’s inability to help them in 1941–42, while South Africa and Canada, peopled in part by settlers hostile to Britain, went further down the road to independence. A mutiny in the Royal Indian Navy (RIN), during which Cunningham was prepared to take a tough line, heralded the messy independence of 1947, a path followed soon by other colonies.58 At first the Admiralty attitude was traditional imperial defence with the Commonwealth navies playing a subordinate role but Cunningham quickly admitted that Britain lacked the manpower and

Facing the future

171

money ‘to undertake the major share in Empire defence, which we previously did’.59 Alternatively, he was keen to encourage the development of Commonwealth naval forces, supplied in part with surplus British warships, aided by the completion of indigenous wartime construction, area self-defence, wartime expansion plans and an imperial defence system. The idea foundered on the rocks of dominion financial stringency and dislike of Admiralty control.60 As for how to deal with the rest of the world, the COS were at sea. The strategic map was changing and they were uncertain but sceptical about the United Nations. They knew only that Britain was a fading great power, unable to compete with the superpowers, Russia and the United States. They hoped thus for the continuation of wartime arrangements with the Americans. The COS reasoned, ‘A firm show of Anglo-American unity is the best possible deterrent to aggression in a world which will clearly take some years to settle down to peace.’61 The Americans, however, proved almost as awkward as the Russians. They were understandably keen to pull out of Europe, tried to run the world jointly with the Russians and showed more faith in the United Nations. From the time Cunningham assumed office, both Noble and Somerville, successive heads of BAD, were aware of the US Navy’s superiority in quantity, quality and morale. Mushrooming size, technological wizardry and overwhelming victories, together with mounting and loud criticism of the Royal Navy, seen as ‘on the decline and rapidly becoming second-rate’, bred a contemptuous confidence, a disinclination to co-operate and an unwillingness to accede to the British desire for the continuation of the CCS and the establishment of an Anglo-American condominium.62 The US Navy had lost its awe of the Royal Navy and its new Secretary, James V. Forrestal, was determined to cement the American navy’s place as the greatest in the world, base it firmly around carrier task forces, underline the country’s dependence on sea power, ensure cooperation with the United Nations—and share a maritime alliance with the Royal Navy, patronisingly allowed control of European waters.63 Furthermore, King ‘does not want to see too powerful a British Fleet in being when peace eventually comes’.64 During the war, ‘supreme commands’ had been established in many areas. At the time he left office, Cunningham expressed his thoughts on these. His judgements were often brutal and he favoured the British committee system rather than the American preference for a supreme commander. Cunningham asserted ‘that there is very little that cannot be settled by the three Commanders-in-Chief around a table’; moreover, ‘the tripartite system is in the British spirit of compromise’.65 In a committee system, too, ‘you are always thinking of how you can help your brother Commanders-in-Chief’.66 The Middle Eastern tripartite command structure of 1940–41-Wavell, Longmore and himself— ‘worked well up to a point’.67 By the Crete debacle, Cunningham finally anchored himself ashore—and it was at an inaccessible Alexandria. He felt that the triumvirate was beginning to have an impact, though he appeared to acknowledge after the war that he should have gone to Cairo, as the other two were always imploring him to do. The trio was soon to be upset by the appointment of Auchinleck, more abrupt and dictatorial, and Tedder, scathing about naval policy.68 He was less enamoured of a supreme command, alleging that it ‘was instituted by the Americans because the Army and Navy could not agree’—though schisms between them were less contentious than spats between the JCS and COS.69 It was extremely difficult, however, to select and train a supreme commander, who must have a wide range of

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

172

abilities, knowledge and experience. ‘The object of a supreme commander is presumably to co-ordinate the three services’, he observed, ‘and to make decisions when there are differences of opinion between them.’ Cunningham felt that ‘he must be possessed of supremely balanced judgement’. He must be able to talk to politicians on an equal basis, while the presence of allies would complicate his task. Of the supreme commanders he had known, he remarked of Wavell, who took charge of allied forces in the ill-fated ABDA (American, British, Dutch and Australian) command of 1941–42, that he was ‘an excellent choice with a hopeless job’. Cunningham was scathing about his friend Eisenhower in ‘Torch’—he lacked ‘military knowledge and knew nothing about the Navy’ and was ‘an untried man’. The two saw each other every day but Eisenhower never issued Cunningham with orders, nor did they consult, though Eisenhower used Cunningham as a prop. One wonders what they talked about in that dripping tunnel. Cunningham felt Eisenhower learnt much in ‘Torch’ and by the time of ‘Husky’ he ‘was getting better’. His harsh verdict was, ‘By then he had command of his force, in the tunnel in Gibraltar he had not.’ Cunningham considered that ‘it took eighteen months to make him’, though King ‘rather ignored him’. Of Alexander, Cunningham commented that ‘he was not fit to be a Supreme Commander’ as ‘he had no opinions of his own that he was not prepared to change’. The former First Sea Lord was kinder towards Mountbatten, as ‘he had energy and drive and a reasonable naval career’. Mountbatten was ignorant about warfare at command level, however, making little difference as SACSEA and ‘he had no judgement’. Cunningham concluded grudgingly that ‘with Allies a Supreme Commander is probably necessary but otherwise I am against it’. Of the COS, Portal went shortly after the end of the war, while Brooke retired in June 1946. Like the American chiefs, they found the long war tiring, burdensome and stressful. Cunningham confessed to being ‘mentally tired out after all the years of activity without a real respite’.70 Shortly after the end of the war, he noted that ‘I find myself that I have to fight against depression all the time’ and in March 1946 he suffered a heart attack that put him in Haslar Hospital for several weeks.71 Though he made a complete recovery, it underlined his determination to resign. At the end of the war, he had confided that ‘I do not wish to hang on here keeping other people back so as soon as the fleet gets a bit sorted out I will go’ and told the First Lord that he would leave in the first half of 1946.72 On his 63rd birthday, he declared ‘I am tired of this desk work’ and admitted ‘I had a longing for a quiet life in my own small house in the country’.73 On 7 June 1946, he attended his last COS meeting and received the thanks of Brooke, Tedder (who had succeeded Portal) and Ismay.74 He told his aunt, ‘I turned over the Admiralty to John Cunningham the next morning and we came down here [Bishop’s Waltham] and glad to come.’75 The choice of his successor occasioned some comment. John Cunningham had a somewhat undistinguished war and was remembered chiefly for the failures with which he had been associated. He was, however, recognised as one of the great brains of the service, was politically adept, and had always got on well with Andrew Cunningham. Somerville was also about to retire, Tovey was thought too inflexible and Fraser did not convince either civilian or military leaders that he possessed the requisite temperament, judgement and experience.76 Cunningham’s lack of sympathy with the Labour Government’s defence, foreign and social reform policies was a factor in his departure; along with the dire national financial situation, all boded ill for his Royal Navy.77 He was also an admiral of the past, rather

Facing the future

173

than the nuclear and technological future. A desk sailor by duty and some effort, he never really enjoyed being First Sea Lord. As he had been in the Royal Navy for nearly 50 years, however, he said wistfully, ‘I cannot pretend that it was not a great wrench to cease all active participation in the affairs of the Navy.’78

16 The Long Ebb Tide

June 1946–June 1963 Though Cunningham left the Royal Navy in a formal sense in June 1946, having served almost 50 years, he continued to enjoy a close connection with the service throughout his retirement. ‘Living fairly close to Portsmouth’, he wrote, ‘we are not entirely out of touch with the Navy. Many old friends are good enough to come and see us, and we hear much of what goes on.’1 Visitors to the Palace House included his nephews Hugh Byatt and Jock Slater, both naval officers. He was also called upon regularly by other admirals, naval institutions and the Admiralty to assist in promoting or defending causes. The eclipse of the three Axis navies, the assumption of continued good relations with the US Navy, and the enfeebled state of the European navies, left the growing Soviet Navy, increasingly at odds with the west, as the one potential major maritime peril. Though the Red Navy had hardly shone in the recent war, it had ambitions to rival the US Navy, a worldwide interest, based on leased harbour facilities and powerful cruiser and submarine forces, and it had picked the brains of German technologists at the war’s end. Among Cunningham’s associates was the official naval historian, Captain Stephen Roskill, who became a firm friend and supplied Cunningham with much of the ammunition he was to fire in the House of Lords, letters to the press and public addresses. Cunningham felt positive American aid was uncertain and allies in Europe and Commonwealth nations likely to contribute little. The shrunken Royal Navy was debating whether its role in the future should be essentially a defensive one, based on small ships, or a comprehensive offensive function, demanding battleships, carriers and cruisers. It competed with the increased demands of a continental and ‘brush fire war’ army and the supremacy of the RAF, which possessed a practised publicity machine, offered ‘more bang for the buck’ and had a monopoly of the nuclear deterrent.2 Cunningham emphasised that ‘we are a maritime nation who live by the sea’ and advocated a steady building programme for both warships and adaptable merchantmen, giving the latter 3–4 knots more.3 He was concerned that ‘unacceptable risks are being run’, that the navy was inadequately provided with escorts and Coastal Command with anti-submarine aircraft, that it had no real answer to the new generation of fast submarines and that it could neither catch nor match the new Russian Sverdlov-class cruisers.4

The long ebb tide

175

Much of the cold war debate was about the nuclear deterrent. Cunningham abhorred it, stating that it would prove of little significance at sea. He accused the Government of following ‘a foolish policy’ in concentrating on nuclear warfare, for he believed that a future conflict was likely to be long-drawn-out and largely non-nuclear. Moreover, he did not feel that the RAF had a sovereign remedy and, based on wartime experience, he was sceptical of the airmen’s claims. If a nuclear capability was required, then on the horizon were nuclear-armed carrier planes and nuclear-powered and missile-equipped submarines.5 The argument about nuclear weapons involved the future of the aircraft carrier. Airmen such as Trenchard and Tedder argued that it was obsolete, expensive and vulnerable; besides, as the defence white paper of 1954 argued, the Navy’s role in the modern world was purely that of an anti-submarine and minesweeping force. Cunningham and other noble friends of the navy were provided with information by McGrigor and Mountbatten, the First Sea Lords of the mid-1950s, and were happy to sponsor the future of the fleet carrier, the hub around which the modern navy was built. Their argument was that carriers were not especially vulnerable, that their aircraft could reach targets that land-based planes could not reach, that they provided effective task force defence, were better able to ‘fix’ enemy forces and would ensure that operations like minelaying were properly executed. Recent developments in carrier aviation, like the angled deck, steam catapult, lighter undercarriages and better arrester gear had improved the value of carriers, aided by the probable versatility of the new helicopters. It was likely that most future wars would be brush-fire conflicts, in which the navy would need carrier support in aid of landings, convoys and offensive operations. Cunningham and his colleagues saved the day for the carrier, though its future has been under threat at least twice since their time.6 Most of the evidence for the utility of carriers came from the recent war and Cunningham took great interest in ensuring that the navy’s role was upheld in the publication of wartime despatches as supplements to the London Gazette and in the official histories. It is clear that he allowed Stephen Roskill free access to his papers and he was firm in his rejection of army and RAF amendments to his war reports.7 As an ‘elder statesman’ of the Royal Navy, Cunningham was asked for his opinion on promotions to the First Sea Lord’s chair. He had determined on John Cunningham (1946– 48) as his immediate successor.8 He could do little to prevent Bruce Fraser’s accession to power (1948–51), though he ensured that he served an apprenticeship as C-in-C, Portsmouth; one suspects he was not entirely happy with Fraser’s appointment, for he regarded him as temperamental.9 ‘The wee McGrigor’ (1951–55) was a wartime colleague and held in high esteem.10 The real problem was the elevation of Mountbatten (1955–59).11 Cunningham had been an admirer of Mountbatten before his appointment first as Chief of Combined Operations (1941–43) and then as SACSEA (1943–46). He frowned on ‘private navies’ and found Mountbatten’s flamboyant and cavalier style exasperating, cutting across his own plans and authority. The two had remained distant in post-war years, when Mountbatten accumulated experience and high commands. Cunningham had been opposed to Mountbatten succeeding McGrigor, but it was hard to deny him top spot on grounds of seniority, ability and widespread knowledge, not just of the Royal Navy but also of the other services, allies and world affairs. The First Lord, J.P.L.Thomas, and Lord Ismay, the Secretary-General of NATO, attempted to persuade

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

176

Cunningham that Mountbatten was not only an able candidate with a c.v. unmatched by anyone else in the service but that it was vital for the navy to have him at the helm over the next four years. The crucial issue was the uncertain future of the carrier; the navy required someone of Mountbatten’s talent for publicity, high popularity and excellent connections. Cunningham was well aware of the arguments and the delicate situation of naval aviation. Magnanimously, he admitted to Thomas that ‘I have completely changed my views’; having opposed the appointment a year earlier, he declared in 1954, ‘I feel that the Navy is fortunate in having available at this time a man of his calibre.’12 The atmosphere between the two eased slightly, Mountbatten consulting Cunningham on at least a couple of occasions, but they never became reconciled.13 Much more congenial was a reunion of his term at Britannia, on the fiftieth anniversary of their going to sea (12 May 1948). Their Term Lieutenant, now ViceAdmiral George Trewby, was the guest of honour and 24 out of the original 65 were present. The term was a distinguished one, producing two Admirals of the Fleet (Cunningham and Somerville), two Admirals (Little and C.G. Ramsey), a Vice-Admiral and six Rear-Admirals. Two earned the VC and just over half made Commander.14 Cunningham got involved in the case of Admiral Sir Dudley North, Admiral Commanding North Atlantic Station at Gibraltar in 1940, relieved for allowing a Vichy French force to sail westward through the straits. He always protested that the Admiralty had possessed the same intelligence at the same time, that the First Sea Lord had been pleased with his general conduct, that he was following Admiralty instructions and that the Admiralty had taken two weeks to order his removal. The publication of Roskill’s first volume of naval history appeared to exonerate North, who then sought a review of his case. Roskill alerted Cunningham and, though both thought that North could have shown more initiative, they felt that his errors of omission did not warrant an early recall. Roskill, who had seen all the relevant Admiralty papers, and those of individuals, believed that Churchill, Prime Minister in 1940 and again in 1953, would not admit that he was at the base of the incident and refused to disclose what he knew. Cunningham thought that ‘it was one of the mistakes Pound allowed himself to be pushed into and North was made the scapegoat’ for the failure of the Dakar expedition in September 1940.15 Cunningham had taken up North’s case in 1949, writing to the First Sea Lord, Fraser, that ‘I and all his friends believe an injustice was done to North at the time and secondly I think it would be a pity and not good for the Service if the matter became publicised’.16 Fraser had been Third Sea Lord at the time and defended the Board’s endorsement of Pound’s action, saying that Pound had lost confidence in him and citing North’s misdemeanours. As Churchill was again Prime Minister and Fraser, not a man for rocking the boat, had to argue the navy’s case, particularly for naval aviation, there was an additional reason for not offending Churchill.17 Nevertheless, Cunningham persisted, pointing out that ‘a neutral enquiry into this whole incident would not accept the Admiralty view as entirely correct’ and, incidentally, characterising Mers-el-Kébir as ‘a ghastly error’.18 The Admiralty, apparently on Churchill’s instructions, refused an inquiry; while he was at Number Ten, there was little hope of redress. Cunningham, Chatfield and other Admirals of the Fleet (not including Fraser) then went public, airing the matter in the press and in the House of Lords.19 Such justice as was done, however, came only in Macmillan’s time as Prime Minister. He concluded that North’s orders were

The long ebb tide

177

unclear, that he did nothing wrong but that he did not display initiative. However, there was ‘no question of his professional integrity being impugned’.20 It had been a protracted issue, which reflected little credit on Churchill, Alexander, Pound and the Admiralty. Cunningham was persuaded to write his autobiography rather against his will and inclination. Cunningham, not a born writer, was a modest man who shunned publicity and was disinclined to labour at the considerable task of narrating nearly 50 momentous years of service life. However, he began it in 1949, standing for two hours each morning at a writing desk in the Palace House. He confessed that he could not have finished it without the assistance of Captain Taprell Dorling (‘Taffrail’), an old friend and an experienced writer of fictional and factual stories about the navy. Dorling polished Cunningham’s rather wooden style, putting into popular form the Admiral’s despatches and letters that form the basis of the book, a lengthy work (715 pages). It was launched on the tenth anniversary of Matapan at a Foyle’s Literary Luncheon.21 A Sailor’s Odyssey is a classic memoir, concentrating on the most dramatic period of Cunningham’s career, the operations in the Mediterranean in 1940–42. It is informative on the changes experienced by the Royal Navy between 1897 and 1950, the two world wars, the interwar navy, the Admiralty, naval relations with other powers, the making of grand strategy, the great landings and relations with politicians and the other services. However, it is relatively brief on Cunningham’s family, his wife Nona and his social interests. Most noticeable, apart from the author’s genuine modesty, is the mildness of its criticisms of statesmen (especially Churchill) and fellow officers. That Cunningham was sharply critical is revealed in the (unpublished) notes he made for Dorling and in his official and private correspondence.22 Cunningham remained or became a member of a number of organisations. Some of them were the outcome of his service career, like the Chairmanship of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum (1948–52), the (original) Presidency of the Royal Navy Pipers, the Vice-Presidency of the Officers’ Association and the Presidency of the Institute of Naval Architects, and the board of the cold war organisation, Common Cause. Others, like the Athenaeum and (honorary) membership of other clubs and organisations, honorary degrees, the presidency of the Manse Fellowship of the Church of Scotland, and a trusteeship of the Milner Fund for Village Settlements, were civilian awards, mostly postwar in origin.23 He was invited by George VI to become Governor-General of Australia and sounded out on becoming Governor of Malta, but, aside from a dislike of politics, he begrudged having to dip into his own pocket for social expenses to the tune of several thousand pounds. When His Majesty was ‘very unwilling to think of you as a nonstarter’, Cunningham played his trump card; his recent heart attack had ‘left its traces and at the moment I can neither walk far, fast or uphill’.24 He did, however, accept the King’s offer of the Order of Merit (OM).25 The appointment that gave Cunningham most pleasure, however, was that of Lord High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland in 1950 and again in 1952, living in state in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, while in 1953 he was honoured to act as Lord High Steward, carrying the crown in the Coronation ceremony.26 Cunningham continued to carry on an extensive but infrequent correspondence with the Admiralty, former naval colleagues and American friends, notably Eisenhower and Stark, one of the visitors to Bishop’s Waltham. Cunningham was evidently on close terms with Stark, for he poured out his most intimate thoughts—his dislike of de Gaulle

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

178

and Montgomery, and, to a lesser extent, of Churchill, Eden and King. He distrusted politicians, opposed the dropping of the atomic bombs, disliked the idea of supreme commanders, had no faith in a UN force and believed the Russians thought in a different way from the west.27 The Cunninghams retired to the Palace House, which they had been able to purchase but which they were unsure of maintaining because of high inflation and the shortage of domestic labour. Fortunately, they were able to ‘live very contentedly with our “roses in December’”, securing an old-fashioned gardener, Jack Hobbs, and a live-in cook and two or three maidservants, all ably managed by Nona.28 They were well known in the village of Bishop’s Waltham and were a sociable couple, Lady Cunningham being a regular helper at the parish church. The house was comfortable, dominated by a large seascape of Malta, now discovered to be Corfu, hung over the main fireplace, and containing a bust of Nelson, the original plaque of Graham’s famous verse and mementoes of Cunningham’s appointments. The couple’s chief interest, however, was the garden, ‘full of charm and pretty immaculate’.29 Its extensive grounds contained the substantial remains of the ancient palace of the Bishops of Winchester and a much-prized croquet lawn. They played almost every day and they ‘were skilled and often ruthless players’ (it was considered politic to let the venerable admiral win).30 The Warspite’s bell was used to summon Cunningham from the garden. They had a hen coup and a gaggle of Chinese geese, rounded up each evening like a destroyer flotilla—and any recalcitrant goose was threatened, good-humouredly, with the cooking pot. They had a cat and a dog each—a Cairn for him and a Scottie for her, exercising them daily in the fields nearby. At midday, they took sherry and, when possible, afternoon tea was served in the garden. They both ‘thoroughly enjoyed one another’s company and their marvellously characterful house and garden’ and so rarely travelled far, except to fish, notably in the streams and lochs of Sutherland, an annual affair.31 They paid occasional visits to the theatre and otherwise; Cunningham was a keen reader, mainly of poetry, historical novels and biographies. His discourse was about current affairs and he was knowledgeable about history and fond of quoting historic phrases.32 Cunningham was as unyielding on the road as he was at sea but on 15 August 1959 he and Nona suffered severe injuries in a collision caused by another driver while they were driving to Winchester. Both were rendered unconscious, Nona taking the brunt of the impact and suffering two broken ribs, a fractured ankle and losing part of her scalp. Although Cunningham soon discharged himself from hospital, Nona was there several weeks; they were much shaken by the accident. Nona subsequently suffered from eye problems and he experienced some facial injury, sciatica and loss of concentration and memory, which he was inclined to dismiss: ‘Still as they were never very great it is no matter.’33 As he neared 80, he confessed ‘I am about 95% fit and only suffer from a most deplorable lack of energy’, adding disarmingly, ‘But then I was always lazy.’34 Lady Cunningham is a shadowy figure in all the published accounts, partly because the concentration is understandably on her husband’s distinguished career but also because she was essentially a self-effacing and shy creature, much in awe of her formidable husband. During the war, after the Greek and Cretan evacuations especially, she came into her own as an organiser of comfort, hospitality and medical services, and was a frequent visitor to military hospitals; after the war, she remained active in the Red Cross. She had ‘an amazing capacity for living in the present’ and was much practised as

The long ebb tide

179

a hostess, a graceful and genial lady, ‘warm hearted’ and with ‘a lively sense of humour’.35 Much of the Cunninghams’ time was taken up with guests, family and friends. Naval acquaintances, such as Tyrwhitt, Tovey, Vian, Rawlings, Dick and Lee, were frequent visitors, generally for two or three days. The Cunninghams were especially fond of having the younger generations of their extensive families to stay. Young people, such as Nona’s nephews the three Byatt brothers (Hugh, a Lieutenant in the RNVR, Robin and David), Lieutenant Jock Slater, a great-nephew (later also an Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord), older nieces, such as Hilly McKendrick and her family, substituted for their own lack of children. The two younger Byatts often stayed for a fort-night, assisting with the collection of pears and warding off marauding jackdaws, and recall the affability of ‘Uncle Ned’.36 Cunningham was often characterised as ‘a bully’; it was said that ‘if he was not stood up to he could become quite unbearable’.37 Cunningham liked his subordinates to argue with him but he was unforgiving of indiscipline and inefficiency and could be abrupt and harsh in dealing with miscreants. There were, however, two sides to him and he was often kind, gentle and thoughtful. ‘He was so friendly’, writes David Byatt, a schoolboy in 1946, when he first met his formidable uncle, ‘that I wondered whether this really was the man that everyone seemed in awe of.’38 He had a schoolboyish sense of humour, reflected in his love of lying on his back and lobbing ping-pong balls into light globes, or of flicking butter balls at table. He was the favourite uncle of his nieces Mary Cunningham and Hilly McKendrick and much liked by younger relations, all of whom were ‘made to feel part of the family’.39 The Palace House was ‘always a haven of peace and where life was lived in an unhurried way’.40 Cunningham enjoyed a vigorous and lengthy, if often idyllic and unhurried, retirement. He died suddenly, aged 80, of a heart attack, on 12 June 1963; he was in a taxi from the House of Lords, on the way to Waterloo and to his beloved Palace House. Lieutenant Jock Slater acted as the diplomatic bridge between the family and the Royal Navy at his funeral, when his body was consigned to the deep off the Nab Tower in the Solent from the modern destroyer Hampshire. Many of Cunningham’s relatives, old naval colleagues and serving officers, headed by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Caspar John and most of the Board of Admiralty, were present on a squally day Though her husband’s death ‘hit her very hard’, Nona stayed on at the Palace House for just over a year, moving in September 1964 to a small, new bungalow in the village, Claytons, set among the fields, where she quickly created a pleasing garden.41 She lived on until 1977 and continued to receive her relations, notably the children of her nephews when they were at boarding school nearby, and was very relaxed and amusing with them around her.42 The tributes to one of the nation’s greatest sailors were many but perhaps two of them caught the man most fully. Admiral of the Fleet Sir Philip Vian remembered ‘his lightning reactions at sea’ and ‘his unrivalled powers of observation’; ‘there was a certain relentlessness …in the pursuit of excellence’, he noted, and an ‘utter fearlessness and composure in adversity’.43 He observed, perceptively, ‘Behind the bluff façade it was known that there lay a very acute and a very astute brain.’44 Vian summed him up by saying that he was ‘a seaman through and through’.45 Another old friend, Vice-Admiral Sir James Troup, concluded that he possessed ‘leadership, selflessness, grace, infinite

A life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham

180

courtesy to the opposite sex, a unique sense of humour, fear unknown, all the kindness of his gaze, a gentleman’.46 Cunningham was courageous, fierce, warlike, sharp, shrewd, instinctive, uncomplicated, unassuming, and full of good humour and good nature. His was a glorious life.

Notes

1 Apprenticed to the Queen’s Navy (1883–1908) 1. The Times, 27 June 1897. 2. Ibid. 3. Lord Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey (London: Hutchinson, 1951), pp. 9–14. 4. Ibid., p. 13. E.J.Grove, Andrew Browne Cunningham: The Best Man of the Lot’, in J.Sweetman, ed., The Great Admirals: Command at Sea, 1587–1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), pp. 419–20. 5. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 13. 6. Ibid., p. 14. 7. Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) archives. R.Humble, Before Dreadnought: The Royal Navy from Nelson to Fisher (London: MacDonald & Jane’s, 1976), p. 153. J.Wells, The Royal Navy: An Illustrated Social History, 1870–1982 (Stroud: Sutton, RN Museum, 1994), pp. 40–1. J.A.G.Troup, ‘HMS Britannia, 1897’, NR (1955), pp. 474–80. 8. K.G.B.Dewar, ‘The Dardanelles Campaign, Part III’, Naval Review (1957), p. 402. 9. S.W.C.Pack, Cunningham the Commander (London: Purnell, 1977), p. 13. Troup, NR (1955), pp. 474–80. Grove, ‘Cunningham’, p. 420. Britannia January Term of 1897: Term Dinner: 50th Anniversary of Going to Sea, 12 May 1948, CNM 6. 10. Lord Tennyson, ‘The Fleet’, quoted in B.Semmel, Liberalism and Naval Strategy: Ideology, Interest and Sea Power during the Pax Britannica (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), p. 84. Humble, Before Dreadnought, pp. 206–7. 11. The Times, 27 June 1897. 12. AoF Lord Chatfield, The Navy and Defence (London: Heinemann, 1942), pp. ix, 7–16, 25, 29. A.J.Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power (New York: Knopf, 1940, repr. London: Frank Cass, 1972), pp. 124–6, 274–5, 278, 281–2, 288, 291, 293, 302. A.J.Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, vol. I, The Road to War (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 3–12. G.A.H.Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and the British Naval Command (London: Murray, 1996), pp. 151–79, 195, 205, 316–17. J.Horsfield, The Art of Leadership in War: The Royal Navy from the Age of Nelson to the End of World War II (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood, 1980), p. 95. J.T.Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Supremacy, 1889–1914 (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 6, 20, 22. Wells, Royal Navy: Social History, pp. 39, 42. A.Carew, The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy, 1900– 1939: The Invergordon Mutiny in Perspective (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1981), pp. xii, xv—xix, 63–4. 13. Chatfield, Navy and Defence, p. 28. 14. Marder, Road to War, p. 6.

Notes

182

15. Cunningham to his mother, 8 Nov. 1899, 2 Jan., 27 Feb., 28 Mar., 13 May, 6 June, 12 Sept. 1900, BLAM 52557. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 18–31. 16. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 37. 17. Ibid., p. 38. 18. Ibid., pp. 38–9. 19. Ibid., pp. 39–44. 20. Semmel, Liberalism and Naval Strategy, pp. 89–98, 141. D.M.Schurman, The Education of a Navy: The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867–1914 (London: Cassell, 1967). J.Goldrick and J.B.Hattendorf, eds, Mahan Is Not Enough: The Proceedings of a Conference on the Works of Sir Julian Corbett and Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond (Newport, RI: National War College Press, 1993). J.B.Hattendorf, ed., The Influences of History upon Mahan: The Proceedings of a Conference Marking the Centenary of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1763 (Newport, RI: National War College Press, 1991). J.T.Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). A.D.Lambert, The Foundations of Naval History: Sir John Knox Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession (London: Chatham, 1998). A.D.Lambert, ed., Letters and Papers of Professor Sir John Knox Laughton, 1830–1915 (Aldershot: Ashgate; Navy Records Society, 2002). Marder, Anatomy of British Sea Power. Gordon, Rules of the Game. N.Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999). R.F.Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971). 21. Capt J.Goldrick, RAN, ‘The Irresistible Force and the Immovable Object: The Naval Review, the Youn Turks and the Royal Navy, 1911–1931’, in Goldrick and Hattendorf, eds, Mahan Is Not Enough, p. 83. 22. Gordon, Rules of the Game, p. 342. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p. 452. 23. Fisher to Churchill, 24 June 1912, E.W.R.Lumby, ed., Policy and Operations in the Mediterranean, 1912–1914 (London: Navy Records Society, 1970), p. 44. 24. N.Lambert, Fisher’s Naval Revolution, p. 114. 25. Goldrick, ‘The Naval Review’, in Goldrick and Hattendorf, eds, Mahan Is Not Enough, p. 91. 26. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 39.

2 Cunningham, Destroyers and the Mediterranean: A Symbiotic Relationship (1908–18) 1. A.Preston, Destroyers (London: Hamlyn, 1979), pp. 6–18. D.Lyon, The First Destroyers (London: Chatham, 1996). R.Chesneau, ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1906–1921 (London: Conway Maritime, 1985). P.K.Kemp, HM Destroyers (London: H.Jenkins, 1956), pp. 29, 33–8. 2. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 46. 3. Ibid., p. 47. 4. Chatfield, Navy and Defence, p. 69. 5. Anon., ‘Destroyers, or the Training School of the Service’, NR (1931), pp. 724–7, esp. p. 724. Anon., ‘The Trinity of Efficiency’, NR (1914), pp. 102–13. 6. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 44, 46, 47, 49. 7. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 48–51. 8. The Navy List, 1911–19. 9. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 52.

Notes

183

10. Ibid., pp. 46, 49–52. 11. Ibid., pp. 54–5. Lumby, ed., Policy and Operations, pp. 1–7, 60–90, 431–2. M.Simpson, ‘Superhighway to the World Wide Web: The Mediterranean in British Imperial History, 1900–1945’, in J.B.Hattendorf, ed., Naval Policy and Strategy in the Mediterranean: Past, Present and Future (London: Cass, 2000), pp. 51–3. 12. Scorpion, log entry for 2 Aug. 1914, ship’s log, 1 July–31 Aug. 1914, ADM 53/9454. 13. Lumby, Policy and Operations, pp. 149–209, 236–7. P.G.Halpern, The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1914–1918 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987), pp. 13–26. D van der Vat, The Ship That Changed the World (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985). 14. M.Simpson, ed., The Cunningham Papers, vol. I, The Mediterranean Fleet, 1939–1942 (Aldershot: Ashgate; Navy Records Society, 1999), pp. 47–51, 204. M.Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers (Aldershot: Scolar Press; Navy Records Society, 1995), pp. 202–18. Lumby, Policy and Operations, pp. 239–422. A.J.Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, vol. II, The War Years to the Eve of Jutland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 20–41. S.W.Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals (London: Collins, 1977). 15. Lumby, Policy and Operations, pp. 437, 452, 461–2. 16. ADM 137/681, Dardanelles, 1914. 17. L.H.Curtwright, Muddle, Indecision and Setback: British Policy and the Balkan States, from August 1914 to the Inception of the Dardanelles Campaign (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1986), pp. 15, 45–7, 59. K.G.B.Dewar, ‘The Dardanelles Campaign, Part I’, NR (1957), pp. 147–57. 18. Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. II, pp. 199–226. A.L.Capern, ‘Winston Churchill, Mark Sykes and the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915’, Historical Journal (1998), pp. 104–18. D.French, British Strategy and War Aims, 1914–1916 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), pp. 30–4, 43–52, 68–74. W.M.Renzi, ‘Great Britain, Russia and the Straits, 1914–1915’, Journal of Modern History (1970), pp. 1–20. A.L.Macfie, ‘The Straits Question in the First World War, 1914–1918’, Middle Eastern Studies (1983), pp. 43–54. Simpson, ‘World Wide Web’, in Hattendorf, ed., Naval Strategy in the Mediterranean, pp. 53–4. T.Higgins, Winston Churchill and the Dardanelles (London: Heinemann, 1963). Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 53–6. 19. R.Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone pp. 476–96, esp. p. 487. 20. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 58–78. Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. II, pp. 229–56. Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 54–77. K.G.B.Dewar, ‘The Dardanelles Campaign, Part II’, NR (1957), pp. 258–70. A.J.Marder, ‘The Dardanelles Revisited: Further Thoughts on the Naval Prelude’, in A.M.J.Hyatt, ed., Dreadnought to Polaris: Maritime Strategy since Mahan (Toronto: Copp Clark; Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1973), pp. 30–46. French, British Strategy, 1914–16, pp. 69–72. E.K. Chatterton, The Dardanelles Dilemma (London: Rich & Cowan, 1935), pp. 190–1, 236–43. Naval Review (1916), for many accounts of the operations. 21. Capt H.A.S.Tyler, 29 Apr. 1915, ADM 137/774. 22. Anon., ‘Dardanelles Days—and Nights’, NR (1958), pp. 331–2. ADM 137, files 1089, 1090, 774–9, 783–5, contain reports of E. Med. ships’ activities. 23. Anon., ‘Notes on Appreciating a Situation’, NR (1914), p. 199. Anon., ‘Air Power, Part I’, NR (1913), pp. 109–10. 24. R.R.James, Gallipoli (London: Batsford, 1965), pp. 244, 282. Higgins, Churchill and the Dardanelles, pp. 37–46, 57–63, 70–1, 76. Anon., ‘The Mediterranean Muddle’, NR (1924), pp. 441–5. 25. R-Adm S.Nicholson, 5 July 1915, and Capt, Agamemnon, 29 Apr. 1915, ADM 137/774. R.J.H.Griffiths, ‘Wolverines in Two World Wars’, The Mariner’s Mirror (2000), pp. 319– 21. 26. The Peninsula Press, 3 July 1915, CNM 7.

Notes

184

27. E.Med. Ships’ Reports, 1 Dec. 1915–12 Jan. 1916, ADM 137/785. Higgins, Churchill and the Dardanelles, pp. 168–73. Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 184–7. 28. Cdre R.Keyes to his wife, 14 Dec. 1915, P.G.Halpern, ed., The Keyes Papers, vol. I (1914– 1918) (London: Allen & Unwin; Navy Records Society, 1979), p. 282. Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 189. Higgins, Churchill and the Dardanelles, p. 177. James, Gallipoli, pp. 333–47. Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. II, pp. 308–41. 29. K.G.B.Dewar, ‘The Dardanelles Campaign, Part III’, NR (1958), pp. 393–404, esp. p. 400. 30. Curwright, Muddle, Indecision and Setback, p. 48. 31. G.Till, ‘Sir Julian Corbett and the British Way in Naval Warfare’, in K.Neilson and E.J.Errington, eds, Navies and Global Defence: Theories and Strategy (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood, 1995), p. 44. 32. Dewar, ‘The Dardanelles Campaign, Part III’, NR (1958), p. 393. 33. T.H.Binney, ‘Gallipoli and Normandy’, Royal United Service Institute Journal (1945), pp. 33–5. Till, ‘Corbett and the British Way in Naval Warfare’, Neilson and Errington, eds, Navies and Global Defence, pp. 45–6. Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. II, p. 232. James, Gallipoli, p. 348. 34. J.Gooch, ‘The Chiefs of Staff and the Higher Organisation for Defence, 1904–1984’, in J.B.Hattendorf and R.S.Jordan, eds, Maritime Strategy and the Balance of Power: Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 40. 35. A.R.Millett, ‘Assault from the Sea: the Development of Amphibious Warfare between the Wars: The American, British and Japanese Experience’, in W.Murray and A.R. Millett, eds, Military Innovation in the Inter-war Period (London: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 59. R.Harding, ‘Learning from the War: The Development of British Amphibious Capability, 1919–1929’, MM (2000), pp. 173–85. A.Whitehouse, Amphibious Operations (London: Muller, 1964), pp. 144–67. 36. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 55, 64–8, 72, 74–5. S.W.C.Pack, Cunningham the Commander (London: Purnell, 1974), p. 29. 37. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 79–85. Squadron Orders, 1 Feb. 1916, E. Med. Sqdn. Orders, 1915–1918, ADM 137/699. ‘Recommissioning of Scorpion, 14 Sept. 1916’, ADM 137/1229. Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 289–300. Cdre A.W.Heneage to Adm de Robeck, 20 Nov. 1916, in P.G.Halpern, ed., The Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, 1915– 1918 (Aldershot: Temple Smith; Navy Records Society, 1987), pp. 187–8, and Parts II and III; J.N.L.Myres, Commander J.L.Myres, RNVR: The Blackbeard of the Aegean (London: Leonard’s Head Press, 1980). 38. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 85. 39. R-Adm Ballard to Admiralty, 14 Oct. 1916, in Halpern, ed., Royal Navy in Mediterranean, p. 179. 40. Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 179–80, 194–217, 245, 263, 278, 286–7, 300, 318–19, 325–8. M.Simpson, ed., Anglo-American Naval Relations, 1917–1919 (Aldershot: Scolar Press; Navy Records Society, 1991), pp. 396–435. 41. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 85–7. 42. Ibid., pp. 88–9. 43. Ibid., pp. 89–98. Termagant, ship’s log, 20 May-30 June 1918, ADM 53/62600. ‘Engagement with Enemy Destroyers off the Belgian Coast, 27 June 1918’, ADM 137/ 2107. Cunningham dates this action in May. Halpern, Keyes Papers, vol. I, pp. 410–517. P.G.Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London: University College London Press, 1994), pp. 405–16. 44. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 92–8.

Notes

185

3 Cowan’s Protégé (1919–33) 1. G.Bennett, Cowan’s War: The Story of British Naval Operations in the Baltic, 1919–1920 (London: Collins, 1964), p. 59. 2. Cowan Papers. L.Dawson, The Sound of the Guns (Oxford: Pen in Hand, 1949). 3. Admiralty to Adm Sir David Beatty, 1 Jan. 1919, ADM 137/1664. ‘Situation in the Baltic’, ADM 137/1960. 4. Papers relating to Baltic operations, 1918–20, ADM 137/1663–6, 1671, 1683, 1960. 5. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 106. 6. R-Adm Cowan, ‘Letter of Proceedings, 15–23 Apr. 1919’, ADM 137/1665. 7. Cowan to Captains of the 1st Light Cruiser Sqdn., June 1918, COW 6. 8. Cowan to-. Bentinck, n.d., BLAM 52562. 9. Bennett, Cowan’s War, passim. Dawson, The Sound of the Guns, pp. 151–77. S.W.Roskill, Naval Policy between the Wars, vol. I (London: Collins, 1968), pp. 131–54. Wells, Royal Navy: Social History, pp. 128–9. Carew, Lower Deck of the Royal Navy, pp. 110–15, 127– 31, 140. 10. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 86, 98, 105–6, 119. 11. ‘Heligoland, 1919–1926’, BLAM 52583 A and B.Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 106–10. 12. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 110–11. 13. Halpern, Naval History of World War I, pp. 326–8, 340–1, 351–60. Simpson, ed., AngloAmerican Naval Relations, pp. 193–200, 211, 233. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 59–61, 67–9, 90, 95, 275–6. Gordon, Rules of the Game. 14. Quoted in P.M.Kennedy, ‘Appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865–1939’, in Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945 (London: Fontana, 1984), p. 27. 15. Kennedy, ‘Appeasement’, pp. 25–39, and ‘Strategy versus Finance in Twentieth Century Britain’, pp. 89–106, in Strategy and Diplomacy. P.M.Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: Fontana, 1991), pp. 315–52. J.Ferris, ‘It Is Our Business in the Navy to Command the Seas: The Last Decade of British Maritime Supremacy, 1919–1929’, in K.Neilson and G.Kennedy, eds, Far Flung Lines: Studies in Imperial Defence in Honour of D.M.Schurman (London: Cass, 1997), pp. 124–70. J.Ferris, ‘Treasury Control, the Ten Year Rule and British Service Policies, 1919–1924’, HJ (1987), pp. 859–82. Roskill, Naval Policy. vol. I.M.G.Fry, Illusions of Security: North Atlantic Diplomacy, 1918–1922 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972). R.W. Fanning, Peace and Disarmament: Naval Rivalry and Arms Control. 1922–1933 (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1995). W.D.MacIntyre, The Rise and Fall of the Singapore Naval Base, 1919–1942 (London: Macmillan, 1979). 16. Britannia January Term of 1897: Term Dinner: 50th Anniversary of Going to Sea, United Services Club, 12 May 1948, CNM 6. 17. Carew, Lower Deck, p. 188. Wells, Royal Navy: Social History, p. 132. 18. Wells, Royal Navy: Social History, pp. 125–6, 132. 19. W.Jackson and D.Bramall, The Chiefs: The Story of the United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff (London: Brasseys, 1992), pp. 113–42. Anon., ‘The Art of Command’, NR (1924), pp. 100– 6. Roskill, Naval Policy, vol. I, pp. 344–5. Goldrick, ‘The Naval Review’, in Goldrick and Hattendorf, eds, Mahan Is Not Enough, pp. 83–102. S.W.Roskill, Admiral of the Fleeet Earl Beatty: The Last Naval Hero (London: Collins, 1981). B.McL. Ranft, The Beatty Papers, vol. II (Aldershot: Scolar Press; Navy Records Society, 1993). B.McL. Ranft, ‘Admiral Lord Beatty’, in M.H.Murfett, ed., The First Sea Lords: From Fisher to Mountbatten (Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 1995), pp. 127–40. ‘List of Members’, NR (1922), p. 332. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 13–17.

Notes

186

20. Roskill, Naval Policy, vol. I, p. 534 and pp. 71–2, 114–27, 446–69, 522–41, 565. Adm Sir W.James, ‘Night Fighting at Sea by the British Navy’, US Naval Institute Proceedings (1944), pp. 648–50. Anon., ‘Battle by Night’, NR (1922), pp. 6–14. 21. Gooch, ‘The Chiefs of Staff’ in Hattendorf and R.S.Jordan, eds, Maritime Strategy, p. 42. W.Hackmann, Seek and Strike: Sonar and Anti-Submarine Warfare and the Royal Navy, 1914–1954 (London: HMSO, 1984). Simpson, ed., Anglo-American Naval Relations, pp. 59–61. Harding, ‘Learning from the War’, MM, pp. 173–85. Millett, ‘Assault from the Sea’, in Murray and Millett, eds, Military Innovation, pp. 59–62. 22. Anon., ‘Command and Staff’, NR (1924), p. 661. ‘Naval Discipline and Education’, pp. 24– 52; ‘On Thought and Discussion’, pp. 190–7; ‘The Higher Naval Education of Executive Officers in Relation to Staff Work’, pp. 276–81, all in NR (1919). M.H. Murfett, ‘Are We Ready?’, in Hattendorf and Jordan, eds, Naval Strategy, pp. 226–7. Wells, Royal Navy: Social History, pp. 130–1, 133–6. 23. The Navy and Its Aircraft’, NR (1924), p. 647. 24. G.Till, ‘Adopting the Carrier: The British, American and Japanese Carrier Strategies’, in Murray and Millett, eds, Military Innovation, pp. 191–226. N.Friedman, British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and Their Aircraft (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), pp. 61–107, 155–68. 25. Roskill, Naval Policy, vol. I, pp. 181–202. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 111–15. 26. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 115–18. Preston, Destroyers, pp. 34, 39, 40. 27. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 23, 37, 48, 54, 115. 28. All quotations from G.N.Brewer, ‘The Melody Lingers On, Part II’, NR (1974), pp. 50–1. 29. Conversations with Sir Hugh and Lady Fiona Byatt, and Mrs Hilda McKendrick, Carnoustie, 21 Jan. 2000. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, pp. 46–7. 30. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 119–20. 31. Ibid., pp. 41, 120–1. 32. Ibid., pp. 122, 132. Calcutta, ship’s logs, 28 Aug. 1926–17 Aug. 1927, ADM 53/72246, and 18 Aug.–14 Dec. 1927, ADM 53/72247. Despatch, ship’s log, 14 Dec. 1927–6 Nov. 1928, ADM 53/75465. 33. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 121–37. 34. Calcutta, ship’s log, 18 Aug.–14 Dec. 1927, ADM 53/72246. V-Adm Cowan, ‘General Letter 1/1926’, 20 Aug. 1926, and ‘General Letter, 2/1926’, 30 Sept. 1926, ADM 116/2503. 35. Calcutta, ship’s log, 22 Oct. 1927, ADM 53/72246. V-Adm Cowan, ‘General Letter, 2/1926’, 30 Sept. 1926, ADM 116/2503. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 124–7. 36. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 128–9. 37. Ibid., p. 137. Cunningham to Cowan, 11 Aug. 1928, COW 6. 38. Cunningham to Baillie-Grohman, 25 Nov. 1938, XGRO 2. 39. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 138–9. 40. ‘Report by the Commandant (V-Adm Richmond) on the First Session of the IDC, 22 Dec. 1927’, COS 125, CAB 53/14. Commandant to Sec., COS, 6 Nov. 1928, COS 180, CAB 53/16. Commandant to Sec., COS, 2 Jan. 1929, CAB 53/17. ‘Report by the Commandant on the Years 1927–28, 28 Feb. 1928’, COS 186, CAB 53/17. Reports of syndicates’ war games, CAB 53/18 and 19. B.D.Hunt, ‘Richmond and the Education of the Royal Navy’, Goldrick and Hattendorf, eds, Mahan Is Not Enough, pp. 65–81, esp. p. 75. R.Higham, The Military Intellectuals in Britain, 1918–1939 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1966), pp. 20–35, 51–61, 64. 41. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52569. 42. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 139. Information from Sir Hugh Byatt and Mrs Hilda McKendrick on various occasions. 43. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 140–2. 44. Adm Sir G.N.Oliver to Capt S.W.C.Pack, 11 June 1972, OLVR 7/3. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 140–8.

Notes

187

45. Ibid., p. 148. 46. Ibid., pp. 149–50. 47. Carew, Lower Deck, p. 171. 48. Ibid., p. 170. 49. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 152. Carew, Lower Deck, pp. 153–71. Wells, Royal Navy: Social History, pp. 142–7. Roskill, Naval Policy, vol. II, pp. 89–103. 50. Cunningham to Cowan, n.d., 1931, COW 6. Capt J.F.Somerville, ‘Report on Invergordon Mutiny, 1931’, SMVL 5/7. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 150–3. Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers, p. 6. 51. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 156.

4 The Mediterranean: Challenges and Crises (1934–39) 1. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 156. 2. Gordon, Rules of the Game, p. 191. 3. A.Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower, 1918–1939 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986), p. 142. 4. C.Owen, Plain Yarns from the Fleet (Stroud: Sutton, 1997), pp. 58–62, 67–9, 72. H.Mackenzie, The Sword of Damocles (Stroud: Sutton; Royal Navy Submarine Museum, 1995), pp. 29–39. Wells, Royal Navy: Social History, pp. 151–3. Carew, Lower Deck, pp. 172–80. C.H.Bailey, Social Change in the Royal Navy, 1924–1970: The Life and Times of Admiral Sir Frank Twiss (Stroud: Sutton; Royal Navy Museum, 1996), pp. 20–4. 5. W.James, Admiral Sir William Fisher (London: Macmillan, 1943), pp. 121–3. 6. Chatfield, Navy and Defence, pp. 224–54, esp. p. 240. W.James, ‘Night Fighting by the British Navy’, USNIP (1944), pp. 645–51. J.T.Sumida, ‘“The Best Laid Plans”: The Development of British Battle-fleet Tactics, 1919–1942’, International History Review (IHR) (1992), pp. 694–7. E.J.Grove, ‘Admiral Lord Chatfield’, in Murfett, ed., The First Sea Lords, pp. 157–71. 7. L.S.Amery, ‘The Undefeated Spirit’, NR (1937), p. 415. James, Fisher, pp. 108–30. 8. Fisher to Chatfield, 9 Feb., 29 May, 21 July, 17 Nov. 1933, CHAT 4/4. 9. Anon., ‘The Combined Fleet Exercises’, NR (1934), p. 226. 10. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 159–62. 11. Cunningham to Capt H.T.Baillie-Grohman, 9 March 1936, XGRO 1. 12. Among the Captains (D) were Baillie-Grohman, Dalrymple-Hamilton, J.W.S.Dorling and (during the Abyssinia crisis) Vian. Destroyer commanders included Mountbatten, Warburton-Lee, W.G.A.Robson, G.N.Oliver, S.H.T.Arliss. Cunningham to R-Adm, 1st BS, 16 Sept. 1934, and ‘Reflections on Exercise MDXC’, OLVR 1/4. 13. Cunningham to Baillie-Grohman, 4 Dec. 1935, and 25 Sept., 23 Nov. 1935, XGRO 1. 14. Cunningham to Baillie-Grohman, 9 Dec. 1935, and 11, 16, 28 Jan., 29 Mar., 13 Apr. 1936, XGRO 1. 15. Cunningham to Baillie-Grohman, 23 Nov. 1935. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 161–2. 16. J.Alliston, Destroyer Man (Richmond, Victoria: Greenhouse, 1985), p. 19. 17. Cunningham to Baillie-Grohman, 12 Feb. 1936, XGRO 1. 18. Conversation with Mrs H.McKendrick, 21 Jan. 2000. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 158–9, 162–9. 19. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 172. 20. R.Salerno, ‘The Mediterranean Triangle: Britain, France, Italy and the Origins of the Second World War, 1935–1940’ (unpub. PhD thesis, Yale, 1997), pp. 8, 23–36, 40–1, 58–84. S.Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry in the Mediterranean and Middle East, 1935–1940’, in

Notes

188

R.Boyce and E.M.Robertson, eds, Paths to War: New Essays on the Origins of the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 167–78. D.Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire (London: Longman, 1976), pp. 59–81. R.Mallett, The Italian Navy and Fascist Expansionism, 1935–1940 (London: F.Cass, 1998), pp. 1, 21–37. R.Bernotti, ‘Italian Naval Policy under Fascism’, USNIP (1956), pp. 722–3. 21. R.A.C.Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 45, 48. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, pp. 59–60, 63–70. 22. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 49–57. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 3, 7, 13–21. Bernotti, ‘Italian Naval Policy’, pp. 722–8. MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 1939– 1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy’s Last War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 15, 19–21. B.R.Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being: The Rise and Fall of Italian Sea Power, 1861–1943’, IHR (1988), pp. 117–18. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 162–3, 190–1. 23. R.A.C.Parker, ‘Great Britain, France and the Ethiopian Crisis’, English Historical Review (1974), pp. 331–2. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, in Boyce and Robertson, Paths to War, p. 175. 24. V-Adm Little to Fisher, 10 Aug. 1935, ‘The Italo-Abyssinian Dispute’, ADM 116/3038. 25. Sir R.Vansittart to Little, 9 Aug. 1935, ADM 116/3038. 26. Memo (J.S.Barnes), 26 Aug. 1935, ADM 116/3038. 27. Admiralty memo, 24 Aug. 1935, ‘Summary of the Course of Events’, ADM 116/3046. Gooch, ‘The Chiefs of Staff’, in Hattendorf and Jordan, eds, Maritime Strategy, pp. 42–4. 28. G.A.H.Gordon, British Sea Power and Procurement between the Wars: A Reappraisal of Rearmanent (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), pp. 136–40. G.A.H.Gordon, ‘The Admiralty and Appeasement’, Naval History (1991), pp. 44–8. G.A.H.Gordon, ‘The Admiralty and Imperial Overstretch, 1902–1941’, Journal of Strategic Studies (1994), pp. 63–85. 29. N.H.Gibbs, Grand Strategy, vol. I, Rearmament Policy (London: HMSO, 1976), pp. 190– 217. 30. V-Adm Little to Fisher, 10 Aug. 1935, ADM 116/3038. 31. COS 392, 6 Aug. 1935, ADM 116/3038. 32. ‘Summary of Course of Events’, 24 Aug. 1935, ADM 116/3046. R.Quartararo, ‘Imperial Defence in the Mediterranean on the Eve of the Ethiopian Crisis (July to October 1935)’, HJ (1977), pp. 187–220. O.Babij, ‘The Royal Navy and the Defence of the British Empire, 1928–1934’, in K.Neilson and G.Kennedy, eds, Far Flung Lines: Studies in Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald M.Schurman (London: F.Cass, 1997), pp. 171–89. 33. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 75–82. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, pp. 66, 69–70. Admiralty memo, 20 Nov. 1935, ‘Precautionary Measures in the Mediterranean’, ADM 116/3041. ‘Summary of Course of Events’, 24 Aug. 1935, and ‘Summary of Present Position’, 8 Nov. 1935, ADM 116/3046. K.Edwards, The Grey Diplomatists (London: Rich & Cowan, 1938), pp. 158–70. 34. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 173–4. S.Morewood, ‘The Chiefs of Staff, “the Men on the Spot” and the Italo-Abyssinian Emergency, 1935–36’, in D.Richardson and G.Stone, eds, Decisions and Dipolomacy: Essays on Twentieth-Century International History (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 92–7. Anon., ‘Alexandria, 1935–36, Part I’, NR (1975), pp. 269–74, and ‘Part II’, NR (1976), pp. 141–4. 35. Admiralty to Fisher, 2 Nov. 1935, ADM 116/3038. V-Adm, Malta (Sir W.French) to Chatfield, 3 Sept. 1935, CHT 3/1, and Fisher to Chatfield, 29 Aug. 1935, CHT 4/4. A.J. Marder, ‘The Royal Navy and the Ethiopian Crisis of 1935–36’, in A.J.Marder, ed., From the Dardanelles to Oran (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 64–101. Quartararo, ‘Imperial Defence’, pp. 191–4. Morewood, ‘Chiefs of Staff’, in Richardson and Stone, eds, Decisions and Diplomacy, pp. 83–104.

Notes

189

36. Fisher to Chatfield, 25 Oct. 1935, and 25 Feb., 6 Mar. 1936, CHT 4/4. Fisher to Admiralty, 22 Aug., 6 and 16 Sept. 1935, ADM 116/3038. 37. Fisher to Admiralty, 20 Aug. 1935, ADM 116/3038. 38. Fisher to Admiralty, 6 and 16 Sept. 1935, ADM 116/3038. Chatfield to Adm Lord Cork, 14 Feb. 1936, CHT 3/1. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 173–8. 39. Fisher to Chatfield, 8 Nov. 1935, CHT 4/4. James, Fisher, pp. 133–40. Owen, Plain Yarns, pp. 110–14. Edwards, Grey Diplomatists, pp. 145–57, 171–81, 190. 40. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 178. 41. Cunningham to James, Christmas, 1940, quoted in James, Fisher, p. 157. 42. ‘History of the Italo-Abyssinian Emergency, Aug. 1933–July 1936: The C-in-C’s Narrative of Events’, ADM 116/3476. Admiralty to Pound, 8 July 1936, and ‘The Fleet in the Mediterranean’, 22 Apr. 1936, and ‘Summary of Present Position’, 8 Nov. 1935, ADM 116/3042. ‘Position of the Fleet in the Mediterranean’, 14 May 1936, CP 134 (36), CAB 27/606. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, pp. 59–81. Morewood, ‘Chiefs of Staff’, pp. 91, 95–9. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, p. 175. Quartararo, ‘Imperial Defence’, pp. 187–9. Roskill, Naval Policy, vol. II, pp. 261–2, 269. James, Fisher, pp. 141–2. 43. Marder, Dardanelles to Oran, pp. 99–101. Gordon, Sea Power and Procurement, pp. 137– 40. 44. Sir S.Hoare to Duff Cooper, 28 May 1937, CHT 3/1. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 178–9. 45. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 180–1. 46. Chatfield to Hoare, 24 May 1937, CHT 3/1. 47. Cunningham to Blake, 21 Dec. 1937, BLE 7. 48. Pound to Blake, 20 Dec. 1937, BLE 7. Chatfield to Hoare, 24 May 1937, CHT 3/1. 49. ‘The Work of the Royal Navy in the Spanish Civil War’, 4 Mar. 1938, ADM 116/3677. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, pp. 99–106. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement, pp. 81–5. G.Stone, ‘The Great Powers and the Spanish Civil War’, in Boyce and Robertson, eds, Paths to War, pp. 199–207. Lord Chatfield, It Might Happen Again (London: Heinemann, 1947), pp. 92–4. J.A.Maiolo, The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, 1933–1939: A Study in Appeasement and the Origins of the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1998), p. 145. 50. P.Gretton, ‘The Royal Navy in the Spanish Civil War, Part I’, NR (1974), pp. 8–17, esp. p. 9. Edwards, Grey Diplomatists, pp. 230–56. 51. ‘RN in Spanish Civil War’, ADM 116/3677. G.Stone, ‘Britain, France and the Spanish Problem, 1936–1939’, in Richardson and Stone, eds, Decision and Diplomacy, pp. 129–37. 52. ‘RN in Spanish Civil War’, ADM 116/3677. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, p. 139. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement, pp. 110–11. P.W.Gretton, ‘RN in Spanish Civil War, Part III’, NR (1974), pp. 203–13. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 97, 142–3. 53. Chatfield to Pound, 2 July 1937, and Pound to Chatfield, 14 July 1937, CHT 4/10. 54. Cunningham to Pound, 4 Feb. 1938, ADM 116/3679. 55. Cunningham to Pound, 21 Apr. 1938, and ‘Spanish Civil War: RoP’, ADM 116/3679. Gretton, ‘Navy in Spanish Civil War, Part III’, p. 213. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 185–92. 56. V-Adm H.T.Baillie-Grohman, ‘Flashlights on the Past’, II, p. 52, GRO 33. Sumida, ‘“The Best Laid Plans”’, pp. 695–6. Gordon, Rules of the Game, p. 574. 57. Fisher to Chatfield, 25 Oct. 1935, CHT 4/4. 58. Obituary and Tributes to Pound, NR (1943), p. 285. 59. Ibid., p. 285. 60. Ibid., pp. 283–5. Pound to Chatfield, 7 Aug., 22 Dec. 1937, 7 Feb. 1938, CHT 4/10. ‘Mediterranean Fleet Orders’, 30 Dec. 1938, ADM 116/3871. ‘Alexandria Defences, 1938– 40’, ADM 116/4063. Lt-Gen C.Bonham-Carter to Colonial Sec., 11 Sept. 1936, ‘Malta, 1936–40’, ADM 116/4061. Anon., ‘The Navy and the Air, II’, pp. 11–28; ‘III’, pp. 65–71, NR (1935). 61. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 182.

Notes

190

62. Pound to Chatfield, 7 Aug. 1937, CHT 4/10. 63. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 191. 64. HMS Hood, RoP, 10 Sept. 1937, ADM 116/3681, and 9 July 1938, ADM 116/3903. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 182–92. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, p. 63. 65. Chatfield to Pound, 23 Nov. 1937, CHT 4/10. 66. Pound to Chatfield, 24 Aug. 1938, CHT 4/10. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 190. 67. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 187–8. 68. Grove, ‘Chatfield’, in Murfett, ed., First Sea Lords, pp. 157–69. R.Higham, Armed Forces in Peacetime: Britain, 1918–1940, a Case Study (London: Foulis, 1962), pp. 214–26. 69. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 193–6. 70. Ibid., pp. 195, 199–200. M.H.Murfett, ‘Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse’, in Murfett, ed., First Sea Lords, pp. 172–84. Chatfield to Hoare, 24 May 1937, and Hoare to Duff Cooper, 28 May 1937, CHT 3/1. Chatfield to Fisher, 2 Aug. 1934, CHT 4/4. ‘Naval Staff Reorganisation’, 26 Oct. 1938, 13 Feb. 1939, ADM 116/4194. Marder, Dardanelles to Oran, p. 60. Maiolo, Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, pp. 159–63. 71. ‘Review of Naval Deficiencies Revealed in the Crisis of September 1938’, ADM 116/3637. 72. Backhouse to Adm Binney, 5 Oct. 1938, ADM 205/3. 73. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 200. Maiolo, Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, pp. 163–71. 74. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 197. 75. H.Herwig, ‘Innovation Ignored: The Submarine Problem: Germany, Britain and the United States, 1919–1939’, in W.Murray and A.R.Millett, eds, Military Innovation in the Inter-War Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 238–51. H.Herwig, ‘The Failure of German Sea Power, 1914–1945: Mahan, Tirpitz and Raeder Reconsidered’, IHR (1988), pp. 86–105. R.D.Burns, ‘The Regulation of Submarine Warfare, 1921–1941: A Case Study in Arms Control and Limited War’, Military Affairs (1971), pp. 56–63. 76. W.Deist et al., Germany and the Second World War, vol. I, The Build-up of German Aggression (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 479. 77. Maiolo, Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, pp. 121–5. 78. Ibid., passim. Chatfield, It Might Happen Again, pp. 64–75. W.K.Wark, ‘Naval Intelligence in Peacetime: Britain’s Problem in Assessing the German Threat, 1933–1939’, in D.M.Masterman, ed., Naval History: The Sixth Symposium (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1987), pp. 191–205. V-Adm Sir A.Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power (London: P.Davies, 1967), pp. 118–23. D.Dilks, ‘“We Must Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst”: The Prime Minister, the Cabinet and Hitler’s Germany, 1937–1939’, Proceedings of the British Academy (1987), pp. 309–52. R.Salerno, ‘The French Navy and the Appeasement of Italy, 1937–1939’, EHR (1997), pp. 66–104. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 155–6. Gibbs, Grand Strategy, vol. I, pp. 380–93, 409–31. W.C.Mills, ‘The Chamberlain-Grandi Conversations of July-August 1937 and the Appeasement of Italy’, IHR (1997), pp. 594–618. 79. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, pp. 178–84. 80. COS 965, 24 Aug. 1939, CAB 53/54. Jackson and Bramall, The Chiefs, pp. 174–6. 81. P.M.Kennedy, ‘“Appeasement” and British Defence Policy in the Inter-War Years’, British Journal of International Studies (1978), p. 173. 82. V-Adm Cunningham, ‘The Despatch of a Fleet to the Far East’, 5 Apr. 1939, CAB 16/183A. Gibbs, Grand Strategy, vol. I, pp. 423–31. 83. Murfett, ‘Backhouse’, in Murfett, ed., First Sea Lords, p. 127. 84. Minutes of Strategic Sub-Cttee, 17 Apr. 1939, CAB 16/183A. 85. UK Delegation, Anglo-French Staff Conversations, 20 Mar. 1939, ADM 205/57. COS, Minutes, 10 July 1939, and Strategic Sub-Cttee, 17 Mar. 1939, CAB 53/51. Comment by First Sea Lord, 18 July 1939, CAB 53/52. 86. Chatfield to Hoare, 24 May 1937, and Hoare to Cooper, 28 May 1937, CHT 3/1. Pound to Chatfield, n.d., 1937, and Chatfield to Pound, 5 Aug. 1937 and 3 Aug. 1938, CHT 4/10.

Notes

191

Backhouse to Cork, 16 Nov. 1938, ADM 205/3. For Ramsay, see Cork to Chatfield, n.d., 1936, Tyrwhitt to Chatfield, 22 Feb. 1936, Chatfield to Tyrwhitt, 24 Feb. 1936, CHT 3/1. W.S.Chalmers, Full Cycle: The Biography of Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1959), pp. 40–51. Ramsay’s account of his breach with Backhouse is in an undated memo of 1940, RMSY 7/3. M.Thomas, Britain, France and Appeasement: Anglo-French Relations in the Popular Front Era (Oxford and New York: Berg, 1996), pp. 6–20, 106, 147–54. 87. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 202.

5 The Finest Appointment: The Mediterranean Fleet (June 1939–June 1940) 1. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 203. 2. Ibid., p. 203. R.Ollard, Fisher and Cunningham: Two Personalities of the Churchill Era (London: Constable, 1991), p. 74. 3. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 208–9. 4. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, in Boyce and Robertson, eds, Paths to War, p. 188. Pound to Cunningham, 24 July 1939, BLAM 52560. 5. R.Overy and A.Wheatcroft, The Road to War (Harmondsworth, Middx: Penguin, 2000). D.C.Watt, How War Came (London: Heinemann, 1989). 6. Salerno, ‘The Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 270–88, 344–55. Thomas, Britain, France and Appeasement, pp. 147–54. Gooch, ‘The Chiefs of Staff’, p. 44. 7. Note by Capt T.Phillips, 23 Dec. 1937, and Naval Attaché, Paris, to Admiralty, 21 Nov. 1936, ADM 116/3379. Cunningham to Capt H.T.Baillie-Grohman, 9 Mar. 1936, XGRO 1. Gordon, ‘The Admiralty and Imperial Overstretch’, pp. 67–73. ‘Conversation between Captain Ingersoll and Naval Staff’, 3 Jan. 1938, ADM 1/9822. D.Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 1937–1941: A Study in Competitive Co-operation (London: Europa, 1981), p. 60. I.Cowman, Dominion or Decline: Anglo-American Naval Relations in the Pacific, 1937–1941 (Oxford and Washington: Berg, 1996), pp. 115–64. E.J.Grove, ‘“A War Fleet Built for Peace”: British Naval Rearmament in the 1930s and the Dilemma of Deterrence versus Defence’, Naval War College Review (NWCR) (1990), p. 90. 8. Capt V.Danckwerts to Sir W.Strang, 22 Apr. 1938, and ‘Record of Meeting of British and French Ministers, 29 Apr. 1938’, etc., ADM 116/3379. 9. CID minutes, 11 Feb. 1937, CAB 24/268, and 5 July 1937, CAB 24/270, and CAB 24/271–3. ‘Mediterranean Declaration’, 2 Jan. 1937, ADM 116/3302. Adm Backhouse to Adm Richmond, 25 Nov. 1938, ADM 205/2. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement, pp. 125–6, 192–3. 10. W.Murray, ‘The Role of Italy in British Strategy, 1938–1939’, RUSIJ (1979), p. 46. 11. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, p. 549. Gibbs, Grand Strategy, vol. I, pp. 386–93. 12. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, pp. 187, 189. Salerno, ‘French Navy’, pp. 93–8. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 310–41. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement, p. 220. 13. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, pp. 82–98, 124–36, 149–56. Morewood, ‘AngloItalian Rivalry’, p. 187. 14. M.H.Murfett, ‘“Are We Ready?”: The Development of American and British Naval Strategy, 1922–1939’, in Hattendorf and Jordan, eds, Maritime Strategy, p. 237. 15. COS, 12 Nov. 1937, ADM 205/57. N.Chamberlain, quoted in Gordon, ‘Imperial Overstretch’, p. 71. Capt. T.Phillips, ‘Notes on Defence Expenditure’, 10 Nov. 1937, and Treasury note, 30 Nov. 1937, ADM 116/3631. E.J.Grove, ‘A War Fleet Built for Peace’,

Notes

192

NWCR (1990), p. 82. J.S.Rofe, ‘The Mission of Sumner Welles to Europe (February– March 1940)’ (unpub. PhD (forthcoming), University of Wales, Swansea). 16. Chatfield, CID minutes, 5 July 1937, CAB 24/270. Pound to Cunningham, 24 July 1939, BLAM 52560. COS, ‘Mediterranean, Middle East and N.E. Africa Appreciation’, 21 Feb. 1938, WO 33/1507. 17. Churchill, quoted in Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, p. 184. COS, ‘Mediterranean, Middle East and N.E. Africa Appreciation’, 21 Feb. 1938, WO 33/1507. 18. JPS, 12 July 1939, quoted in L.R.Pratt, East of Malta, West of Suez (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 187. 19. Pound to Cunningham, 24 July 1939, BLAM 52560. UK Delegation, Anglo-French Staff Conversations, 20 Mar. 1938, ADM 205/57. Through the Mediterranean came all of Britain’s rubber and tea; most of her hemp and jute; 75 per cent of wool; 50 per cent of wheat; 37 per cent of cotton; 33 per cent of sugar; 30 per cent of meat; 25 per cent of oil; and substantial quantities of other foods and raw materials (Edwards, The Grey Diplomatists, pp. 312–13). Pound to Cunningham, 18 Aug. 1939, BLAM 52560. 20. UK Delegation, Anglo-French Staff Conversations, 20 Mar. 1939, ADM 205/57. Gibbs, Grand Strategy, vol. I, pp. 420–31. Gooch, ‘Chiefs of Staff’, p. 44. 21. Cunningham to Pound, 26 July 1939, BLAM 52560. 22. R.Gandin, Darlan, Weygand, Cunningham: Artisans de la victoire, 1939–1944 (Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1977), pp. 41–2, 44, 62, 64, 79. ‘Anglo-French Plans, 1939–40’, ADM 1/9898, 9900, 10358. 23. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, p. 541. 24. Cunningham to Pound, 26 July, 31 Oct. 1939, 11 Feb., 2 May 1940, and Pound to Cunningham, 4 Feb. 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 211–12. M.Simpson, ‘Superhighway to the World Wide Web: The Mediterranean in British Imperial Strategy, 1900–1945’, in J.B.Hattendorf, ed., Naval Strategy and Policy in the Past, Present and Future (London: Cass, 2000), pp. 59–60. Gandin, Darlan, Weygand, Cunningham, pp. 47–8, 58–9. 25. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Dec. 1939, Pound to Cunningham, 20 May 1940, BLAM 52560. Blake to Cunningham, 21 May 1940, Cunningham to Darlan, 7 May 1940, BLAM 52569. Cunningham to Admiralty, 11 and 17 Feb. 1940, ADM 116/4301. JPS, 13 May 1940, CAB 80/11. War Cabinet minutes, 19 Apr. 1940, M.Gilbert, ed., The Churchill War Papers, vol. I (London: Heinemann, 1993), p. 1097. S.W.Roskill, The War at Sea, vol. I (London: HMSO, 1954), p. 51, lists the French strength in the Mediterranean in Sept. 1939, as 3 battleships, 10 cruisers, 48 destroyers, 53 submarines. 26. Cunningham to Pound, 2 Mar., 29 May 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Pound, 7 June 1940, BLAM 52566. COS, 12 Nov. 1937, ADM 205/57. COS 6, 15, 27 May 1940, CAB 79/40. JPS, 30 Apr., 6 May 1940, CAB 80/10. 27. JPS, ‘Military Implications of Italian Aggression’, 20 Apr. 1940, CAB 80/10. 28. Cunningham to Pound, 26 July 1939, BLAM 52560. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 289–300. 29. Cunningham to Pound, 26 July 1939, BLAM 52560. 30. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 203, 206–7. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. I, p. 14. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, p. 81. 31. AoF Sir A.Willis, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 2, 5, WLLS 12/1. 32. Cdr G.Barnard to wife, 12 Mar. 1941, box 9, Barnard Papers. 33. V-Adm Sir M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 18, MANP. 34. Adm J.H.Godfrey, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 300–1, DUPO 6/1. 35. Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 5, WLLS 12/1. 36. M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 20–1, MANP. 37. Cunningham to Adm Sir D.North, 8 June 1940, NORTH 2/3.

Notes

193

38. V-Adm H.T.Baillie-Grohman, ‘Flashlights on the Past’, II, pp. 193–9, GRO 33. Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 17, WLLS 12/1. 39. Cdr J.Somerville to author, 6 Oct. 1997. 40. Cdr Barnard to wife, 4 Nov. 1940, box 9, Barnard Papers. Godfrey, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 300–1, 315, DUPO 6/1. Willis, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 18–20, WLLS 12/1. Cunningham to VAdm Sir B.Ramsay, 12 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. Cdr A.Noble, A float and Ashore (private circulation, 1980), pp. 46–7. Cunningham to Cdre J.Edelsten, n.d., 1942, EDSN 1/2. 41. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. I, pp. 13–14. 42. O.Warner, Cunningham of Hyndhope: Admiral of the Fleet (London: Murray, 1967), p. 93. Barnard, DUPO 2/2. 43. V-Adm Sir J.Collins, RAN, As Luck Would Have It: The Reminiscences of an Australian Sailor (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1965), p. 84. 44. Cunningham, notes, p. 108, BLAM 52580B. Chatfield to Capt F.B.Noble, 6 Jan. 1937, CHT 3/1. Owen, Plain Yarns, pp. 20–1, 45. E.J. Grove, ed., The Battle and the Breeze: The Naval Reminiscences of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Edward Ashmore (Stroud: Sutton; Royal Navy Museum, 1997), pp. 1–34. Higham, Military Intellectuals in Britain, pp. 51–61, 64. Wells, Royal Navy: Social History, pp. 151–3, 161–4. Carew, Lower Deck, pp. 180–92. 45. Cunningham to Pound, 1 Aug. 1939, BLAM 52560. Adm Sir R.Backhouse to R-Adm A.E.Evans, 23 Jan. 1939, ADM 205/3. 46. Cunningham to Pound, 26 July 1939, 29 May 1940; Pound to Cunningham, 24 July, 18 Aug. 1939, 6 June 1940, all in BLAM 52560. COS, 25 Jan. 1940, CAB 79/3. 47. S.Morewood, ‘Appeasement from Strength: The Making of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and Alliance’, Diplomacy and Statecraft (D&S) (1996), p. 533. 48. Pound to Admiralty, 15 May 1939, ADM 116/4063 and 4060. Pound, ‘AA Defence of Alexandria’, 13 July 1939, CAB 53/52. Pound to Cunningham, 24 July 1939, BLAM 52560. ‘Egyptian Attitude’, 25 Apr. 1940, COS Memoranda, CAB 80/10. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 207–8. 49. Cunningham to Pound, 26 July 1939; Pound to Cunningham, 6 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Admiralty, 14 July and 1 Aug. 1939, ADM 116/4160. COS, 26 May 1940, CAB 79/4. Cunningham to North, 28 Jan. 1940, NORTH 2/3. 50. Cunningham to Pound, 31 Oct. and 18 Dec. 1939, BLAM 52560. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 207. Cunningham to Baillie-Grohman, 29 June 1939, XGRO 2. H.Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned: The Mediterranean Experiences of a British Destroyer Officer in 1941 (London: Harrap, 1944), pp. 80–2. 51. Cunningham to Pound, 2 Mar. 1940, BLAM 52560. 52. Cunningham, ‘Memorandum on Command in the Middle East’, 10 June 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Pound, 31 Oct. 1939, 9 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to ACM Mitchell, 9 Jan. 1940, BLAM 52569. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 222–3, 225, 230, 233–4. DCOS, ‘Report on Command in the Middle East’, 15 Feb. 1939, CAB 53/45. BaillieGrohman, ‘Flashlights on the Past’, II, pp. 134, 150, GRO 33. 53. Cunningham, notes, p. 108, BLAM 52580. 54. Cunningham to Admiralty, 9 Dec. 1939, quoted in Roskill, Naval Policy, vol. II, p. 431. 55. Cunningham to Pound, 1 Aug. 1939, BLAM 52560. Sumida, “‘The Best Laid Plans’”, pp. 693–5. 56. Lt-Cdr D.W.Waters to author, 9 Dec. 1995. 57. T.C.Hone and M.D.Mandeles, ‘Interwar Innovation in Three Navies: U.S. Navy, Royal Navy, Imperial Japanese Navy’, NWCR (1990), p. 67. G.Till, ‘Airpower and the British Admiralty between the World Wars’, US Naval Academy, ed., Changing Interpretations and New Sources in Naval History: Papers from the 3rd. Naval History Symposium (New York and London: Garland, 1980), pp. 340–4, 348–9.

Notes

194

58. Naval Staff, The Development of British Naval Aviation, 1919–1945, vol. I, pp. 63, 70, ADM 234/383. G.Till, Air Power and the Royal Navy: An Historical Survey, 1914–1945 (London: Jane’s, 1979), pp. 128–9. 59. Till, Air Power and the Royal Navy, pp. 99–104. 60. Pound, ‘Mediterranean Fleet Orders’, 30 Dec. 1938, ADM 116/3871. Till, Air Power and the Royal Navy, pp. 128–9, 141, 150, 153–6. Bailey, Social Change in the Royal Navy, pp. 46–9. 61. Cunningham to Pound, 1 Aug., 18 Dec. 1939, BLAM 52560. 62. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 217. 63. Ibid., Odyssey, p. 218. 64. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Aug., 31 Oct. 1939, 26 Mar., 17 Apr., 2 May 1940; Pound to Cunningham, 29 Apr. 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Admiralty, 11 Feb. 1940, ADM 116/4301. Cunningham to North, 1 Apr. 1940, NORTH 2/3. Cdr Barnard to wife, 15 Feb.– 11 Mar. 1940, box 9, Barnard Papers. B.Millman, ‘Credit and Supply in Turkish Foreign Policy and the Tripartite Alliance of October 1939: A Note’, IHR (1994), pp. 70–80. 65. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 224. See correspondence in KEL 42 and 43. 66. R.Brodhurst, ‘Admiral Sir Dudley Pound’, in Murfett, ed., The First Sea Lords, pp. 185– 200. Cunningham, notes, p. 9, BLAM 52580B. 67. S.W.Roskill, ‘Marder, Churchill and the Admiralty, 1939–1942’, RUSIJ (1972), pp. 49–53, sets out the differences of opinion between the two historians on Pound. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals. A.J.Marder, ‘“Winston Is Back”: Churchill at the Admiralty, 1939–1940’, in Marder, ed., Dardanelles to Oran, p. 110. V-Adm P.W.Gretton, Former Naval Person: Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy (London: Cassell, 1968), pp. 252–3. 68. R.Lewin, Churchill as Warlord (London: Batsford, 1973). R.Lamb, Churchill as War Leader (London: Bloomsbury, 1991). N.Rose, Churchill: An Unruly Life (London: Simon and Schuster, 1994). Marder, “‘Winston Is Back’”, pp. 130–7. 69. M.Gilbert, Winston S.Churchill, vol. VI, Finest Hour, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), pp. 155–8, 165–6. Gretton, Former Naval Person, pp. 259–83. 70. Churchill to Pound, 1 Mar. 1940, p. 841; War Cabinet minutes, 18 Mar. 1940, p. 897; see also pp. 1151–2, 1154, 1160, 1189, all in Gilbert, ed., Churchill War Papers, vol. I. 71. Pound to Cunningham, 30 Mar. 1940, BLAM 52560. 72. Pound to Cunningham, 29 Apr., 20 May 1940; Cunningham to Pound, 29 May 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Darlan, 7 May 1940; Blake to Cunningham, 21 May 1940, BLAM 52569. War Cabinet minutes, 28 and 29 Apr., 3 May 1940, pp. 1154, 1160, 1189; Military Co-ordination Cttee, minutes, 27 Apr. 1940, pp. 1151–2, all in Gilbert, Churchill War Papers, vol. I. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 223–7. F.H.Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War (London: HMSO, 1979), vol. I, pp. 191–205. 73. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 225. 74. COS to ME Cs-in-C, 27 Mar., and reply, 12 Apr. 1940, CAB 80/9. JPS, ‘Military Action Open to the Allies’, 1 May 1940, CAB 80/10. COS, 29 May 1940, CAB 79/4. 75. Cunningham to Pound, 2 and 29 May, 9 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Pound, 7 June 1940, BLAM 52566. Cunningham, ‘Operation MX1’, 8 June 1940, ADM 199/880. 76. Minute by P.M., ‘Policy in the Mediterranean’, 28 May 1940, CAB 80/12. Gooch, ‘Chiefs of Staff’, p. 45. 77. Cunningham to Pound, 9 June, Pound to Cunningham, 6 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Pound, 7 June 1940, BLAM 52566. Cunningham to Admiralty, 10 June 1940, ADM 199/386. 78. Cunningham, notes, pp. 3–4, BLAM 52581A. 79. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 462, 527. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, pp. 187, 192. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, pp. 213, 215–18. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, pp. 47, 87. 80. Cunningham to Pound, 29 May 1940, BLAM 52560.

Notes

195

81. JPS, ‘Military Implications of Italian Aggression’, 20 Apr. 1940, CAB 80/10. 82. Mallett, Italian Navy, p. 60. 83. Murray, ‘Role of Italy’, p. 45. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, p. 185. COS, ‘Mediterranean, Middle East and N.E. Africa Appreciation’, 21 Feb. 1938, CAB 16/182. B.R.Sullivan, ‘The Italian Armed Forces’, in W.Murray and A.R.Millett, eds, Military Effectiveness: The Inter-War Period (Boston, MA, and London: Allen & Unwin, 1988), p. 174. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, p. 182. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 9. 84. COS, ‘Mediterranean Appreciation’, 21 Feb. 1938, CAB 16/182. JPS, ‘Measures to Deter Italy’, 27 Mar. 1940, CAB 80/9. 85. V-Adm E.Weichold (German NLO and Naval Commander, Mediterranean, June 1940-Mar. 1943), ‘Axis Naval Policy and Operations in the Mediterranean, 1939–1943’, p. 2, ADM 199/2518. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 363–7. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, pp. 168–89. 86. G.Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, The Mediterranean, South East Europe and North Africa, 1939–1941 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 9. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 75. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, p. 182. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, p. 187. A.Santoni, ‘Italian Naval Policy from 1930 to 1941’, Revue Internationale d’Histoire (1991), p. 92. 87. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, p. 532. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 73–80. Sullivan, ‘The Italian Armed Forces’, pp. 169–70. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, pp. 120–1. 88. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 48–57, 60. Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire, 169–89. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, p. 116. Murray, ‘Role of Italy’, p. 43. M.A.Bragadin, The Italian Navy in World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1957), pp. 3–14. J.Roberts, ‘Italy’, in R.Chesneau, ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1922–1946 (London: Conway Maritime, 1980), p. 280. 89. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, pp. 3–4, ADM 199/2518. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, pp. 106–9, 113–14, 116. Bragadin, Italian Navy in World War II, pp. 11–14. 90. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, p. 177. J.Greene and A.Massignani, The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943 (London: Chatham, 1998), p. 48. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, pp. 3–4, ADM 199/2518. 91. Murray, ‘Role of Italy’, p. 45. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 48. 92. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 68–73, 155. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 47. 93. Santoni, ‘Italian Naval Policy’, pp. 93, and 87–8, 95. Roberts, ‘Italy’, pp. 282–3. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 67, 69. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 42, 45, 53. Bernotti, ‘Italian Naval Policy’, pp. 730–1. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 68–73. Bragadin, Italian Navy in World War II, p. 3. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, p. 118. 94. Roberts, ‘Italy’, pp. 284, 289–90. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 68–73. 95. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 50. 96. Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry’, p. 186. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 15–17, 33–5. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 102–11. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 3, ADM 199/2518. V-Adm Sir A.Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power (London: P.Davies, 1970), pp. 156–7. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, p. 119. Bernotti, ‘Italian Naval Policy’ pp. 730–1. 97. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, pp. 119–20. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 66–7, 73–80, 111–21. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, p. 49. 98. Mallett, Italian Navy, pp. 133–41, 145–7, 150–1. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 28. Salerno, ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, pp. 270–6, 517–18. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 93–4, 119, 123. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, p. 60. Sullivan, ‘Italian Armed Forces’, pp. 176–7, 192. D.C.Watt, ‘Chamberlain’s

Notes

196

Ambassadors’, in M.Dockrill and B.McKercher, eds, Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 144–5. W.K.Wark, ‘Naval Intelligence in Peacetime: Britain’s Problem in Asessing the German Threat, 1933–1939’, in Masterman, ed., Naval History, p. 231. 99. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 231. 100. Pound to Cunningham, 18 Aug. 1939, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Mitchell, 9 Jan., and reply, 17 Jan. 1940, BLAM 52569. 101. Pound to Admiralty, 14 Nov. 1938, ADM 116/3900. 102. MF War Orders, 23 July 1939, ADM 199/877. 103. Cunningham to COS, 6 and 11 May 1940, CAB 80/10. Cunningham to Pound, 9 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 227, 230–3. 104. UK Delegation, ‘Anglo-French Staff Conversations’, 20 Mar. 1939, ADM 205/57. 105. ‘Review of Naval Deficiencies’, 19 Oct. 1938, ADM 116/3637. 106. Pound to Admiralty, 7 Dec. 1938, ADM 116/3900. 107. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 234.

6 Mussolini’s War (June–December 1940) 1. President Franklin D.Roosevelt, Address at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 10 June 1940, US Senate, Addresses and Messages of Franklin D.Roosevelt (London: HMSO, 1943), p. 54. 2. Cunningham to Pound, 15 June 1940, BLAM 52560. 3. MF War Diary, 20–22 June 1940, ADM 199/386. 4. Cunningham to Pound, 27 June 1940, BLAM 52560. 5. Gilbert, Winston S.Churchill, vol. VI, p. 590, and pp. 481, 565–644. 6. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. I, p. 152. 7. Cunningham to Pound, 27 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Pound to Cunningham, 16 June 1940, BLAM 52566. Cunningham to Admiralty, 25 June 1940, BLAM 52569. 8. Cunningham to Admiralty, 28 and 29 June 1940, BLAM 52569. Pound to Cunningham, 28 June 1940, BLAM 52560. 9. Admiralty to Cunningham, and reply, 30 June 1940, BLAM 52566. 10. Ibid., 2 July 1940, BLAM 52566. 11. Ibid., 3 July 1940, BLAM 52566. 12. Interview with Admiral Godfroy, 3 July 1940, BLAM 52569. Cunningham to Admiralty, 3 July 1940 (2 messages), BLAM 52566, 52567. 13. Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers, pp. 37–46, 86–115. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 150–8. 14. Admiralty to Cunningham, 3 July 1940, BLAM 52567. 15. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 250. 16. Admiralty to Cunningham, 4 July 1940, BLAM 52566. Cunningham to Admiralty, 4 July 1940, BLAM 52567. Godfroy to Cunningham, 3 July 1940, BLAM 52569. 17. Cunningham to Admiralty, 1317, 4 July 1940, BLAM 52567. 18. Ibid., 5 July 1940, BLAM 52566. 19. Pound to Cunningham, 24 July 1940, BLAM 52560. 20. Churchill to Alexander and Pound, 7 and 17 July 1940, in Gilbert, ed., The Churchill War Papers, vol. II, pp. 487, 536. V-Adm Tovey to Cunningham, 17 Oct. 1940, BLAM 52569. 21. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 254. Cunningham to Admiralty, 6 July 1940, BLAM 52566. 22. AoF Sir A.U.Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 12, WLLS 12/1.

Notes

197

23. MF War Diary, Nov. 1940, ‘Summary: Political—France’, ADM 199/387. Godfroy to Cunningham, 30 July, and 15 Nov. 1940, BLAM 52569. MF War Diary, 5 and 17 July 1940, ADM 199/386. Lamb, Churchill as War Leader, pp. 63–73. 24. MF War Diary, 17 July 1940, ADM 199/386. MF War Diary, Nov. 1940, ‘Summary: Political—France’, ADM 199/387. 25. Kelly to Churchill and Pound, Aug. 1940, KEL 42. 26. Pound to Cunningham, 16 June 1940, BLAM 52566. COS, 17 and 18 June 1940, CAB 79/4. ‘Military Implications of the Withdrawal of the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet’, 17 June 1940, CAB 80/13. JPS, ‘Future Strategy’, 4 Sept. 1940, CAB 80/17. 27. Cunningham to Pound, 17 and 18 June 1940, BLAM 52566. 28. W.S.Churchill, The Second World War (London: Penguin, 1989), pp. 378–9. 29. Churchill to Cunningham, 9 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52566. 30. M.Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968). J.R.M.Butler, Grand Strategy, vols II and III (London: HMSO, 1957, 1964). 31. COS, 11 Oct. 1940, and numerous dates in July and Aug. 1940, CAB 79/4. 32. ‘Operation MX 1’, 8 June 1940, ADM 199/880. ME Cs-in-C to COS, 5 Aug. 1940, CAB 80/16. 33. MF War Diary, 10–14 June 1940, ADM 199/386. Cunningham to Pound, 15 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. I, pp. 208–12. 34. MF War Diary, 15 and 18 June 1940, ADM 199/386. McKenzie, The Sword of Damocles, p. 87. 35. MF War Diary, 25 June, 12 Aug. 1940, ADM 199/386. Cunningham to Pound, 27 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Pound, 3 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. A.Mars, British Submarines at War, 1939–1945 (London: Kimber, 1971), pp. 80–3. 36. MF War Diary, 3, 25 and 26 Oct. 1940, ADM 199/387. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 238. S.May, ‘The British Submarine Campaign in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943’ (unpub. MPhil, University of Wales, Swansea, 2000). 37. Cunningham to Admiralty, 22 Aug. 1940, ADM 186/800. MF War Diary, 14–30 June 1940, ADM 199/386. Cunningham to Pound, 15 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Churchill to Cunningham, 9 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52566. AoF Sir A.U.Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 10, WLLS 12/1. V-Adm Sir W.Ford (VA Malta) to Admiralty, 7 July 1940, CAB 80/14. ACM Sir A.Longmore, From Sea to Sky, 1910–1945 (London: Bles, 1946), pp. 230–1. 38. Cunningham to Pound, 27 June 1940, BLAM 52560. MF War Diary, 15 and 26 June, 1 and 13 July 1940, ADM 199/386. Cunningham to Admiralty, 16 July 1940, ADM 186/800. 39. Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers, pp. 37–348. MF War Diary, 25 Oct. 1940, ADM 199/387. 40. Minute by Prime Minister, 24 Aug. 1940, CAB 80/17. 41. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52569. MF War Diary, 25 July 1940, ADM 199/386. Cunningham to Admiralty, 22 Aug., 5 Oct. 1940, and Admiralty to Cunningham, 2 Oct. 1940, ADM 186/800. Admiralty to Cunningham, 25 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52567. ME Csin-C, 11 Sept. 1940, CAB 106/722. Cunningham to Pound, 22 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52561. ‘Supplies for Malta’, 16 Aug., and ‘Development of Malta’, 22 Aug. 1940, CAB 80/16. ‘Malta: Use as a Fleet Base’, 8 Oct., and minute by Prime Minister, 15 Oct. 1940, CAB 80/20. E.Bradford, Siege: Malta, 1940–1943 (London: H.Hamilton, 1985), pp. 3–4, 27–8. 42. Cunningham to Pound, 15 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Pound, 19 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52569. Cunningham to Admiralty, 26 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52566. Churchill to Cunningham, 28 Aug. 1940, CAB 80/17. 43. MF War Diary, 15 and 25 July 1940, ADM 199/386. MF War Diary, 9 Sept. 1940, ADM 199/387. Cunningham to Pound, 3 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. ME Cs-in-C, 11 Sept. 1940, CAB 106/722.

Notes

198

44. Cunningham to Pound, 15 June, 13 July 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Pound, 19 Aug., 22 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52569. Cunningham to Admiralty, 16 and 21 July 1940, ADM 186/800. MF War Diary, 14, 26, 27 June, 1 July 1940, ADM 199/386. 45. ‘Report of an Action with the Italian Fleet off Calabria, 9 July 1940’, CAB 106/338. Cunningham to Pound, 13 July 1940, BLAM 52560. MF War Diary, 15 July 1940, ADM 199/386. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 257–66. 46. Cdr G.Barnard to his wife, 17 July 1940, box 9, Barnard Papers. ‘Report of Action, 9 July 1940’, CAB 106/338. 47. Cunningham to Pound, 13 July 1940, BLAM 52560. MF War Diary, 15 July 1940, ADM 199/386. ‘Report of Action, 9 July 1940’, CAB 106/338. 48. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 260. 49. Ibid., p. 262. S.W.Roskill, HMS Warspite (London: Collins, 1957), p. 214. 50. ‘Report of Action, 9 July 1940’, CAB 106/338. Cunningham to Pound, 13 July 1940, BLAM 52560. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 67–81. 51. ‘Report of Action, 9 July 1940’, CAB 106/338. 52. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 77. 53. V-Adm E.Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy and Operations in the Mediterranean, 1939–1943’, p. 7, ADM 199/2518. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 68, 77. J.J.Sadkovitch, ‘The Italian Navy in World War II’, in J.J.Sadkovitch, ed., A Reevaluation of the Major Naval Combatants of World War II (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990), pp. 132, 137. Bragadin, Italian Navy, pp. 24–30. P.C.Smith, Action Imminent: Three Studies of the Naval War in the Mediterranean (London: Kimber, 1980), pp. 54–87. 54. Cunningham to Pound, 13 July 1940, BLAM 52560. ‘Report of Action, 9 July 1940’, CAB 106/338. 55. Cunningham to Pound, 13 July 1940, BLAM 52560. 56. Ibid. ‘Memoir’, ‘The Action with the Italian Fleet off Calabria’, NR (1948), p. 231. 57. Cunningham to Pound, 13 July 1940, BLAM 52560. 58. Barnard to his wife, 17 July 1940, box 9, Barnard Papers. 59. Collins, As Luck Would Have It, pp. 78, 84. Cunningham to Admiralty, 21 Sept. 1940, ADM 199/1048. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 8, ADM 199/2518. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 82–6. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, p. 256. 60. Cunningham to Admiralty, 21 Sept. 1940, ADM 199/1048. 61. MF War Diary, 28 June 1940, ADM 199/386. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 239. Bragadin, Italian Navy, pp. 20–1. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 63, 65. Collins, As Luck Would Have It, pp. 82–3. 62. ‘Report on Operation MB 6, 9–15 Oct. 1940’, ADM 199/446. Cunningham, ‘Observations on Ajax’s Night Action’, 7 Apr. 1941, ADM 199/797. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 14, ADM 199/2518. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 97–8. 63. MF War Diary, 13 and 21 Sept. 1940, ADM 199/387. ‘Report on Operation MB 6’, ADM 199/446. Cunningham to Pound, 16 Oct. 1940, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52569. ‘Aircraft Torpedo Attack on Shipping off El Gazala, 22 Aug. 1940’, ADM 199/798. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 266–71, 274, 279. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 65, 89–91. 64. Cunningham to Admiralty, 16 July 1940, ADM 186/800. 65. Cunningham to Pound, 3 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. 66. Cunningham to Admiralty, 16 July 1940, ADM 186/800. 67. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52569. MF War Diary, 4 Aug. 1940, ADM 199/386.

Notes

199

68. Admiralty to Cunningham, 19 July 1940, and Cunningham to Admiralty, 21 July 1940, ADM 186/800. Pound to Cunningham, 24 July 1940, BLAM 52560. Pound to Cunningham, 14 Aug. 1940 (2), and Cunningham to Pound, 19 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. 69. Prime Minister, minute, 11 Aug., Cunningham to Admiralty, 11 Aug., COS memo, 12 Aug. 1940, CAB 80/16. Churchill to Gen. Ismay, 11 Aug., to Alexander, 13 Aug., 7 Sept. 1940, Gilbert, ed., Churchill War Papers, vol. II, pp. 649, 664–5, 785. Churchill to Cunningham, 9 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52566. Pound to Cunningham, 20 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52561. 70. V-Adm Sir J.Somerville, ‘RoP, 30 Aug.-3 Sept. 1940’, SMVL 7/4. 71. ‘Operation HATS, 29 Aug.-5 Sept. 1940’, ADM 199/1049. Cunningham to Kelly, 15 Sept. 1940, KEL 43. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 11, ADM 199/2518. 72. Cunningham to Pound, 27 June 1940, BLAM 52560. Cunningham to Pound, 19 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 240, 280. 73. MF War Diary, 30 June, 12 Aug. 1940, ADM 199/386. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 274–5, 281, 74. MF War Diary, 13 Sept. 1940, ADM 199/387. Pound to Cunningham, 20 Sept., Cunningham to Pound, 22 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52561. Blake to Cunningham, 25 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52569. ‘Report on Operation MB 6’, ADM 199/446. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 240. 75. Mallett, Italian Navy, p. 171, and pp. 166–73. Cunningham to Pound, 19 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 150. D. Alves, ‘The Resupply of Malta in World War II’, NWCR (1980), p. 65. 76. NID Mediterranean, ‘Italy: Conduct of War in Mediterranean’, 25 June 1939, ADM 223/488. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, pp. 122–3. 77. ‘Report of Mediterranean Intelligence Centre’, 30 Sept. 1940, ADM 223/89. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 11, ADM 199/2518. ‘Operation MB 5, 28 Sept.–3 Oct. 1940’, ADM 199/1049. 78. Cunningham to Pound, 3 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. 79. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 258–9. Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power, p. 163. M.Simpson, ‘Wings Over the Sea: The Interaction of Air and Sea Power in the Mediterranean, 1940–1942’, in N.A.M.Rodger, ed., Naval Power in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 134–50. 80. Cunningham to Pound, 3 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. 81. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52569. Pound to Cunningham, 24 July 1940, BLAM 52560. MF War Diary, 25 Sept. 1940, ADM 199/387. 82. Cunningham to Pound, 19 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52561. 83. MF War Diary, 5 July 1940, ADM 199/386. 84. ‘Narrative of Attack on Bardia, 15–17 Aug. 1940’, ADM 199/446. 85. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52569. Cunningham to Admiralty, 26 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52566. Churchill to Cunningham, 28 Aug. 1940, CAB 80/17. ME Cs-in-C, 11 Sept. 1940, CAB 106/722. Cunningham to Pound, 22 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 25 Oct. 1940, ADM 199/387. 86. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 281. Minute by Prime Minister, 15 July 1940, CAB 80/14. Admiralty to Cunningham, 25 Aug. 1940, BLAM 52567. Churchill to Cunningham, 9 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52566. ME Cs-in-C, 11 Sept. 1940, CAB 106/722. Longmore, From Sea to Sky, p. 225. 87. Cunningham to Blake, 29 Aug. 1940, Blake to Cunningham, 25 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52569. Capt E.H.Lee to author, 20 Oct. 1997. 88. MF War Diary, 27–29 Oct., 1, 3, 16, 19 Nov., 3 and 29 Dec. 1940, ADM 199/387. Cunningham to Naval Attaché, Athens, 31 Oct. 1940, ADM 199/810. Cunningham to Pound, 21 Nov. 1940, BLAM 52561. ‘Report on Operations MC 2 and MC 3, 16–24 Dec. 1940’, ADM 199/797. ‘Crete’, 11 Nov. 1940, CAB 80/22. 89. MF War Diary, 4, 5, 14–16, 23, 25, 26, 30 Nov., 3, 16, 29 Dec., and ‘General Appreciation’, 1940, ADM 199/387. COS, 5 Nov. 1940, CAB 79/4. ‘Military Mission to Greece’, 5 Dec.

Notes

200

1940, CAB 80/24. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 282–3. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 337–40. 90. Churchill to Cunningham, 9 Sept. 1940, Cunningham to Pound, 10 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52566. Cunningham to Pound, 22 Sept. 1940, BLAM 52561. Tovey to Cunningham, 17 Oct. 1940, BLAM 52569. 91. V-Adm B.B.Schofield, The Attack on Taranto (London: Ian Allan, 1973), pp. 15–16, 22. C.Lamb, War in a Stringbag (London: Cassell, 1977), pp. 96–8. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 283–5. 92. ‘Report on Operation MB 8, 6–14 Nov. 1940’, ADM 199/797. ‘FAA Operations against Taranto’, CAB 106/616. 93. ‘Report on MB 8’, ADM 199/797. 94. ‘Report on MB 8’, ADM 199/797. 95. ‘Report on MB 8’, ADM 199/797. ‘Development of British Naval Aviation’, I, pp. 131–3, ADM 234/383. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 101–14. Lamb, Stringbag, p. 107. Schofield, Taranto, pp. 32–54. 96. Lamb, Stringbag, p. 113. 97. ‘FAA Operations against Taranto’, CAB 106/616. 98. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 286. 99. ‘FAA Operations against Taranto’, CAB 106/616. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 286. V-Adm Sir M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 50, MANP. V-Adm Sir G.Barnard, ‘The Battle of Matapan’, NR (1946), p. 309. 100. ‘FAA Operations against Taranto’, CAB 106/616. Godfroy to Cunningham, 15 Nov. 1940, BLAM 52569. Cunningham to R-Adm H.England, 23 Nov. 1940, CUNN 5/3. Simpson, ed., The Cunningham Papers, vol. I, pp. 174–89. 101. ‘Report on Operation COLLAR, 23–30 Nov. 1940’, ADM 199/797. Pound to Cunningham, 1 Dec. 1940, Cunningham to Pound, 5 Jan. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 290–3. MF War Diary, 26 Nov. 1940, ADM 199/387. Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers, pp. 189–218. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 1116–23. 102. ‘Report on COLLAR’, ADM 199/797. 103. ‘Report on Operations MC 2 and MC 3, 16–23 Dec. 1940’, ADM 199/797. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Jan. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 16 Dec. 1940, ADM 199/387. 104. MF War Diary, Nov. 1940, ADM 199/387. 105. Cunningham to Admiralty, 22 Aug. 1940, ADM 186/800. 106. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, Dec. 1940, ADM 199/387. G.Giorgerini, ‘The Role of Malta in Italian Naval Operations, 1940–43’, in Dept. of History, US Naval Academy, eds, New Aspects of Naval History: Selected Papers from the 5th Naval History Symposium (Baltimore, MD: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Co. of America, 1985), p. 190. 107. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 296–8. 108. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Jan. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 9, 16, 17 Dec. 1940, ADM 199/387. MF War Diary, 2 and 5 Jan. 1941, ADM 199/414. 109. ‘Operations in Support of the Army, 7 Dec. 1940–31 May 1941’, ADM 199/446. MF War Diary, 5 Jan. 1941, ADM 199/414. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 298–300. 110. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 295. 111. Pound to Cunningham, 1 Dec. 1940, BLAM 52561. 112. Churchill to Cunningham, 12 Dec. 1940, BLAM 52567. Keyes to Cunningham, 3 Dec. 1940, BLAM 52569. 113. Cunningham to Pound, 21 Nov. 1940, BLAM 52561. 114. Cunningham to Churchill, 12 Dec. 1940, BLAM 52567. COS 10 Dec. 1940, CAB 79/4. 115. Pound to Cunningham, 12 Dec. 1940, BLAM 52561. Pound to Cunningham, 15 Dec. 1940, BLAM 52567. COS, 4 Nov. 1940, CAB 79/4. R.Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor: The

Notes

201

Biography of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (Barnsley, Yorks.: Pen and Sword, 2000), pp. 187–8. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 290–1. 116. Cunningham to England, 23 Nov. 1940, CUNN 5/3. MF War Diary, 2 Jan. 1941, ADM 199/414. ‘The Development of British Naval Aviation’, I, p. 161, ADM 234/383. 117. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Jan. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, Nov. 1940, and ‘General Appreciation’, Dec. 1940, ADM 199/387. 118. Cunningham to Pound, 21 Nov. 1940, 5 Jan. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Kelly, 8 Dec. 1940, KEL 43. MF War Diary, 18 Nov., and ‘Summary’, Nov., and 3, 9, 14, 16 Dec. 1940, ADM 199/387. ‘Submarines’, II, ‘Operations in the Mediterranean’, ADM 234/381. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 123, 127. 119. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, Nov. 1940, ADM 199/387. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 124, 128. Schofield, Taranto, pp. 18–19. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, pp. 199, 214, 260, 270. 120. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, Nov. 1940, ADM 199/387. 121. MF War Diary, ‘General Appreciation’, Dec. 1940, ADM 199/387.

7 Triumph into Tragedy (January–May 1941) 1. MF War Diary, ‘General Appreciation’, Feb. 1941, ADM 199/414. 2. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, pp. 270–3. H.E.Raugh, Wavell in the Middle East, 1939–1941: A Study in Generalship (London: Brassey’s, 1993), pp. 96–131. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 341, 399, 400, 447–8, 470–96. V-Adm. E. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy and Operations in the Mediterranean, 1939–1943’, pp. 10–12, 15, 29, 34, ADM 199/2518. Adm Sir H.Kelly to Cunningham, 24 Mar., 17 and 25 Apr. 1941, KEL 42. 3. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 301. V-Adm Sir J.Somerville, ‘RoP, 7–11 Jan. 1941’, SMVL 7/6. 4. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 302–3. ‘Report on Operation EXCESS’, CAB 106/346. 5. Capt D.Boyd to Controller, 12 Feb. 1941, PREM 3/274/2. Lamb, Stringbag, pp. 124–5. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 133–4. Gallant became a total loss. 6. ‘Report on Operation EXCESS’, CAB 106/346. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Jan. 1941, BLAM 52561. V-Adm Sir M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 23–4, MANP. Lamb, Stringbag, pp. 121– 2. 7. Boyd to Controller, 12 Feb., Cunningham to Admiralty, 30 Jan. 1941, PREM 3/274/2. MF War Diary, 15–25 Jan. and ‘Summary’, Jan. 1941, ADM 199/414. ‘Passage of HMS Illustrious’, ADM 199/446. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Jan., 10 Feb. 1941, Pound to Cunningham, 8 Feb. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham’s ‘Observations’, ‘Report on EXCESS’, CAB 106/346. Somerville, ‘RoP, 12–20 Jan. 941’, SMVL 7/6. Lamb, Stringbag, p. 141. Simpson, ‘Wings over the Sea’, pp. 134–50. 8. Cunningham, ‘Observations’, ‘Report on EXCESS’, CAB 106/346. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 23, ADM 199/2518. 9. Cunningham to Pound, 22 Apr., and to Admiralty, 4 Mar., Cunningham to Pound, 17 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 11 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, notes, p. 95, BLAM 52581A. MF War Diary, 25 and 27 Feb., 8 May 1941, ADM 199/414. ‘Operation MC 8, 21 Feb. 1941’, ADM 199/797. ‘Report on Malta Convoy, 20–24 Mar. 1941’, ADM 199/445. ME Cs-in-C, 9 Apr. 1941, CAB 106/722. 10. Cunningham to Pound, 11 Mar., 3 May 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 25 Feb., 4 Mar., 6 and 30 May 1941, ADM 199/414. 11. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 132–7.

Notes

202

12. Pound to Cunningham, 8 Feb., Cunningham to Pound, 3 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Pound, 16 and 17 Mar., and reply, 16 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Admiralty, 30 Jan. 1941, PREM 3/274/2. MF War Diary, 26 Jan., 9, 25, 27 Feb., 7, 11 Mar., 30 Apr., 8 May 1941, ADM 199/414. Longmore, From Sea to Sky, p. 261. 13. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Jan., 11 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 27 Feb., 7 Mar., ‘Summary’, Apr., 2 and 7 May 1941, ADM 199/414. 14. MF War Diary, 4 Feb. 1941, ADM 199/414. 15. Ibid., ‘Summary’, Jan., 4, 16, 27 Feb., ‘Summary’, Apr. 1941, ADM 199/414. Pound to Cunningham, 23 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. ‘Air Reinforcements for the Middle East’, 2 Jan. 1941, CAB 80/25. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 41, ADM 199/2518. Longmore, From Sea to Sky, pp. 266–7. Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power, p. 164. 16. MF War Diary, 15 Jan., 2, 4, 27 Feb., 2, 29 Apr., 2, 16, 22 May 1941, ADM 199/414. Hezlet, Submarine and Sea Power, pp. 139–41. R-Adm. G.W.G.Simpson, Periscope View: A Professional Autobiography (London: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 101–2, 109, 120. S.May, ‘Strangling Rommel: British Submarine Commanders in the Mediterranean, June 1940 to September 1943’, MM (2002), pp. 456–68. 17. Cunningham to Pound, 22 and 25 Apr., Churchill to Cunningham, 16 Apr., Pound to Cunningham, 23 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 18 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, notes, pp. 76, 92, BLAM 52581A. MF War Diary, 7 and 25 Apr., ‘Summary’, Apr., 10 May 1941, ADM 199/414. ‘Report of an Action against an Italian Convoy, 15–16 Apr. 1941’, CAB 106/339. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 38, ADM 199/2518. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 162–4. 18. MF War Diary, 9 and 13 Feb. 1941, ADM 100/414. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 658–9, 686–7. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. I, p. 401. 19. Exchange of signals between Pound and Cunningham, 4 Apr.-2 May 1941, BLAM 52567. COS, 9 Apr. 1941, CAB 79/10. 20. Adm J.H.Godfrey, ‘Autobiography’, p. 302, extract in DUPO 6/1. Admiralty to Cunningham, 15 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. 21. Cunningham to Pound, 2111, 15 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. F.W.Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974), p. 69. 22. Cunningham to Pound, 2111, 15 Apr., and 0932, 16 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. 23. Pound to Cunningham, 1855, 15 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. 24. Churchill to Pound, 14 Apr. 1941, ADM 178/322. Churchill to Pound, 14 Apr. 1941, PREM 3/274/1. 25. Cunningham to Pound, 2111, 15 and 16 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. ‘Report of Action against Italian Convoy’, CAB 106/339. 26. COS to ME Cs-in-C, 16 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham, notes, p. 92, BLAM 52581A. 27. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 342. Cunningham to Churchill, 17 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. 28. ‘Operations MD 2 and MD 3: Bombardment of Tripoli’, ADM 199/798. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 38, ADM 199/2518. 29. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 348, and pp. 341–51. 30. Cunningham to Pound, 22 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. 31. Churchill to Cunningham, 26 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. 32. Cunningham to Churchill, 26 and 29 Apr., Churchill to Cunningham, 26 Apr., Pound to Cunningham, 28 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, p. 189. 33. H.Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned, pp. 176–96. MF War Diary, 5, 19, 26, 27, 29, and ‘Summary’ Jan., 1–13 Feb. 1941 and ‘General Appreciation’, ADM 199/414. Exchange of signals, Pound and Cunningham, 18 and 27 Jan., 10 Feb., 11 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52561. Eden to Churchill, 20 Feb. 1941, BLAM 52569. 34. ME Cs-in-C, 9 Apr., and 6 Apr. 1941, CAB 106/722.

Notes

203

35. Cunningham, address at Foyle’s Literary Luncheon, 28 Mar. 1951, BLAM 52575. ‘Operations in Support of the Army: The Siege of Tobruk’, ADM 199/799. 36. ‘Siege of Tobruk’, ADM 199/799. 37. Adm Sir W.Cowan to Cunningham, 16 Jan. 1942, BLAM 52562. ‘Operations in Support of the Army, 7 Dec. 1940–31 May 1941’, ADM 199/446. 38. ‘Siege of Tobruk’, ADM 199/799. MF War Diary, ‘General Appreciation’, Feb. 1941, ADM 199/414. 39. COS, 30 Dec. 1940, 13, 16 and 18 Jan. 1941, CAB 79/4. 40. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Jan. 1941. 41. Cunningham to Pound, 11 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52561. 42. Cunningham to Admiralty, 5 Mar. 1941, ADM 223/683. Cunningham to Kelly, 5 Mar. 1941, KEL 42. P.C.Smith and E.Walker, War in the Aegean (London: Kimber, 1974), pp. 17, 22. G.St J.Barclay, ְ‘“Butcher and Bolt”: Admiral Roger Keyes and British Combined Operations, 1940–41’, NWCR (1982), pp. 23–4. 43. Cunningham to Pound, 10 Feb. 1941, BLAM 52561. 44. Cunningham to Pound 10 Feb., 11 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Admiralty, 4 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52567. R-Adm H.T.Baillie-Grohman, ‘Flashlights on the Past’, II, p. 147, GRO 33. 45. Eden to Churchill, 20 Feb. 1941, BLAM 52569. Raugh, Wavell, pp. 132–67. 46. Eden to Churchill, 20 Feb. 1941, BLAM 52569. MF War Diary, 17 Jan. and ‘Summary’, Jan., 17 Feb. 1941, ADM 199/414. Pound to Cunningham, 8 Feb. 1941, BLAM 52561. Lewin, Churchill as Warlord, pp. 67–8. 47. Cunningham to Pound, 11 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Kelly, 5 Mar. 1941, KEL 43. Longmore, From Sea to Sky, p. 263. 48. Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned, pp. 86–7. 49. V-Adm Sir G.Barnard, 25 Feb. 1969, in DUPO 8/1. AoF Sir A.U.Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 16, WLLS 12/1. Baillie-Grohman, ‘Flashlights on the Past’, II, p. 150, GR033. 50. Cunningham to Admiralty, 4 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52567. 51. ‘Report on Operation LUSTRE’, CAB 106/339. 52. Cunningham to Pound, 11 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, Mar. 1941, ADM 199/414. 53. MF War Diary, 3 Apr. 1941, ADM 199/414. 54. I.S.O.Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. I (London: HMSO, 1954), p. 83. 55. MF War Diary, 2, 7, 10, 12 Apr. 1941, ADM 199/414. A.Heckstall-Smith and H.T. BaillieGrohman, Greek Tragedy (London: Blond, 1961), pp. 25–41, 48, 57–8, 61–2. 56. ‘Report on Operation DEMON’, CAB 106/639. 57. Heckstall-Smith and Baillie-Grohman, Greek Tragedy, p. 148, and pp. 104–96. ‘Report on Operation DEMON’, CAB 106/639. R-Adm R.L.Fisher, Salt Horse: A Naval Life (privately printed, 1986), p. 132. 58. Cunningham, ‘Observations’, ‘Report on Operation DEMON’, CAB 106/639. HeckstallSmith and Baillie-Grohman, Greek Tragedy, pp. 104–96, 209–30. 59. ‘Report on Operation DEMON’, CAB 106/639. Heckstall-Smith and Baillie-Grohman, Greek Tragedy, pp. 175–206. 60. Cunningham, notes, p. 100, BLAM 52581A. Heckstall-Smith and Baillie-Grohman, Greek Tragedy, pp. 206–8. Cunningham to Baillie-Grohman, 9 May 1961, XGRO 2. Cunningham to Kelly, 18 May 1941, KEL 43. Lt-Cdr D.M.S.Stitt, ‘Mediterranean Fleet Narratives’, PWL 9. D.A.Thomas, Crete 1941: The Battle at Sea (London: Deutsch, 1972), pp. 92, 102–7. Alliston, Destroyer Man, p. 64. 61. MF War Diary, 24 and 25 Apr. 1941, ADM 199/414. Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned, p. 106. 62. Fisher, Salt Horse, pp. 135–6.

Notes

204

63. Lewin, Churchill as Warlord, pp. 67, 70. 64. Heckstall-Smith and Baillie-Grohman, Greek Tragedy, pp. 7–8. 65. Cunningham to Admiralty, 8 July 1941, ADM 199/806. 66. Ibid., 2 May 1941, and Admiralty to Cunningham, Churchill to Cunningham, 1 May, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 3 and 18 May 1941, BLAM 52561. ME Cs-in-C, 21 May 1941, CAB 106/722. COS, 2 May 1941, CAB 79/10. 67. V-Adm Iachino, ‘Gaudo and Matapan’ (1946, trans.), pp. 20–1, 27–8, 33, BLAM 52584. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 142–3, 146–50. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 664–70. 68. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 150. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, pp. 23, 35, 38, BLAM 52584. ‘Matapan: Signals’, ADM 223/511. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. I, pp. 403–4. J.Winton, Ultra at Sea (London: Leo Cooper, 1988), pp. 16– 20. R.Seth, Two Fleets Surprised: The Story of the Battle of Cape Matapan (London: Bles, 1960), pp. 21–2, 28, 30. S.W.C.Pack, The Battle of Matapan (London: Batsford, 1961). 69. Signals from Cunningham to various commands, 1814–1852, 26 Mar. 1941, ‘Matapan’, ADM 199/781. 70. Capt E.H.Lee, conversation with author, 29 Nov. 1996. Cunningham, ‘Observations’ and ‘Narrative of the C-in-C’, ‘Despatch on the Battle of Matapan’, CAB 106/628. 71. Capt Lee to author, 20 Oct. 1997. 72. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, p. 45, BLAM 52584. 73. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, p. 121, BLAM 52584. 74. V-Adm Pridham-Wippell’s report, CAB 106/628. Capt Lee to author, 20 Oct. 1997. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, pp. 39–40, 47–51, 53, 55, 57, BLAM 52584. Bragadin, Italian Navy, pp. 88–98. 75. Capt E.H.Lee to the author, 20 Oct. 1997. 76. ‘Narrative of the C-in-C’, CAB 106/628. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, pp. 58–9, BLAM 52584. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 28, MANP. 77. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 29, MANP. 78. AoF Sir A.U.Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 19, WLLS 12/1. 79. ‘Narrative of C-in-C’, CAB 106/628. DNAD, 21 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/781. Barnard, ‘Matapan’, p. 306. 80. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, p. 72, and pp. 75–8, 84, BLAM 52584. 81. Barnard, ‘Matapan’, p. 302, and pp. 303, 307. 82. Cunningham, address at Foyle’s, 28 Mar. 1951, BLAM 52575. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 330–4. POW statements, ADM 223/511. 83. Grove, ‘Andrew Browne Cunningham’, pp. 435–6. ‘Narrative of the C-in-C’, CAB 106/628. Cunningham to Italian CNS, 0003, 31 Mar. 1941, ADM 223/511. 84. Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 28–9, MANP. 85. Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 19, WLLS 12/1. Cunningham to Kelly, 11 Apr. 1941, KEL 43. Cunningham, ‘Observations’, CAB 106/628. 86. Cunningham, ‘Observations’, CAB 106/628. 87. Ibid., and Pridham-Wippell, report, CAB 106/628. Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 29–31, MANP. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, pp. 42, 45, BLAM 52584. M.Stephen (ed. E.J.Grove), Sea Battles in Close Up: World War II (Shepperton, Middx: Ian Allan, 1988), p. 54. 88. DNAD, remarks, 10 Mar. 1942, ‘Matapan’, ADM 199/781. 89. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 28, MANP. Cunningham to Kelly, 11 Apr. 1941, KEL 43. Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power, pp. 166–8. 90. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. I, p. 405. R.Lewin, Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story (London: Hutchinson, 1978), p. 197. 91. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 335–7. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, pp. 44, 90, BLAM 52584. Sullivan, ‘A Fleet in Being’, p. 123. 92. Cunningham, Foyle’s, 28 Mar. 1951, BLAM 52575. 93. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, p. 122, BLAM 52584.

Notes

205

94. Cunningham, in Seth, Two Fleets Surprised, p. xxi. Iachino, ‘Matapan’, pp. 88, 119–20, BLAM 52584. 95. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 160. 96. Cunningham to Kelly, 11 Apr. 1941, KEL 43. Cunningham, ‘Observations’, CAB 106/ 628. Iachino. ‘Matapan’, p. 121, BLAM 52584. Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 19, WLLS 12/1. 97. Cunningham, ‘Observations’, CAB 106/628, and signals, ADM 223/511, 199/781. 98. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 360. MF War Diary, 28 Apr., 2 and 4 May 1941, ADM 199/414. 99. Cunningham to Pound, 3 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 361–3. MF War Diary, 6–12 May 1941, ADM 199/414. Somerville, ‘RoP, 28 Apr.–12 May 1941’, SMVL 7/8. 100. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 361. MF War Diary, 2, 6, 9 May 1941, ADM 199/414. Churchill to Cunningham, 1 May 1941, BLAM 52567. Roskill, The War at Sea, vol. I, p. 437. 101. Cunningham, Foyle’s, 28 Mar. 1951, BLAM 52575. Cunningham to Admiralty, 25 Apr., Cunningham to Churchill, 29 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 357, 366. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, Jan., 7, 13, 27 Feb., 26 Mar., 29 Apr., 6 May 1941, ADM 199/414. JPS, ‘Situation in the Mediterranean and Middle East’, COS, 12 May 1941, CAB 79/10. 102. ME Cs-in-C, 28 and 9 Apr. 1941, CAB 106/722. 103. Churchill, quoted in Thomas, Crete, 1941, pp. 112–13. 104. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol.I, p. 419. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 43, ADM 199/2518. 105. JIC, memo, COS, 28 Apr. 1941, CAB 79/10. ME Cs-in-C, 13 May 1941, CAB 106/722. MF War Diary, 14 May 1941, ADM 199/414. V-Adm Sir G.Barnard, 25 Feb. 1969, DUPO 8/1. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 357–8. Butler, Grand Strategy, vol.II, pp. 510–16. 106. ‘Summary’, Apr. 1941, MF War Diary, ADM 199/414. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 May 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 3 and 18 May 1941, BLAM 52561. 107. COS to ME Cs-in-C, 1574B, 9 May 1941, ADM 223/345. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. I, p. 415. 108. ME Cs-in-C, 13 May 1941, CAB 106/722. C.MacDonald, The Lost Battle: Crete, 1941 (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 137–8. 109. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 366–8. MF War Diary, 14 May 1941, ADM 199/414. 110. ‘Narrative by C-in-C: Phases I and II’, in ‘Report on Battle of Crete’, CAB 106/640. ME Cs-in-C, 13 May 1941, CAB 106/722. 111. MacDonald, Lost Battle, pp. 197–203. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 533, 543–55. A.Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (London: Murray, 1991), pp. 156–8. 112. ‘Narrative by C-in-C: Phase III’, CAB 106/640. 113. ‘Narrative by C-in-C’, 21 and 22 May 1941, CAB 106/640. R-Adm Rawlings to Jackal, Kelvin, 2155, 22 May, and to D5 (Mountbatten), 2143, 22 May 1941, ADM 223/345. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, pp. 42–3, ADM 199/2518. MacDonald, Lost Battle, pp. 237– 43. Beevor, Crete, pp. 160, 167. Thomas, Crete, 1941, pp. 138–49. Fisher, Salt Horse, p. 139. S.W.C.Pack, The Battle for Crete (Shepperton, Middx: Ian Allan, 1973), pp. 35, 40. 114. C-in-C to Fleet, 24 May 1941, MF War Diary, ADM 199/414. Cunningham to Pound, 23 May 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham, signals to forces, 22 May 1941, ADM 223/345. MacDonald, Lost Battle, pp. 243–54. 115. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 374. Admiralty to Cunningham, and reply, 24 May 1941, BLAM 52566. 116. COS to ME Cs-in-C, 25 May 1941, CAB 79/11. 117. Cunningham to Admiralty, 26 May 1941, BLAM 52567. COS, 25 May 1941, CAB 79/11. Gilbert, Winston S.Churchill, vol. I, p. 1095.

Notes

206

118. ‘Narrative by C-in-C’, 27 May 1941, CAB 106/640. MF War Diary, 26 May 1941, ADM 199/414. Correspondence between Churchill and Pound, ADM 205/10. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, pp. 174–6. 119. ‘Narrative by C-in-C’, 23 May 1941, and ‘Dispatch on Evacuation of Crete’, and ‘Phase IV: C-in-C’s Observations’, CAB 106/640. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 378–81. MacDonald, Lost Battle, pp. 282–94. 120. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 384, and pp. 382–5. AM Sir A.W.Tedder to Cunningham, 27 May 1941, MF War Diary, ADM 199/414. Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned, pp. 142–54. 121. Cunningham to Admiralty, 29 May 1941, MF War Diary, ADM 199/414. Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned, p. 136. 122. This version is from V-Adm Sir G.Barnard, n.d., 1952, box 9, Barnard Papers. 123. ‘Dispatch on Evacuation’, CAB 106/640. Cunningham to Pound, 30 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Pound, and reply, 31 May 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 0445C and 1043C, and Cunningham to Admiralty, 1 June 1941, ADM 199/810. Cunningham, notes, p. 122, BLAM 52581A. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 385–9. M of RAF Lord Tedder, ‘Air, Land and Sea Warfare’, RUSIJ (1946), p. 63. 124. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 391. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 33, MANP. 125. Cunningham to Pound, 28 May 1941, BLAM 52567. 126. Cdr G.Barnard to his wife, 3 June 1941, box 9, Barnard Papers. 127. Cunningham to Pound, 30 May, and 3 and 18 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Admiralty, 22 Nov. 1946, BLAM 52573. Cunningham, Foyle’s, 28 Mar. 1951, BLAM 52575. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 May 1941, BLAM 52567. 128. Capt D.M.Lees, ‘Appreciation’, NR (1963), p. 262. 129. Recollections of Capt E.H.Lee and Cdr J.Somerville. Ollard, Fisher and Cunningham, p. 116. E.J.Grove, Sea Battles in Close Up, vol. II (Shepperton, Middx: Ian Allan, 1993), pp. 50–1. 130. Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 33, 37, MANP. 131. Cunningham to Pound, 30 May 1941, BLAM 52561. ‘General Observations’, CAB 106/640. Cunningham to R-Adm H.M.Burrough, 30 June 1941, CUNN 5/2. O.Warner, Admiral of the Fleet: The Life of Sir Charles Lambe (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1969), p. 101. 132. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 390. 133. Cunningham to Pound, 30 May 1941, BLAM 52561 S.W.Roskill, ‘Marder, Churchill and the Admiralty’, p. 30. 134. Capt M.L.Power, comments on Air Council to Admiralty, 18 Oct., and Cunningham to Admiralty, 23 Nov. 1946, BLAM 52573. Cunningham to Pound, 30 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Willis, 12 June 1941, CUNN 5/9. Cunningham to Roskill, n.d., c. 1952, ROSK 6/28. 135. M of RAF Viscount Tedder, With Prejudice (London: Cassell, 1966), p. 105. Tedder to ACM Portal, 2 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. 136. Cunningham to Pound, 30 May 1941, BLAM 52561. 137. Tedder, With Prejudice, pp. 98, 112. Air Council to Admiralty, 18 Oct. 1946, BLAM 52573. Tedder to Portal, 30 May 1941, AIR 23/1395. Tedder to ACM Freeman, 3 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. 138. Alliston, Destroyer Man, pp. 62, 65, 67, 74–80. Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned, pp. 120, 142–3. Tedder to Freeman, 3 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. 139. Cunningham to Pound, 28 May 1941, BLAM 52567. Cdr J.Somerville to author, 4 Mar. 1999. 140. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, p. 175. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 33, MANP. 141. Pound to Cunningham, 19 June 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 Nov. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9. 142. Thomas, Crete, 1941, p. 253.

Notes

207

143. Cunningham to Pound, and reply, 31 May 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 0445C and 1043C, and to Admiralty, 1 June 1941, ADM 199/810. ‘Narrative by C-in-C’, CAB 106/640. Somerville to Cunningham, 12 June 1941, BLAM 52563. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 385–9, 392–3. Tedder to Freeman, 29 May 1941, AIR 23/1386. A.Danchev, ‘Waltzing with Winston’, in P.Smith, ed., Government and the Armed Forces in Britain, 1856–1990 (London: Hambledon, 1996), pp. 191–216. 144. ‘General Observations’, in ‘Battle of Crete’, and ‘Observations’, in ‘Evacuation of Crete’, CAB 106/640. R.H.Spector, At War at Sea: Sailors in Naval Warfare in the Twentieth Century (London: A.Lane, 2001), pp. 166–84. 145. Cunningham to Roskill, n.d., c. 1952, ROSK 6/28. Admiralty to Cunningham and reply, 24 May 1941, BLAM 52566. Cunningham to Admiralty, 26 May 1941, BLAM 52567. COS to ME Cs-in-C, 25 May 1941, CAB 79/11. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 375–6, 378. Tedder, With Prejudice, pp. 101, 110–11. 146. ‘Summary’, May 1941, MF War Diary, ADM 199/414. 147. Cunningham to Pound, 3 May 1941, BLAM 52561. 148. Ibid., 11 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52561. 149. MF War Diary, 19 Jan. 1941, ADM 199/414. Cunningham to Pound, 3 and 18 May 1941, BLAM 52561. 150. MF War Diary, 17 Jan., 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, 27 Feb., 4 Mar. 1941, ADM 199/414. Cunningham to Admiralty, 4 Mar. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 11 Mar., 18 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Kelly, 5 Mar. 1941, KEL 43. COS, ‘Suez Canal’, 29 May 1941, CAB 79/11. 151. Cunningham to Admiralty, 30 Jan. 1941, PREM 3/274/2. MF War Diary, 15 and 19 Jan., 20 Feb. 1941, ADM 199/414. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 May 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 18 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 317, 322, 349, 351. Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 14, WLLS 12/1. Tedder to Portal, 15 May, and to his wife, 22 May 1941, T 70. 152. Cunningham to Pound, 30 May 1941, BLAM 52561. Longmore, From Sea to Sky, p. 282. Tedder, With Prejudice, pp. 50, 71, 77, 81–2. 153. Longmore, From Sea to Sky, p. 269, and pp. 257, 268, 280. Tedder to Freeman, 3 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. Tedder, With Prejudice, pp. 73–5, 77. 154. Tedder to his wife, 22 Apr., 2 May 1941, T 70. Tedder to Freeman, 3 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. Tedder, With Prejudice, pp. 73–5. 155. Churchill to Cunningham, 1 May, and reply, 2 May 1941, BLAM 52567. 156. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 351. Freeman to Tedder, 3 and 5 May 1941, AIR 23/1386. Tedder to Portal, 26 May 1941, file 8, box C, Portal Papers. 157. Cunningham to Roskill, n.d., c. 1952, ROSK 6/28. 158. Longmore, From Sea to Sky, p. 262. 159. Tedder, ‘Air, Land and Sea Warfare’, p. 62. ME Cs-in-C, 22 Jan., 9 and 28 Apr. 1941, CAB 106/722. COS to ME Cs-in-C, 18 Apr. 1941, CAB 79/10. 160. Cunningham to Pound, 3 May 1941, BLAM 52561. 161. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 318, and pp. 310–11. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 32, MANP. Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 20, WLLS 12/1. 162. Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 23–4, 38, MANP. 163. Ibid., pp. 22, 23, 27, MANP. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 301–2. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, pp. 127, 193.

Notes

208

8 The Caged Tiger (June 1941–April 1942) 1. Cunningham to Kelly, 4 Aug. 1941, KEL 43. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, July 1941, ADM 199/415. 2. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 June 1941, BLAM 52567. 3. Cunningham to Pound, 28 May 1941, BLAM 52567. 4. Ibid. 5. Cunningham to Pound, 28 May, and Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 June 1941, BLAM 52567. 6. Cunningham to Pound, 11 June 1941, BLAM 52561. 7. COS, ‘Situation in the Middle East’, 21 June, ‘Appreciation by JPS’, 22 July, and ‘Middle East Situation’, 24 July 1941, CAB 79/13. 8. G.Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, p. 766. ‘Appreciation by JPS’, 22 July 1941, CAB 79/13. 9. ‘Appreciation by JPS’, 22 July 1941, CAB 79/13. 10. JPS, ‘The Strategic Necessity for Holding the Present Middle East Position’, 24 July 1941, CAB 79/13. 11. Cunningham, quoted in ACM Sir H.Lloyd, ‘Allied Air Power in the Mediterranean, 1940– 1945’, RUSIJ (1947), pp. 565–6. 12. Kelly to Cunningham, 12 June, 24 Mar. 1942, KEL 42. MF War Diary, 2 July, 3 Aug. 1941, ADM 199/415. 13. Cunningham to Pound, 11 June 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 June 1941, BLAM 52567. ME Cs-in-C, 4 June 1941, CAB 106/722. MF War Diary, 14 June, and ‘Summary’, June 1941, ADM 199/415. 14. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, June 1941, ADM 199/415. 15. MF War Diary, 7, 9, 10, 13, 16, 19, 23 June, 3 and 11 July, and ‘Summary’, July 1941, ADM 199/415. 16. Cunningham, ‘Report on Syrian Campaign’, 2 Sept. 1941, ADM 199/679. 17. MF War Diary, 16 June and ‘Summary’, June 1941, ADM 199/415. 18. Alliston, Destroyer Man, pp. 75–80. 19. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 398. 20. Cunningham to Pound, 25 July, 15 Aug. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to R-Adm H.M.Burrough, 30 June 1941, CUNN 5/2. 21. Tedder, With Prejudice, p. 124. 22. ACM Sir W.Freeman to Tedder, 23 July 1941, AIR 23/1386. 23. V-Adm H.T.Baillie-Grohman, ‘Flashlights on the Past’, II, p. 150, GRO 33. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 364, 402. I.Beckett, ‘Wavell’, in J.Keegan, ed., Churchill’s Generals (London: Warner, 1992), pp. 70–88. Raugh, Wavell, pp. 237–9. 24. Cunningham, notes, p. 140, BLAM 52581A. V-Adm Sir M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 39, MANP. 25. Cunningham, notes, p. 8, BLAM 52581B. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 39, MANP. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. 26. Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 39, 41–2, MANP. 27. Tedder to Portal, 29 May 1941, box D, Loose Papers, Portal Papers. 28. Freeman to Tedder, 23 July 1941, AIR 23/1386. 29. Tedder to Freeman, 5 Sept. 1941, AIR 23/1386. 30. Tedder to Freeman, 11 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9.

Notes

209

31. Tedder to Freeman, 11 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. Tedder to Portal, 29 May 1941, box D, Loose Papers, Portal Papers. Tedder to his wife, 27 Oct. 1941, T 79. Tedder to his wife, 3 Jan. 1942, T 84. ME Cs-in-C, 4 and 6 June, 17 July 1941, CAB 106/722. 32. Correspondence between COS and ME Cs-in-C, 17–28 Oct. 1941, Churchill to Lyttelton, 26 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 23 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. JPS, appreciation of ‘Whipcord’, COS, 17 Oct. 1941, CAB 79/15. 33. Tedder to Portal, 26 May and 9 Dec. 1941, box C, file 8, Portal Papers. Tedder to Freeman, 29 May 1941, AIR 23/1386. COS, ‘C-in-C, Mediterranean: HQ’, 26 Mar. 1942, CAB 79/19. 34. Cunningham, ‘Memorandum on Command in the Middle East’, 10 June 1942, BLAM 52561. 35. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 401. Cunningham to Pound, 14 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. 36. Cunningham, ‘Memo on Command’, BLAM 62561. Tedder to Portal, 26 May 1941, box C, file 8, Portal Papers. 37. Cunningham, ‘The Organisation of Command’, BLAM 52573. 38. Cunningham to Pound, 22 Apr. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 5 and 18 Jan. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, June 1940, ADM 199/386. MF War Diary, 16 Jan. 1941, ADM 199/414. 39. Tedder to his wife, 25 June 1941, T 71. 40. Cunningham to ACM Mitchell, and reply, 9 and 17 Jan. 1940, BLAM 52569. 41. Cunningham to Pound, 28 May, Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 June 1941, BLAM 52567. 42. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 June 1941, BLAM 52567. 43. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 406. Cunningham to Pound, 25 July 1941, BLAM 52561. 44. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Aug., and 25 July, 18 Sept., 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. 45. Ibid., 25 July, 18 Sept. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Kelly, 4 Aug. 1941, KEL 43. V-Adm Sir W.Ford to Cunningham, 26 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52569. MF War Diary, 12 June 1941, ADM 199/415. J.Terraine, The Right of the Line: The RAF in the European War, 1939–1945 (Ware, Herts.: Wordsworth, 1997), pp. 313, 331–2, 335–6, 343–5. 46. Cunningham to Willis, 6 July 1941, CUNN 5/9. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Aug. 1941, BLAM 52561. Somerville to Cunningham, 12 June 1941, BLAM 52563. Willis to Cunningham, 2 Feb. 1942, BLAM 52570. 47. Cunningham to Willis, 12 June and 6 July 1941, CUNN 5/9. ME Cs-in-C, 4 June 1941, CAB 106/722. Cunningham to Pound, 11 June 1941, BLAM 52561. 48. Tedder to Air Cdre Collishaw, 5 June 1941, T 71. Tedder to Portal, 31 May, 7 June, 16 Aug. 1941, AIR 23/1395. Tedder to his wife, 25 June 1941, T 71. Tedder to his wife, 4 July 1941, T 71A. Tedder to Freeman, 11 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. 49. Tedder to Portal, 7 June and 16 Aug. 1941, AIR 23/1395. Tedder to his wife, 16 Aug. 1941, T 75. Tedder to Freeman, 11 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. 50. Pound to Portal, and reply, 27 June, Portal to Tedder, 28 June, 2 Sept., and Tedder to Portal, 17 Sept. 1941, AIR 23/1395. Freeman to Portal, 5 June 1941, box C, file 8, Portal Papers. Cunningham to Pound, 11 June 1941, BLAM 52561. 51. Pound to Cunningham and reply, 11 and 14 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. Admiralty to Cunningham, 4 Oct. 1941, PREM 3/274/2. Portal to Tedder, 28 Sept. 1941, T 76. Portal to Tedder, 1 Oct. 1941, AIR 20/2791. Tedder to Cunningham, 18 Sept. 1941, T 76. Tedder to Freeman, 16 Aug. 1941, AIR 23/1386. 52. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9. Cunningham to Pound, 4 and 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 415–16. Tedder to Portal, 5 Sept. 1941, T 75. Tedder to Portal, 17 Sept., 14 Oct. 1941, AIR 23/1395. Tedder to Cunningham, 18 Sept. 1941, T 76. 53. Pound to Cunningham, 29 Jan. 1942, and Admiralty to Cunningham, 24 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. 54. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec., and 18 Sept., 14 Oct. 1941, Admiralty to Cunningham, 24 Dec. 1941, and Cunningham to Admiralty, 26 Dec. 1941, 10 and 15 Jan. 1942, and

Notes

210

Cunningham to V-Adm Sir H.Moore, 9 Jan. 1942, BLAM 52561. Pound to Cunningham and reply, 10 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52567. Tedder to Portal, 17 Sept. 1941, AIR 23/1395. Tedder to Portal, 4 Dec. 1941, AIR 23/1396. 55. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Sept. and 28 Dec. 1941, and Cunningham to Admiralty, 10 Jan. 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, notes, p. 31, BLAM 52581B. Tedder to Portal, 16 Aug., 14 Oct. 1941, AIR 23/1395. Portal to Tedder, 1 Oct. 1941, AIR 20/2791. Tedder to Freeman, 26 Aug., 16 Dec. 1941, AIR 23/1386. 56. Portal to Tedder, 20 Jan. 1942, T 84. Tedder to Portal, 7 June 1941, AIR 23/1395. Tedder to Freeman, 3 and 11 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. Portal to US Air Attaché, London, 31 July 1941, box 39, Gen. H.H.Arnold Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. JPS, memo for COS, 25 June 1941, CAB 79/12. MF War Diary, 29 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. 57. Portal to Tedder, 20 Jan. 1942, T 84. Tedder to Freeman, 15 Jan. 1942, AIR 23/1386. 58 MF War Diary, 30 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. MF War Diary, 21 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415. 59. See, e.g., MF War Diary, 23–27 Jan. 1942, ADM 199/650. 60. Tedder to Portal, 26 May 1941, box C, file 8, Portal Papers. Tedder to Portal, 30 May 1941, AIR 23/1395. 61. Cunningham to Pound, 28 May 1941, BLAM 52567. 62. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 June 1941, BLAM 52567. ME Cs-in-C, 4 and 18 June 1941, CAB 106/722. MF War Diary, 7, 24, 30 June, 1 and 23 July, ‘Summary’, Aug., ‘Summary’, Nov. 1941, ADM 199/415. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Aug., 18 Sept., 14 and 23 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 394, 403–4, 412–15. 63. Raugh, Wavell, pp. 232–9. Beckett, ‘Wavell’. P.Warner, ‘Auchinleck’, in Keegan, ed., Churchill’s Generals, pp. 80, 137–9. MF War Diary, 15 and 18 June, 18 Nov., ‘Summary’, Nov. 1941, ADM 199/415. Cunningham, ‘Bombardment Operations, 16–26 Oct. 1941’, ADM 199/681. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. 64. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 419, 421–4, 427–8. 65. Alliston, Destroyer Man, pp. 81, 86–91. Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned, pp. 176–96. Cunningham to Pound, 6 Feb. 1942, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 2 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 440–1, 445. 66. Pound to Cunningham, 19 June, BLAM 52561. 67. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 Nov. 1941, BLAM 52567. 68. Churchill to Pound, 13 Sept., and reply, 14 Sept., Churchill to Pound, 7 Oct. 1941, ADM 178/322. Pound to Churchill, 8 Oct. 1941, PREM 3/274/1. 69. Cunningham to Burrough, 30 June 1941, CUNN 5/2. 70. MF War Diary, 2 June, 3 and 26 Sept. 1941, ADM 199/415. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 June 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9. Pound to Cunningham, 25 Nov., Cunningham to Pound, 15 Dec., Admiralty to Cunningham, 24 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Pound, 1 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52567. Winton, Ultra at Sea, p. 171. 71. MF War Diary,11June, 4Aug., 2Sept., 14 and 20 oct. 1941, ADM 199/415. Cunningham to Pound, 14 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. Pound, memo on ACNS (Weaponry), 23 June 1941, ADM 116/5165. 72. Cunningham to Pound, 4 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 424–5. Cunningham, notes, p. 5, BLAM 52581B. MF War Diary, 25 Nov. 1941, ADM 199/415. Alliston, Destroyer Man, p. 92. Hodgkinson, Before the Tide Turned, pp. 224–30. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 196–7. 73. MF War Diary, 16–23 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 433–6. ‘Report on Human Torpedo Attack on Alexandria Harbour’, 6 Jan. 1942, ADM 223/488. P.Kemp, Underwater Warriors (London: Arms and Armour, 1996), pp. 28–33.

Notes

211

74. MF War Diary, 15, 19 and 20 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415, and 11, 14, 24 and 25 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, 15 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 428–30, 447–8. 75. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 435. 76. Baillie-Grohman, ‘Flashlights on the Past’, II, pp. 193–9, GRO 33. ‘Report of Board of Inquiry: Attack on Alexandria Harbour’, sections 5a and 6, PWL 3. L.Durand de La Penne, ‘The Italian Attack on the Alexandria Naval Base’, USNIP (1956), pp. 126, 130–5. V-Adm V.Spigai, ‘Italian Naval Assault Craft in Two World Wars’, USNIP (1965), pp. 50–9. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, p. 197. Ollard, Fisher and Cunningham, p. 123. 77. Cunningham to Moore, 9 Jan. 1942, and Cunningham to Admiralty, 1338B, 26 Dec., Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, Pound to Cunningham, 29 Jan. 1942, BLAM 52561. Pound to Cunningham, and reply, 10 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52567. MF War Diary, 20 and 21 Feb. 1942, ADM 199/650. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 428–9, 444. 78. Bragadin, Italian Navy, pp. 151–2. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 205. 79. MF War Diary, 19 and 20 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415. 11, 24 and 25 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, 15 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 403, 419, 447–8. E.W.Bush, Save Our Ship (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958), pp. 209–33. 80. Cunningham to Pound, 25 July, 18 Sept., 14 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 9 June, 25 July, ‘Summary’, Aug., 20 Sept., ‘Summary’, Sept., 3 Oct., 2, 22 and 23 Nov. 1941, ADM 199/415. ‘AA Defence of the Suez Canal’, 11 June 1941, CAB 80/28. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 399, 403, 408–9. 81. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52561. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, vol. III, p. 178. Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers, p. 85. 82. Tedder, With Prejudice, p. 244. COS, ‘Malta’, 24 Feb. 1942, CAB 79/18. ‘Supplies for Malta’, 17 Nov. 1941, CAB 80/32. 83. Cunningham to Admiralty, 2 June 1941, BLAM 52567. ME Cs-in-C, 18 June 1941, CAB 106/722. Cunningham to Pound, 25 July, Pound to Cunningham, 3 Sept. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9. Simpson, The Somerville Papers, pp. 283–95, 305–24. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 404–7, 409–10. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 708–24. Alves, ‘Resupply of Malta’, pp. 63–71. 84. COS to ME Cs-in-C and Govr of Malta, 27 Feb., and ‘Malta’, 24 Feb. 1942, CAB 79/18. Pound to Cunningham, 25 Nov. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 1 Sept. 1941, ADM 199/415. Hezlet, Submarine and Sea Power, p. 145. 85. ACM Portal, ‘Malta’, COS, 24 Feb., and Pound, ‘Malta’, 13 Feb. 1942, CAB 79/18. 86. C.Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), p. 491. 87. S.Howarth, ‘Vian’, in S.Howarth, ed., Men of War: Great Naval Leaders of World War II (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992), pp. 491–505. 88. Cunningham to Pound, 4 and 15 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Vian to Cunningham, 20 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/677. MF War Diary, 13–18 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415. AoF Sir P.Vian, Action This Day (London: Muller, 1960), p. 78. Bush, Save Our Ship, pp. 209–22. Bragadin, Italian Navy, pp. 146–51. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 200–2. 89. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 26 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415. Cunningham to Admiralty, 30 Jan. 1942, ADM 199/677. 90. MF War Diary, 25–27 Jan. 1942, ADM 199/650. 91. Cunningham to Pound, 6 Feb. 1942, BLAM 52561. 92. Ibid., 14 Feb. 1942, BLAM 52567. MF War Diary, 11–15 Feb. 1942, ADM 199/650. 93. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52561. 94.. Cunningham, notes, p. 36, BLAM 52581B.

Notes

212

95. R-Adm Sir P.Vian, ‘Report on the Battle of Sirte’, CAB 106/621. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 455. 98. Ibid., p. 452. 99. Cunningham to Kelly, 29 Mar. 1942, KEL 43. Bush, Save Our Ship, p. 229. Vian, Action This Day, p. 87. ‘The Battle of Sirte’, ADM 199/681. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 439–58. S.W.C.Pack, The Battle of Sirte (Shepperton, Middx: Ian Allan, 1975). Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 216–22. 100. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 454. 101. Ibid., p. 454. MF War Diary, 24, 25, 28 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. 102. Bragadin, Italian Navy, pp. 159–66. J.J.Sadkovitch. ‘A Reevaluation of Who Won the Italian-British Naval Conflict, 1940–1942’, European Historical Quarterly (1988), p. 462. 103. Vian, ‘Sirte’, CAB 106/621. MF War Diary, 23–28 and 31 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. Leatham to Cunningham, 25 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52570. COS, ‘Malta: Unloading of Ships’, 30 Mar. 1942, CAB 79/18. Cunningham, notes, p. 38, BLAM 52581B. Simpson, Periscope View, pp. 218–20. 104. MF War Diary, 24, 26, 27, 31 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. 105. Cunningham to Admiralty, in MF War Diary, 28 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. 106. JPS, ‘An Air Attack on Malta’, COS, 5 Jan. 1942, CAB 79/17. Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power, pp. 126–31. Bradford, Siege, p. 125. 107. Ford to Cunningham, 3 Jan. 1942, BLAM 52570. 108. Ibid., 3 and 10 Jan. 1942, Leatham to Cunningham, 12 Feb. and 12 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52570. B.Blouet, The Story of Malta (Malta: Progressive Press, 1997), p. 202. P.Elliott, The Cross and the Ensign: A Naval History of Malta, 1798–1979 (London: Grafton, 1982), pp. 143–52. 109. Ford to Cunningham, 3 Jan., Leatham to Cunningham, 12 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52570. K.Poolman, Night Strike from Malta: 830 Squadron, R.N., and Rommel’s Convoys (London: Jane’s, 1980), p. 62. 110. Ford to Cunningham, 26 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52569. 111. Ford to Cunningham, 3 and 10 Jan., Leatham to Cunningham, 24 Jan., 12 Feb. 1942, BLAM 52570. Cunningham to Pound, 10 Feb. 1942, BLAM 52561. H.P.Lloyd, Briefed to Attack: Malta’s Part in the African Victory (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1949), pp. 116, 139–41, 165. 112. Lloyd, Briefed to Attack, pp. 109, 155–60. Tedder, ‘Malta’, COS, 23 Mar. 1942, CAB 79/19. COS, ‘Malta’, 23 and 28 Mar. 1942, CAB 79/18. Cunningham to Moore, 9 Jan. 1942, BLAM 52561. Simpson, Periscope View, pp. 202–7. 113. See Ch. 7 for previous efforts against the Libyan convoys. Giorgerini, ‘Role of Malta’, p. 192. 114. Churchill to Pound, 24 Aug. 1941, quoted in Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. II, note, pp. 286–7. 115. ME Cs-in-C, 18 June 1941, CAB 106/722. COS, ‘Cyrenaica’, 21 June 1941, CAB 79/12. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 686–7. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. II, pp. 280–7. Cunningham to SO (Submarines), Malta, in MF War Diary, 1 June 1941, ADM 199/415. Simpson, Periscope View, pp. 181–2. 116. MF War Diary, 25 June, 29 Oct., 18 Nov. 1941, ADM 199/650. 117. Cunningham to Pound, 11 June, 18 Sept., Pound to Cunningham, 3 Sept. 1941, BLAM 52561. 118. May, ‘The British Submarine Campaign in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943’ (unpub. MPhil, University of Wales, Swansea, 2000). Cunningham to Admiralty, 13 Aug. 1941, MIER 1/1– 5. P.Chapman, Submarine Torbay (London: Hale, 1989), pp. 62, 65. 119. Lloyd, Briefed to Attack, p. 13.

Notes

213

120. Pound to Cunningham, 3 Sept., Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Ford to Cunningham, 26 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52569. MF War Diary, 9 Aug., 20 Sept., 11 and 29 Oct. 1941, ADM 199/415. ME Cs-in-C, 17 July, 12 Nov. 1941, CAB 106/722. Poolman, Night Strike from Malta, pp. 62, 75, 84, 95, 125, 128–9, 160. Lloyd, Briefed to Attack, pp. 45–9, 50, 51, 71, 76, 79–82, 88. 121. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Sept., Pound to Cunningham, 3 Sept. 1941, BLAM 52561. Pound to Cunningham, 22 Aug., Pound to Churchill, 5 Oct. 1941, ADM 178/322. 122. Pound to Cunningham, 11 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. Churchill to Pound, 22 Aug. 1941, ADM 178/322. 123. Cunningham to Pound, 23 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. 124. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9. Ford to Cunningham, 26 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52569. Cunningham to Admiralty, 11 Dec., Ford to Cunningham, Cdre W.G. Agnew, ‘RoP, 11 Nov. 1941’, ADM 199/677. Cunningham to Kelly, 11 Nov. 1941, KEL 43. Intelligence reports, ADM 223/528. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 194–6. 125. Churchill, Pound and Cunningham correspondence, 23–6 Nov. 1941, BLAM 52566. Churchill, minute, 24 Nov. 1941, PREM 3/274/2. Pound to Cunningham, 25 Nov. 1941, BLAM 52561. Pound to Cunningham, 27 Nov., Cunningham to Pound, 1 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52567. 126. Cunningham to Pound, 1 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Kelly, 11 Nov. 1941, KEL 43. MF War Diary, 27 Nov., ‘Summary’, Nov., 13 and 14 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415. Grove, Sea Battles in Close Up, vol. II, pp. 58–70. 127. MF War Diary, ‘Summary’, Sept. 1941, ADM 199/415. 128. German Naval Command in the Mediterranean, report of 9 Sept. 1941, quoted, flyleaf, Naval Staff History, ‘Submarines’, II, ‘Mediterranean Operations’, ADM 234/381. Cunningham to Pound, 11 June 1941, BLAM 52561. 129. Rommel, quoted in Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 39, ADM 199/2518. 130. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. I, p. 400. K.Schmider, ‘The Mediterranean in 1941: Crossroads of Lost Opportunities’, War & Security (1997), pp. 22–9. M.van Creveld, ‘Rommel’s Supply Problem, 1941–42’, RUSIJ (1974), pp. 68, 71, 73. 131. Rommel, quoted in Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 670–2. 132. German Naval Staff Report, 13 Nov. 1941, Naval Staff History, ‘Submarines’, II, p. 61. Hezlet, Submarine and Sea Power, pp. 141–5. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, pp. 51, 56, 57, 60, 62–7, ADM 199/2518. 133. A.Fraccaroli, ‘The Italian Navy in the Late War’, RUSIJ (1947), pp. 441–2. Lloyd, ‘Allied Air Power’, pp. 556–7. Van Creveld, ‘Rommel’s Supply Problem’, p. 69. 134. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. II, pp. 280–7, 307–8, 310–11, 314. 135. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 421. 136. Van Creveld, ‘Rommel’s Supply Problem’, p. 69, and 70–3. Sadkovitch, ‘Italian-British Naval Conflict’, p. 464. Giorgerini, ‘Role of Malta’, p. 192. Cunningham, Odyssey, App. II, ‘The War in the Mediterranean, Jan. 1941-Nov. 1942’, pp. 671–4 and chart. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. II, pp. 280–323. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, pp. 711–13. 137. MF War Diary, 18–20 Dec., ‘Summary’, Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 431–3. 138. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, pp. 70, 71, 75, ADM 199/2518. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. II, pp. 323, 330. 139. MF War Diary, 10, 11, 22, 25 Feb., 5 and 18 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. ‘Axis Convoys to Tripoli’, 20 Jan. 1942, CAB 79/17. Pound, ‘Mediterranean’, COS, 24 Mar. 1942, CAB 79/19. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, Cunningham to Moore, 9 Jan. 1942, Cunningham to Admiralty, 10 and 15 Jan. 1942, BLAM 52561. Ford to Cunningham, 10

Notes

214

Jan., Leatham to Cunningham, 12 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52570. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 438, 445–7. Lloyd, Briefed to Attack, pp. 92, 109, 116, 124, 139–41. 140. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec., and 23 Oct., 4 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Pound to Cunningham, 27 Nov., Cunningham to Pound, 1 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52567. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9. MF War Diary, 26 Nov., 21 Dec. 1941, ADM 199/415. MF War Diary, 10 Feb., 23 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. 141. Cunningham to Pound, 14 Oct. 1941, BLAM 52561. MF War Diary, 4 and 18 Feb., 19 and 20 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. 142. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 444. 143. Ibid., p. 417. Cunningham to Pound, 14 Oct., 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Ollard, Fisher and Cunningham, p. 124. 144. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 417. 145. Cunningham to Pound, 11 June 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 448–9. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 42, MANP. 146. Pound to Cunningham, 19 June 1941, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Burrough, 30 June 1941, CUNN 5/2. MF War Diary, 23 June, 23 July, 22 and 27 Aug. 1941, ADM 199/415. MF War Diary, 2, 24, 28 Mar. 1942, ADM 199/650. P. and F.McGuire, The Price of Admiralty (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 303. 147. McGuire, The Price of Admiralty, p. 303. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52561. 148. AB L.Atkinson to Cunningham, 29 July 1941, BLAM 52569. 149. Cunningham to Pound, 4 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. 150. MF War Diary, 30 Nov. 1941, ADM 199/415. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52561. Somerville to Cunningham, 21 Dec. 1941, BLAM 52563. 151. V-Adm Sir J.Whitworth to Cunningham, 11 Nov. 1941, BLAM 52569. Cunningham, proposing toast to WRNS, n.d., c. 1946, CNM 6. 152. Baillie-Grohman, ‘Flashlights on the Past’, II, p. 198, GRO 33. Ollard, Fisher and Cunningham, pp. 114, 116, 119, 184–5. Noble, A float and Ashore, pp. 46–7. 153. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52561. 154. Ibid. 155. JPS, ‘Mediterranean and Middle East’, COS, 20 Mar. 1942, CAB 79/18. Ollard, Fisher and Cunningham, p. 128. 156. Admiralty to Pridham-Wippell, 4 Apr. 1942, ADM 178/322. Vian, Action This Day, p. 93. Admiralty to Cunningham, 31 Mar. 1942, BLAM 52567. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 458– 61. Capt E.H.Lee to author, 20 Oct. 1997. 157. Cunningham to Kelly, 29 Mar. 1942, KEL 43.

9 King and the King’s Navy (June–October 1942) 1. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 460–3. R.Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, p. 223. 2. Alexander to Churchill, 3 June 1942, and 9 June, and minute by PM’s office, 16 June 1942, and Lord President, ‘The Remuneration of Heads of the Joint Staff Mission in Washington’, 25 June 1943, all in PREM 3/478/4. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 188–92. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, p. 219. 3. Churchill to Alexander, 4 June 1942, ADM 205/14. Cunningham to Edelsten, 23 Apr. 1942, EDSN 1/2. 4. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 142. 5. Cunningham to North, 7 June 1942, NORTH 2/3. Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, pp. 221–2. 6. Cunningham to Edelsten, 23 Apr. 1942, EDSN 1/2.

Notes

215

7. Ibid. 8. Cunningham to Godfrey, c. 17 May 1959, CUNN 5/4. ‘Report of the JSM’, p. 33, CAB 122/1579. 9. Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, pp. 223–4. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 143. 10. Pound to Alexander, 8 June 1942, and Churchill to Alexander, 4 June 1942, ADM 205/14. 11. Cunningham to Edelsten, 23 Apr. 1942, EDSN 1/2. Cunningham to North, 7 June 1942, NORTH 2/3. Stark to Knox, 28 May 1942, box A 1, Stark Papers. Ghormley to King, 6 Apr. 1942, box 2, King Papers. Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, pp. 204–18. 12. Cunningham to North, 7 June 1942, NORTH 2/3. Cunningham to Edelsten, 23 Apr. 1942, EDSN 1/2. 13. FO to Washington Embassy, 17 May 1941, ADM 1/11762. ‘British-US Staff Conversations, 29 Jan.–7 Feb. 1941’, CAB 99/5. COMNAVEU, box 1, file 54, RG 13. Diary, 2 and 27 May 1942, box A 1, Stark Papers. ‘Report of the JSM’, CAB 122/1579. B.M.Simpson III, Admiral Harold R.Stark: Architect of Victory, 1939–1945 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 10, 66–7, 79, 129–30, 136, 139–41. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 465–7. 14. Box 12, King Papers. Little to Pound, 22 May 1942, ADM 178/323. 15. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 465. 16. Cunningham to Kelly, 17 Aug. 1942, KEL 43. 17. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 465. 18. King on Marshall, 31 July 1949, 26 Aug. and 29 Nov. 1950, and one undated, in box 7, King Papers, NWC. ‘Report of JSM’, CAB 122/1579. D.Rigby, ‘The Combined Chiefs of Staff and American Strategic Coordination in World War II’ (unpub. PhD, Brandeis University, 1997), pp. ii, v. 19. A.Danchev, ‘Being Friends: The Combined Chiefs of Staff and the Making of Allied Strategy in World War II’, in L.Freedman et al., eds, War, Strategy and International Politics: Essays in Honour of Sir Michael Howard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 195, 202–3. Rigby, ‘Combined Chiefs of Staff’, pp. vi–vii, 66. Gen. H.L.Ismay to Churchill, 11 Dec. 1941, ADM 205/10. COS (42) 105, ‘Grand Strategy’, 3 Apr. 1942, CAB 79/20. COS (42), 159, ‘CCS’, 9 Mar. 1942, CAB 80/35. COS, Memo 325, ‘Organisation in Washington’, 29 June 1942, CAB 80/37. Dill to Churchill, 7 Mar. 1942, ADM 205/13. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, pp. 215, 220–2. 20. T.B.Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J.King (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1980), p. 162. 21. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 466. 22. Adm A.G.Kirk, USN, oral archive, p. 231, NWC. Recollections of King, box 2, King Papers, NWC. 23. W.M.Whitehill, ‘A Postscript to Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record’, Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc. (1950–53), pp. 205–7, box 11, Adm J.L.McCrea Papers. 24. Roosevelt to King, 12 Aug. 1942, box 4, King Papers, NWC.B.Simpson III, Stark, p. 128. 25. Cunningham to Pound, 31 July 1942, quoted in Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 467. H.L. Hopkins (London) to Roosevelt, 14 Apr. 1942, ADM 205/13. Alexander to Churchill, 19 May 1942, ADM 205/14. King, note, 3 July 1950, box 9, King Papers, NWC. King to Whitehill, 20 Sept. 1951, box 31, and box 14, King Papers. M.Milner, ‘Anglo-American Naval Cooperation in the Second World War’, in Hattendorf and Jordan, eds, Maritime Strategy, p. 253. M.Gannon, Operation Drumbeat (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991). R.W.Love Jr., History of the U.S. Navy, vol. II (1942–1991) (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1992), pp. 68–83. 26. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 468. Dill to Churchill, JSM 300, 15 July 1942, CAB 105/39. 27. Boxes 2 and 3, King Papers. COS (W) 242, 5 Aug. 1942, CAB 105/54. Cunningham to Pound, 25 July, and reply, 28 July 1942, CAB 121/284. 28. Whitehill, ‘A Postscript’, p. 217, box 11, McCrea Papers. 29. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 192.

Notes

216

30. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, pp. 226–7. 31. R-Adm R.M.Dick, quoted in Pack, Cunningham the Commander, p. 220. King to Cunningham, 10 and 19 Aug. 1942, box 2, King Papers. 32. See extensive correspondence on these matters in ADM 205/14 and ADM 205/19. COS (42) 205, 13 July, and Pound to Little, 18 June 1942, CAB 79/22. H.P.Willmott, Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982) and The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies, February to June 1942 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983). 33. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 469, 472. Cunningham, quoted in Pound to Stark, 20 Aug. 1942, box A 1, Stark Papers. Fleet Adm W.D.Leahy, diary, 8 Oct. 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers.

10 Return to North Africa (October 1942–May 1943) 1. Cunningham to Pound, 21 July 1942, CAB 121/490. 2. T.Higgins, Winston Churchill and the Second Front, 1940–1943 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 134–5. 3. M.Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in World War II (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968), p. 31. Cunningham to Pound, 31 July and 12 Aug. 1942, BLAM 52561. JSM 322, 27 July 1942, CAB 105/39. Fleet Adm W.D.Leahy, diary, 22, 24, 25, 27 and 30 July 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers. A.L.Funk, The Politics of Torch: The Allied Landings and the Algiers Putsch, 1942 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1974), pp. 98–9, 253–4. K.Sainsbury, The North African Landings: A Strategic Decision (London: Davis-Poynter, 1976), pp. 74–5. 4. Churchill to Roosevelt, 8 July 1942, C-107, W.F.Kimball, Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; London: Collins, 1984), vol. I, p. 520. T.Ben-Moshe, ‘Winston Churchill and the Second Front: A Reappraisal’, JMH (1990), pp. 503–5. 5. Churchill to Roosevelt, 22 Sept. 1942, C-151, and Churchill to Roosevelt, 20 June 1942, C102/3, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. I, pp. 515, 603. 6. Cunningham to Capt T.Dorling, 22 May 1949, BLAM 52575. ‘Operations in 1942–43’, CCS 94, 24 July 1942, CAB 121/490. 7. K.Sainsbury, Churchill and Roosevelt: The War They Fought and the Peace They Hoped to Make (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 23. Love Jr., History of the U.S. Navy, vol. II, pp. 83– 4. V-Adm Sir G.Blake, ‘The Origins of Torch’, draft article, 1958, BLE 8. Churchill to Roosevelt, 4 Mar., C-36, Roosevelt to Churchill, 3 Mar., R-113, and 9 Mar. 1942, R-115, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. I, pp. 380, 391, 399. 8. M.A.Stoler, ‘American Perceptions of British Mediterranean Strategy, 1941–1945’, C.L.Symonds, ed., New Aspects of Naval History: Selected Papers Presented at the 4th Naval History Symposium, 1979 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981), pp. 325, 326. 9. Cunningham to Kelly, 17 Aug. 1942, KEL 43. 10. ‘President’s Memo for Mr Hopkins, Gen Marshall and Adm King: Instructions for London Conference, July 1942’, 15 July 1942, box 3, PSF. Adm A.G.Kirk, USN, oral archive, pp. 244–5, NWC. 11. W.F.Kimball, Forged in War: Churchill, Roosevelt and the Second World War (London: Harper Collins, 1997), pp. 152, 159. Sainsbury, Churchill and Roosevelt, pp. 24–7. M.Jones, Britain, the United States and the Mediterranean War, 1942–1944 (London: Macmillan, 1996). Funk, Politics of Torch, pp. 67–71, 80, 98–9. 12. Higgins, Churchill and Second Front, p. 65, and pp. 54–5. Gandin, Darlan, Weygand et Cunningham, pp. 203–4.

Notes

217

13. CCS 94, 24 July 1942, CAB 121/490. JPS, 16 July 1942, COS (42) 208, CAB 79/22. Churchill to Roosevelt, 22 Sept. 1942, C-151, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. I, p. 603. Love, U.S. Navy, vol. II, pp. 83, 85. Jones, Mediterranean War, pp. 21–2. E.J.King and W.M.Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1953), p. 195. 14. H.C.Butcher, diary, Three Years with Eisenhower: The Personal Diary of Captain H.C. Butcher, USNR (London: Heinemann, 1946), p. 23. JSM to COS, 31 July 1942, JSM 329, CAB 105/39. M.Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV (London: HMSO, 1972), pp. xxiii-xxv. Danchev, ‘Being Friends’, p. 206. 15. Cunningham to Dorling, 22 May 1949, BLAM 52575. 16. Cunningham to Pound, 12 Aug. 52561. 17. Dill to COS, 10 Sept. 1942, JSM 383, CAB 105/39. Pound to Cunningham, 24 Aug. 1942, BLAM 52561. 18. Cunningham to Pound, 31 July 1942, BLAM 52561. 19. Ibid. 20. R-Adm H.B.Rawlings to Cunningham, 3 Sept. 1942, and Cdre J.H.Edelsten to Cunningham, 11 Sept. 1942, BLAM 52570. 21. JSM 329, 31 July 1942, and JIC report, COS (W) 237, 4 Aug. 1942, CAB 121/490. 22. COS to JSM, 31 July 1942, COS (W) 233, CAB 121/490. 23. JSM 329, 31 July 1942, CAB 121/490. S.E.Ambrose, Eisenhower the Soldier, 1890–1952 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1984), pp. 182–3. 24. Eisenhower, ‘Report on Operation Torch’, n.d., ADM 199/529. 25. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 476. Ramsay to wife, 8 Aug. 1942, RMSY 8/19. Sainsbury, North African Landings, pp. 118–28. Lord Ismay, The Memoirs of General the Lord Ismay (London: Heinemann, 1960), p. 258. Butcher, diary, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 27. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 171–6, 184, 185–6. 26. Cunningham, ‘The Organisation of Command’, spring 1946, BLAM 52573. 27. Fleet Adm W.D.Leahy, I Was There (New York and London: Whittlesey House, 1950), p. 106. Adm Sir J.Tovey to Cunningham, 23 Sept. 1942, BLAM 52570. 28. Cunningham to Dorling, 22 May 1949, BLAM 52575. Cunningham, notes, p. 49, BLAM 52581B. Pound to Cunningham, 24 Aug. 1942, BLAM 52561. Chalmers, Full Cycle, pp. 133–5. 29. R-Adm R.K.Turner, USN, at Arcadia Conf., 26 Dec. 1941, box 1, RG 218. 30. Cunningham to Pound, 21 July 1942, CAB 121/490. Dill to Churchill, JSM 300, 15 July 1942, CAB 105/39. 31. Eisenhower, diary, 2 Sept. 1942, R.H.Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diaries (New York and London: Norton, 1981), p. 76. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 470. 32. Churchill to Roosevelt, 1 Sept. 1942, C-142, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. I, pp. 585–6. 33. Cunningham, 38th Meeting, CCS (Supp. Mins.), 28 Aug., and COS to JSM, 27 Aug. 1942, COS (W) 265, CAB 121/490. Butcher, diary, 31 July 1942, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 32. 34. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 470. COS to JSM, 27 Aug. 1942, COS (W) 265, CAB 121/490. Eisenhower, ‘Report on Torch’, ADM 199/529. Eisenhower, diary, 2 Sept. 1942, Ferrell, Eisenhower Diaries, pp. 76–8. 35. JPS, ‘Appreciation of Operation Torch’, 5 Aug. 1942, JP (42) 721, CAB 121/490. 36. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 501. 37. Marshall, 38th CCS (Supp. Mins.), 28 Aug. 1942, and JSM 370, 28 Aug., and 371, 29 Aug. 1942, CAB 121/490. 38. Eisenhower, ‘Report on Torch’, ADM 199/529. Leahy, diary, 24 Aug., and 20 Aug. 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers. Butcher, diary, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 47. 39. COS to JSM, 27 Aug. 1942, COS (W) 265, CAB 121/490.

Notes

218

40. COS (W) 267, 29 Aug. 1942, CAB 121/490. 41. 38th CCS (Supp. Mins.), 28 Aug. 1942, CAB 121/490. 42. Cunningham to King, 17 Aug., and King, memo for President, 26 Aug. 1942, box 2, King Papers. 43. JSM 371, 29 Aug., and COS (W) 267, 29 Aug., JSM 368, 4 Sept. 1942, CAB 121/490. Eisenhower to Marshall, 1 Aug. 1942, ONO Strategic Plans Div., box 219, RG 38. 44. Chalmers, Full Cycle, p. 141. 45. Ramsay to wife, 22 Sept. 1942, RMSY 8/19. Chalmers, Full Cycle, pp. 140–6. 46. R-Adm M.L.Power, ‘The Landings in North Africa’, NR (1949), pp. 199–200. Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 46, 47, 52, MANP. Ramsay to Cunningham, 2 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52570. Ramsay to wife, 23 July, 30 Aug. 1942, RMSY 8/19. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 471–2, 474–5, 492–3. 47. Cunningham, 38th CCS (Supp. Mins.), 28 Aug., and Marshall to Eisenhower, 16 Oct. 1942, CAB 121/491. Cole (US Consul, Algiers), report, 14 Oct. 1942, box 220, ONO Strat. Plans Div., RG 38. Leahy, diary, 24 Aug., 2 Sept. 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers. Funk, Politics of Torch, pp. 98–9, 157–8. 48. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52561. Leahy, diary, 15, 18, 29 Nov. 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers. ‘Memo of Opinions of French Naval Officers’, 23 Aug. 1942, box 2, King Papers. Sainsbury, North African Landings, pp. 125–6. 49. Cunningham, ‘Organisation of Command’, BLAM 52573. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 480– 1, 486–7. Butcher, diary, 7 and 8 Nov. 1942, Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 138–46, 150. Leahy, diary, reel 3, Leahy Papers. Funk, Politics of Torch, pp. 45–51, 62–4,190. R.Aron, The Vichy Regime (London: Putnam, 1958), p. 398. 50. Leahy, diary, 10 Sept. 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers. E.Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin D.Roosevelt, His Lieutenants and Their War (London: Deutsch, 1987), p. 139. Aron, Vichy Regime, pp. 397, 399. Gandin, Darlan, Weygand et Cunningham, pp. 208–10. 51. Sainsbury, North African Landings, p. 146, and pp. 149–53. Roosevelt to Churchill, 29 Jan. 1942, R-77x, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. I, pp. 333–5. US Consul (Tangier), report, 16 Sept., and ALUSNA, Vichy to OpNav, 7 Oct. 1942, box 220, ONO, Strat. Plans Div., RG 38. Cunningham to All British Warships, 7 Nov. 1942, ADM 223/568. 52. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 478. Cole (US Consul, Algiers) to Leahy, 15 Oct. 1942, box 220, ONO, Strat. Plans Div., RG 38. Leahy, diary, 17 Oct. 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers. Funk, Politics of Torch, pp. 7, 38. R.T.Thomas, Britain and Vichy: The Dilemma of Anglo-French Relations, 1940–1942 (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 139. 53. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 471. Cunningham to Pound, 12 Aug. 1942, BLAM 52561. US Army-Navy Meeting, 26 Sept. 1942, ONO, Strat. Plans Div., box 330, RG 38. Dill to COS, 6 Aug. 1942, JSM 338, CAB 121/490. 54. Note by Capt C.Douglas-Pennant, 2 Oct. 1942, ADM 199/529. Cunningham to Pound, 12 Sept. 1942, CAB 121/490. RN-USN Meeting, 16 Sept., and Casablanca Operation Meeting, 2 Oct. 1942, ONO, Strat. Plans Div., box 220, RG 38. Adm H.K.Hewitt, USN, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 3, 7, 22, 23, box 1, Hewitt Papers, NWC. Hewitt, oral history, box 6, Hewitt Papers, RG 38. 55. Pound to Churchill, 25 Oct., and Churchill to Pound, 21 Oct., Pound to Portal, 22 Oct. 1942, ADM 205/14. Note on Coastal Cmd. Cover for WTF, 15 Oct. 1942, ONO, Strat. Plans Div., box 220, RG 38. 56. ‘Naval Outline Plan’, 29 Sept., and Cunningham to Pound, 14 Oct. 1942, CAB 121/490. ‘Disposition of Capital Ships of U.N.’ 5 Nov., and Pound to Cunningham, 22 Oct., Pound to Churchill, 25 Oct. 1942, ADM 205/14. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 476–8, 480. Cunningham to Pound, 19 Oct. 1942, ADM 178/323. 57. Cunningham to King, 17 Aug., and King, memo for President, 26 Aug. 1942, box 2, King Papers, OA.

Notes

219

58. ‘Naval Outline Plan’, 29 Sept. 1942, CAB 121/490. ‘Disposition of Capital Ships of U.N.’, 5 Nov. 1942, ADM 205/14. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 476–8, 480. 59. ‘Naval Outline Plan’, 29 Sept. 1942, CAB 121/490. ‘Disposition of Capital Ships of U.N.’, 5 Nov. 1942, ADM 205/14. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 476–8, 480. 60. ‘Naval Outline Plan’, 29 Sept. 1942, CAB 121/490. ‘Disposition of Capital Ships of U.N.’, 5 Nov. 1942, ADM 205/14. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 476–8, 480. 61. Cunningham to Ramsay, 3 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. 62. Cunningham, ‘Organisation of Command’, spring 1946, BLAM 52573. Eisenhower, diary, 9 Nov. 1942, Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diaries (New York: Norton, 1981), p. 81. 63. Cunningham, ‘Organisation of Command’, spring 1946, BLAM 52573. 64. Ramsay to wife, 9 Nov. 1942, RMSY 8/19. 65. Cunningham to wife, 10 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52581B. Ramsay to Cunningham, 11 Nov. 1942, and V-Adm Sir J.Whitworth to Cunningham, 16 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52570. Pound to Cunningham, 27 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Ramsay, 12 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. Ramsay to wife, 14 Nov. 1942, RMSY 8/19. 66. ‘Report on Operation Torch’, ADM 199/902. 67. T.H.Kraus, ‘Joint Planning for Torch: The U.S. Navy’, in W.L.Robert and J.Sweeney, eds, New Interpretations in Naval History; Selected Papers from the 9th Symposium (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), pp. 259, 261, 266. ‘Joint Report of Lessons Learned during the Planning Stage of Operation Torch’, DEFE 2/581. 68. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 491–2, 494. Kraus, ‘Joint Planning for Torch’, pp. 264–7. Hewitt, ‘Autobiography’, p. 79, box 1, Hewitt Papers, NWC. S.H.Godson, The Viking of Assault: Admiral J.L.Hall, Jr., and Amphibious Warfare (Washington: University Press of America, 1982), pp. 44–5. S.E.Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, vol. II, Operations in North African Waters, 1942–1943 (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1965), pp. 28–9, 49–50. 69. Morison, North African Waters, pp. 139–48. 70. Morison, North African Waters, pp. 88–9, 98–114, 115–35. Love, U.S. Navy, vol. II, pp. 88– 94. 71. Brig-Gen L.K.Truscott, USA, quoted in Jones, Mediterranean War, p. 31. 72. Cunningham, ‘Report on Operation Torch’, ADM 199/902. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 113, ADM 199/2518. 73. ‘Operation Reservist’, ADM 199/902. Reports of Lieut-Cdr G.P.Billot (Hartland) and Lieut. W.J.Moseley (Walney), RoP, ‘Torch’, ADM 199/836. Morison, North African Waters, pp. 226–30. 74. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 489. 75. Cdr A.F.C.Layard, ‘Algiers, 8 November 1942’, NR (1978), pp. 156–71. ‘Report on Operation Terminal’, ADM 199/902. Adm Sir G.Blake, ‘Origins of Torch’, BLE 8. 76. R-Adm A.C.Bennett, USN, to Eisenhower, 17 Oct. 1942, box 3, Kirk Papers, OA. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 479. 77. Power, ‘Landings in North Africa’, p. 203. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, pp. 113, 115, ADM 199/2518. 78. Adm J.du Gardin, in Gandin, Darlan, Weygand et Cunningham, pp. 7, 227. 79. Cominch to Task Forces and Cinclant, 14 Nov. 1942, box 105, MRF. Agent Cole (Algiers) report, 14 Oct. 1942, box 220. ONO, Strat. Plans Div., RG 38. Funk, Politics of Torch, pp. 22–5, 194–5, 207. Butcher, diary, Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 121–2, 135. Aron, Vichy Regime, pp. 398, 400, 410. Sainsbury, North African Landings, pp. 79, 139–48. 80. Gen M.Clark to Eisenhower, 10 Nov. 1942, ADM 223/568. Cunningham to Admiralty, 8 Nov., and Lieut N.L.A.Jewell, patrol report, 25 Oct. 1942, ADM 199/869. Leahy, diary, 20 Oct., 8 and 9 Nov. 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers. Butcher, diary, Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 150, 155. COS (W) 390, 13 Dec. 1942, CAB 105/54. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 478, 488, 494–500. Aron, Vichy Regime, pp. 401–3, 406–10, 415–17. Funk, Politics of Torch, pp.

Notes

220

226–7, 229–41, 252. Sainsbury, North African Landings, pp. 153–61. Gandin, Darlan, Weygand et Cunningham, pp. 212–14. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 199–206. R.de Belot, The Struggle for the Mediterranean, 1939–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 182, 187–8. 81. Sainsbury, North African Landings, pp. 139–48. Larrabee, Commander in Chief, p. 425. 82. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 497, 501, 506–7. Cunningham to Ramsay, 12 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. Cunningham to wife, 28 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52581B. Cunningham to Pound, 12 Nov., V-Adm H.M.Burrough to Cunningham, 10 Nov., and reply, 11 Nov. 1942, ADM 223/568. Butcher, diary, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 175. Aron, Vichy Regime, pp. 421–3. 83. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 499. 84. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 508. 85. Harwood to Cunningham, 9 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52570. 86. Cunningham to V-Adm H.R.Moore, VCNS, 17 May, and Cunningham to Admiralty, 25 Jan. 1943, ADM 199/1310. Cunningham to wife, 1 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52581 B.Pound to Cunningham, 27 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52561. Churchill to Pound, and reply, 15 Oct. 1942, ADM 205/14. COS 329, 27 Nov. 1942, CAB 79/24. COS (W) 378, 4 Dec. 1942, CAB 105/5. 87. Churchill to Roosevelt, 19 Dec. 1942, C-237, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, pp. 84–5. C.W. Hines, ‘The Fleet between: Anglo-American Diplomacy and Force X, 1940–43’, in Masterman (ed.), Naval History, pp. 244–5, 248–51. Macmillan to Casey, 8 Feb. 1943, ADM 199/1310. H.Macmillan, The Blast of War, 1943–45 (London: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 265–83. Gandin, Darlan, Weygand et Cunningham, pp. 219–21, 226. 88. JSM 569, 15 Dec. 1942, CAB 105/40. Harwood to Pound, 28 Nov. 1942, Churchill to Attlee, 26 Jan., Harwood to Admiralty, 27 Jan. 1943, ADM 178/323. ‘French Ships at Alexandria’, 10 July, 18 and 29 Nov. 1942, box 35, MRP. 89. MF War Diary, ‘Appreciation of Events’, Dec., Harwood, report of interview with Godfroy, 8 Nov. 1942, ADM 199/651. Cunningham to Pound and Harwood, 18 Nov., Harwood to Cunningham, 14 Nov., ADM 223/568. 90. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 541. 91 Cunningham to Pound and Harwood, 18 Nov. 1942, ADM 223/568. 92. Gandin, Darlan, Weygand et Cunningham, p. 251. 93. Cunningham to wife, 15 and 20 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52581B. Pound to Cunningham, 27 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Ramsay, 21 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. Leahy, diary, Nov., 5, 7, 10 and 16 Dec. 1942, reel 3, Leahy Papers. Adm H.R.Stark to Sec of Navy F.Knox, 24 Nov., and de Gaulle to Stark, 15 Nov., and Knox to Stark, 18 Nov. 1942, box 1, Stark Papers, OA.Thomas, Britain and Vichy, pp. 154, 162–3. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 206–10. J.Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory (London: BCA, 1993), pp. 515–18. 94. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Pound, and Cunningham to Harwood, 18 Nov. 1942, ADM 223/568. R-Adm Pegram to Cunningham, 1 Feb. 1943, BLAM 52570. COS (W) 365, 26 Nov. 1942, CAB 105/54. JSM 556, 12 Dec. 1942, CAB 105/40. Jones, Mediterranean War, pp. 71–5. 95. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 502. Whitworth to Cunningham, 16 Nov., Dill to Cunningham, 1 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52569. 96. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 502. 97. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Nov. 1942, ADM 223/568. 98. Ibid., 11 Nov. 1942, ADM 223/568. 99. Macmillan, Blast of War, p. 226. Cunningham to aunts, 27 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52559. Cunningham to wife, 15 and 20 Nov. 1942, BLAM 52581B. 100. Cunningham to Pound, 18 Nov. 1942, ADM 223/568. 101. Eisenhower, ‘Report on Torch’, ADM 199/529.

Notes

221

102. R.E.Sherwood, ed., The White House Papers of Harry L.Hopkins, vol. II (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1949), p. 646. 103. Cunningham to wife, 26 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52581B. Aron, Vichy Regime, pp. 295–7. Gandin, Darlan, Weygand et Cunningham, pp. 223–4. Pound to Cunningham, 28 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52561. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 215. 104. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Ramsay, 4 Dec. 1942, RMSY 5/21. 105. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 516. Jones, Mediterranean War, pp. 80–3. 106. H.Macmillan, War Diary: The Mediterranean, 1943–1945 (London: Macmillan, 1984), pp. 13, 18. Whitworth to Cunningham, 3 May 1943, BLAM 52570. Jones, Mediterranean War, pp. 76–80. 107. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 109, ADM 199/2518. 108. Ibid., pp. 110–12, ADM 199/2518. J.Wright, ‘Deception in Cover Plans in Mediterranean Operations’, 20 Nov. 1943, box 220, ONO, Strat. Plans Div., RG 38. 109. JIC, ‘Intelligence Appreciation’, 7 Aug. 1942, box 219, and Agent Cole (Algiers), report, 14 Oct. 1942, box 220, ONO, Strat. Plans Div., RG 38. Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 49–50, MANP. 110. Cunningham to Ramsay, 12 and 21 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. 111. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 503. Cunningham to Ramsay, 4 Dec. 1942, RMSY 5/21. 112. Cunningham to Ramsay, 12 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 503–6, 516–17, 519. 113. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 507–8. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, pp. 239–40. 114. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 507–8. 115. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to wife, 13 and 25 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52581 B. 116. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. II, pp. 492–3. President and JCS Meeting, 25 Nov. 1942, box 29, MRP. Cunningham to Ramsay, 4 Dec. 1942, RMSY 5/21. Jones, Mediterranean War, pp. 31–2, 49–51. 117. Cunningham to wife, 25 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52581 B. Cunningham to Pound, 20 Nov. and 8 Dec., Pound to Cunningham, 6 Dec. 1942, PREM 3/274/2. Pound to Cunningham, 28 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52561. COS 40, 15 Feb. 1943, CAB 79/25. 118. Cunningham to aunts, 10 Jan. 1943, BLAM 52559. 119. Ramsay to wife, 15 Feb. and 19 Mar. 1943, RMSY 8/19. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 511– 12, 517, 525. 120. Ramsay to wife, 15 Mar. 1943, RMSY 8/19. 121. MF War Diary, ‘Monthly Summary’, Mar. 1943, ADM 199/638. H.V.Markham to Stark, 9 Mar. 1943, box 1, Stark Papers. 122. Cunningham to Pound, 8 May 1943, BLAM 52561. 123. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 510, and pp. 511–12, 525–6. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52561. Pound to Churchill, 21 Jan. 1943, ADM 205/27. MF War Diary, ‘Monthly Summaries’, Mar. and Apr. 1943, ADM 199/638. MF War Diary, May 1943, ADM 199/639. Cunningham to Capt (S), 10 SF, 11 Aug. 1942, ADM 199/651. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. II, pp. 494–6. Hezlet, Submarine and Sea Power, pp. 148–52. 124. Churchill to Pound, 6 Dec. 1942, ADM 178/323, and see communications 25 Nov.-30 Dec. 1942, COS, CAB 79/24. 125. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, p. 124, and pp. 103, 117–23, ADM 199/2518. 126. Ibid., p. 124, ADM 199/2518. 127. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 277. Weichold, ‘Axis Naval Policy’, pp. 125–9, 131, 134, ADM 199/2518. 128. Hezlet, Submarine and Sea Power, p. 152. De Belot, Struggle for the Mediterranean, pp. 196–206. 129. Cunningham to Pound, 8 May 1943, BLAM 52561.

Notes

222

130. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 529. Cunningham to Admiralty, 13 Nov. 1943, CAB 106/673. 131. Cunningham to Edelsten, 15 June 1943, EDSN 1/2. 132. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. II, p. 614. 133. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 528. 134. Cunningham to aunts, 16 May 1943, BLAM 52559. 135. Cunningham to wife, 1 Feb., and 21 Jan. 1943, BLAM 52581 B. 136. Cunningham to wife, 14 Feb. 1943, BLAM 52581B. ‘Naval Command in the Mediterranean’, 2 Feb. 1943, CAB 80/39. 137. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1943, BLAM 52561. Cdre H.G.Norman to Cunningham, 1 Feb. 1943, BLAM 52570. Harwood to Pound, 12 Mar., and reply, 13 Mar. 1943, ADM 205/56. 138. Pound to Cunningham, 23 Apr. 1943, BLAM 52561. Pound to Churchill, 6 Feb. 1943, ADM 205/27. Pound to Alexander, 4 Jan. 1943, ADM 205/32. Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, pp. 223, 276. 139. Cunningham to Ramsay, 12 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. 140. JSM 11, 2 Dec. 1942, CAB 105/40. 141. Jones, Mediterranean War, pp. 33, 35. 142. Cunningham to Ramsay, 4 Dec., and 12 Nov. 1942, RMSY 5/21. 143. Ibid., 4 Dec. 1942, RMSY 5/21. 144. Cunningham to Pound, 5 Dec. 1942, BLAM 52561. 145. Cunningham, ‘Organisation of Command’, spring 1946, BLAM 52573. 146. Ibid. 147. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 210–23. 148. Eisenhower, notes, 10 Dec. 1942, T 93. 149. Cunningham, notes, p. 57, BLAM 52581B. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 511. 150. Cunningham to Pound, 20 Nov. 1942, PREM 3/274/2. 151. Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 185–6. 152. Tedder to Portal, 28 and 30 Nov., Eisenhower to COS, 30 Nov., T 93. Tedder, With Prejudice, pp. 369–84, 394. 153. Ibid., p. 406. Cunningham to Pound, 26 Dec. 1942, and Pound to COS, 1 Feb. 1943, ADM 205/34. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1943, BLAM 52561. Cunningham to Ramsay, 4 Dec. 1942, RMSY 5/21. 154. Tedder to Portal, 14 Nov. 1942, T 93. 155. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1943, BLAM 52561. Tedder, With Prejudice, p. 387. Power, ‘Landings in North Africa’, p. 205. 156. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1943, BLAM 52561. 157. Cunningham, notes, pp. 15–16, BLAM 52581B. 158. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 522. Adm A.G.Kirk, USN, oral history, pp. 190–1, NWC. Morison, North African Waters, p. 255. 159. Cunningham, ‘Organisation of Command’, spring 1946, BLAM 52573. 160. RoP, ‘Operation Torch’, ADM 199/902. Cunningham, ‘Notes for Prime Minister’, 4 June 1943, ADM 178/323. Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, p. 136. 161. RoP, ‘Operation Torch’, 30 Mar. 1943, ADM 199/902. 162. Ibid. 163. Cunningham to Edelsten, 15 June 1942, EDSN 1/2. 164. RoP, ‘Operation Torch’, ADM 199/902. 165. Ibid. 166. Macmillan, Blast of War, p. 320. De Belot, Struggle for the Mediterranean, pp. 179, 189. Larrabee, Commander-in-Chief, p. 639. 167. Dill to Brooke, 4 Oct. 1942, quoted in Jones, Mediterranean War, p. 23. 168. Love, U.S. Navy, vol. II, pp. 83, 87. 169. Danchev, ‘Being Friends’, p. 207.

Notes

223

11 The Invasion of Sicily (May–August 1943) 1. Roosevelt to Churchill, 11 Nov. 1942, R-210, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. I, p. 669. 2. Churchill to Roosevelt, 18 Nov. 1942, C-195, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, p. 13. 3. Ismay, Memoirs of Lord Ismay, pp. 285, 286. 4. JCS, ‘Basic Strategy for 1943’, in Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 614–16. JSM 551, 11 Dec. 1942, CAB 105/40. 5. COS, ‘American-British Strategy in 1943’, and Annex II, Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 608–12. Gen Brooke, 14 and 15 Jan. 1943, ‘Symbol’ Conf., CAB 99/24. 6. Ismay, Memoirs, p. 286. 7. Adm King, ‘Meeting of President with JCS’, 7 Jan. 1943, box 29, MRF. Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 252–4. 8. S.Weiss, Allies in Conflict: Anglo-American Strategic Negotiations, 1938–1944 (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 73. JPS, ‘Operations against the Continent’, 4 Mar. 1943, CAB 79/26. T.Higgins, ‘The Anglo-American Historians’ War in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945’, MA (1970), pp. 84–8. Kimball, Forged in War, p. 186. 9. JSM 551, 11 Dec. 1942, CAB 105/40. S.E.Morison, History of US Naval Operations in World War II, vol. IX, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1960), p. 8. 10. Marshall, CCS, 15 and 16 Jan., and Brooke, 20 and 22 Jan. 1943, ‘Symbol’ Conf., CAB 99/24. CCS 155 (1), ‘The Conduct of the War in 1943’, 19 Jan. 1943, App. III (D), in Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 621–2. Howard, Mediterranean Strategy, vol. 4, pp. 35, 36, 69–71. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p. 9. 11. CCS, ‘Report to Prime Minister and President’, 23 Jan. 1943, App. III (F), in Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 626–8. Portal, 18 Jan., and CCS, 23 Jan. 1943, ‘Symbol’ Conf., CAB 99/24. 12. Cunningham, 15 Jan. 1943, ‘Symbol’ Conf., CAB 99/24. 13. Jones, Mediterranean War, pp. 45–6. 14. ‘Operation Husky’, Annex A, ‘Symbol’ Conf., CAB 99/24. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 534– 51. 15. Cunningham to aunts, 6 June 1943, BLAM 52559. 16. Ibid., 29 June 1943, BLAM 52559. 17. Ibid., 24 June 1943, BLAM 52559. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 543–5. 18. Cunningham to aunts, 24 June 1943, BLAM 52559. 19. Ibid., 3 Mar. 1943, BLAM 52559. Cunningham to Pound, 15 Mar. 1943, BLAM 52561. 20. Vian, Action This Day, p. 103. Gen Sir O.Leese, RMSY 9/4. 21. Pound to Cunningham, 27 Feb. 1943, BLAM 52561. Capt M.L.Power to Cunningham, 10 Sept. 1949, BLAM 52575. V-Adm Sir M.L.Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 54, MANP. V-Adm Sir B.H.Ramsay, ‘Report on Husky’, 23 Oct. 1943, ADM 199/947. 22. Ramsay to wife, 28 May 1943, RMSY 8/23. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 55, MANP. 23. Ibid., 28 Apr. 1943, RMSY 8/23. Dill to Cunningham, 25 May 1943, BLAM 52570. 24. Power to Cunningham, 23 Sept. 1949, BLAM 52575. 25. Cunningham to Pound, 8 May 1943, BLAM 52561. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., 28 Apr. 1943, BLAM 52561. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 536, 538. Tedder, With Prejudice, pp. 425–39. Eisenhower to JCS, 17 Feb. and 20 Mar. 1943, ONO, Strat. Plans Div., box 222, RG 38. Adm H.K.Hewitt, USN, oral history, box 6, Hewitt Papers, OA. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 17–18. S.W.C.Pack, Operation Husky: The Allied Invasion of Sicily (Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles, 1977), pp. 33–4. R.M. Leighton, ‘Planning for Sicily’, USNIP (1962), pp. 97–100.

Notes

224

28. Power to Cunningham, 10 Sept. 1949, BLAM 52575. 29. Cunningham to Pound, 28 Apr. 1943, BLAM 52561. 30. Jones, Mediterranean War, p. 59, and pp. 57–64. Cunningham, ‘The Organisation of Command’, spring 1946, BLAM 52573. Love, Jr., U.S. Navy, vol. II, p.120. 31. Jones, Mediterranean War, p. 58. Brig H.A.Redman, USA, to Maj-Gen Deane, USA, ‘Landing Craft for Husky’, 14 Apr. 1943, ONO, SPD, box 222, RG 38. Leighton, ‘Planning for Sicily’, pp. 94–100. Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 425–7. D.Fraser, Alanbrooke (London: Collins, 1982), p. 337. Sherwood, Papers of Harry L.Hopkins, vol. II, p. 714. 32. Cunningham to Admiralty Secretary, 14 Nov., and Ady. Sec. to Cunningham, 4 Nov. 1947, BLAM 52574. Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 56, MANP. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 538–9. 33. Tedder, With Prejudice, p. 448. 34. Capt L.G.Durlacher, memo, 12 Nov. 1947, BLAM 52574. Col M.B.Gardner to Head of Atlantic Section (P), ONO, SPD, box 222, RG 38. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 16–17. 35. H.K.Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects of the Sicilian Campaign’, USNIP (1953), p. 709. Pack, Operation Husky, p. 35. Cunningham, ‘Husky Report’, ADM 199/2497. 36. Pack, Operation Husky, pp. 35–6. 37. ‘Husky Plans’, App. X, ‘Planning’, ADM 199/2508. Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects’, p. 714. 38. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 545–6. Cunningham, ‘Husky Report’, ADM 199/2497. Cunningham to Pound, 26 June 1943, BLAM 52561. Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects’, pp. 705, 710, 714. 39. Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects’, pp. 705–6, 710. King to C-in-C, Atlantic Fleet, ‘Task Force 65: Directive on Husky’, 15 May 1943, ONO, SPD, box 222, RG 38. Brig A.Head, ‘Amphibious Operations’, RUSIJ (1946), pp. 489–90. Vian, Action This Day, pp. 103–4. 40. Cunningham to Pound, 25 June 1943, BLAM 52561. 41. Cunningham, meeting with PM, Algiers, 3 June 1943, CAB 120/83. Cunningham to Pound, 25 June 1943, BLAM 52561. 42. MF Gen Orders, 1943, ADM 116/4749. Cunningham, ‘Husky Report’, ADM 199/2497. King to CCS, c. 29 May 1943, ‘Use of Sonic Warfare in Husky’, ONO, SPD, box 222, RG 38. Pack, Operation Husky, pp. 47–8. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 44–7. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. III, pp. 74, 79. R.Wingate, Lord Ismay: A Biography (London: Hutchinson, 1970), pp. 96–8. De Belot, Struggle for the Mediterranean, pp. 214–15. 43. ‘Operational Orders, Force V [Vian]’, 30 May 1943, ADM 199/859. ‘Various Naval Orders’, 20 May 1943, ADM 199/860. 44. ‘Operational Orders, Forces H and V’, 20 May 1943, ADM 199/859 and 860. 45. Cunningham, ‘Report on Husky’, ADM 199/2497. Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects’, p. 710. 46. Cunningham, ‘Report on Husky’, ADM 199/2497. 47. Ibid. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 547–9. 48. Cunningham to aunts, 11 July 1943, BLAM 52559. 49. Ibid. V-Adm Lord Ashbourne, in Pack, Operation Husky, p. 8. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 549–51, 553. Ollard, Fisher and Cunningham, p. 144. Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects’, p. 716. 50. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 550. 51. Cunningham, ‘Report on Husky’, ADM 199/2497. Ramsay to wife, 11 July 1943, RMSY 8/23. Pack, Operation Husky, pp. 69–70. 52. Cunningham, ‘Report on Husky’, ADM 199/2497. 53. Ibid. 54. COHQ, ‘Digest on Husky’, Oct. 1943, ADM 199/858. 55. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. III, p. 84. Pack, Operation Husky, pp. 34–40, 47–52, 55–7. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 283–5, 289. 56. Cunningham, ‘Report on Husky’, ADM 199/2497. 57. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. III, pp. 81–2. 58. Pack, Operation Husky, pp. 57, 61–9. Love, U.S. Navy, vol. II, pp. 120, 125.

Notes

225

59. Cunningham, ‘Report on Husky’, ADM 199/2497. Godson, Viking of Assault, p. 57. Vian, Action This Day, pp. 108–9. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 30–2, 70, 81–93, 109, 126– 69. 60. Cunningham, quoted in Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p. 143. 61. Lt-Cdr G.C.Butler (NLO, WTF), 31 July 1943, in Report of R-Adm C.Harcourt (CS 15), 16 Aug. 1943, ADM 199/943. Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects’, p. 718. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. ix, 103–4, 109–19, 146. Godson, Viking of Assault, pp. 57, 68–78. 62. Harcourt, ‘Report’, ADM 199/943. 63. Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects’, pp. 716–17, 719, 720. 64. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 19–25. Cunningham, ‘Report on Husky’, ADM 199/2497. 65. Ramsay, quoted in Pack, Operation Husky, p. 117. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 552, 555. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 248–9. 66. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 555. 67. Ibid. Hewitt, ‘Naval Aspects’, pp. 722–3. 68. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 554–5. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 170–9. 69. Cunningham to aunts, 11 July 1943, BLAM 52559. 70. Cunningham to Admiralty Secretary, Nov. 1947, BLAM 52574. Morison, Sicily-SalernoAnzio, pp. 179, 206. 71. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 296–7. Morison, SicilySalerno-Anzio, pp. 209–18. Pack, Operation Husky, pp. 160–7. 72. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 556. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 214, 218. 73. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. III, p. 99. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 213, 216–17. 74. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p.x.Jones, Mediterranean War, p. 62. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 557–8. 75. Cunningham, ‘Report on Husky’, ADM 199/2497. Capt P.K.Kischler, USN, Central Attack Force, ‘Comment on Husky Operations’, 14 Aug. 1943, ONO, SPD, box 224, RG 38. 76. Cdr H.P.Smith, USN, to R-Adm Cooke, USN, ‘Report on Husky Planning’, 6 July 1943, ONO, SPD, box 224, RG 38. 77. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 218–24. 78. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 194. Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 466, 468.

12 The Invasion of Italy (September–October 1943) 1. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. III, p. 100. Jones, Mediterranean War, p. 146. King and Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, p. 248. 2. CCS, 319/5, 28 Aug. 1943, App. VIII, Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 681–5. 3. Churchill to Roosevelt, 16 July 1943, C-368, p. 329, and pp. 217–18, 266, 328, 354, 443–6, Kimball, ed., Churchill and Roosevelt, vol. II, and vol. I, pp. 602, 670–1. Howard, Mediterranean Strategy, pp. 36–8, 42–50. Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, pp. 232–3, 245. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 242–4. 4. A.S.Cochran, Jr., ‘The Influence of “Magic” Intelligence on Allied Strategy in the Mediterranean’, in Symonds, ed., New Aspects of Naval History, pp. 345–6, 349–50. Jones, Mediterranean War, pp. 139–42, 145–9. W.Emerson, ‘Franklin Roosevelt as Commanderin-Chief in World War II’, MA (1958–9), pp. 200–2. Jackson and Bramall, The Chiefs, pp. 242, 245, 247. A.Danchev and D.Todman, eds, War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001), pp. 409, 413, 416, 433, 442, 444. Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, pp. 135, 501. Weiss, Allies in

Notes

226

Conflict, p. 75. Sherwood, ed., Papers of Harry L.Hopkins, vol. II, p. 759. Sainsbury, Churchill and Roosevelt, pp. 38–9. King and Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 248, 315, 369. 5. Jackson and Bramall, The Chiefs, p. 245. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 238. 6. Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. IV, p. 428. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 238, 242–4. Jones, Mediterranean War, p. 149. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 341. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. III, pp. 69, 100. 7. Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely, pp. 662–3. 8. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 346. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 253–7. 9. Cunningham to aunts, 14 Aug. 1943, BLAM 52559. 10. Cunningham to Alexander, 26 Aug. 1943, and correspondence between them 5–19 Aug. 1943, BLAM 52566. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 302–4. 11. Cunningham to aunts, 5 and 29 Sept. 1943, BLAM 52559. MF War Diary, Sept. 1943, ADM 199/641. Cunningham to Ramsay, 20 Sept. 1943, RMSY 9/4. 12. Cunningham, ‘Despatch on Avalanche’, 8 Mar. 1945, WLLS 6/1. G.N. Oliver to Cunningham, 16 Oct. 1943, ADM 199/643. H.K.Hewitt, ‘The Allied Navies at Salerno: Operation Avalanche, September 1943’, USNIP (1953), pp. 959–60. Wingate, Lord Ismay, p. 101. Ismay, Memoirs, p. 325. R.Dallek, Franklin D.Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 415. 13. Hewitt, ‘Report on Avalanche’, 11 Jan. 1945, ADM 199/949. Roskill, The War at Sea, vol. III, pp. 181–3. 14. Vian, Action This Day, pp. 113, 116. Godson, Viking of Assault, pp. 83–91. MF War Diary, ADM 199/641. Love, Jr., U.S. Navy, vol. II, pp. 128–9. 15. Cunningham, ‘Avalanche’, WLLS 6/1. H.K.Hewitt, ‘The Allied Navies at Salerno: Operation Avalanche, September 1943’, USNIP (1953), p. 970. 16. Hewitt, ‘Avalanche’, p. 1, ADM 199/949. Hewitt, ‘Allied Navies at Salerno’, pp. 961–4, 967. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 343–4. 17. Hewitt, ‘Avalanche’, p. 2, ADM 199/949. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 237, 271. 18. Hewitt, ‘Avalanche’, pp. 2–3, ADM 199/949. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 566, 568. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret, pp. 109–18. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 301–3. 19. Cunningham, ‘Avalanche’, WLLS 6/1. Oliver to Roskill, 20 Jan. 1955, and to Capt F.C. Flynn, 14 July 1966, OLVR. Hewitt, ‘Avalanche’, pp. 3, 88, ADM 199/949. 20. Cunningham to Willis, 14 Sept. 1943, WLLS 6/1. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 356–8. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 229, 286–92. 21. Cunningham, ‘Avalanche’, WLLS 6/1. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 569–70. 22. Cunningham, ‘Avalanche’, WLLS 6/1. Cunningham to Admiralty Sec., 20 Apr. 1947, also Alexander to U-Sec., War Office, 31 June 1947, Oliver to Cunningham, 8 Aug. 1947, BLAM 52572. Cunningham to Ramsay, 20 Sept. 1943, RMSY 9/4. Cunningham to Oliver, n.d., 1943?, OLVR. Hewitt, ‘Allied Navies at Salerno’, p. 976. 23. Oliver to Cunningham, 16 Oct. 1943, ADM 199/949. Hewitt, ‘Allied Navies at Salerno’, pp. 964–8, 972–4. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 358, 361. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 452–3. 24. Cunningham to aunts, 19 Sept. 1943, BLAM 52559. 25. Hewitt, ‘Avalanche’, p. 2, ADM 199/949. 26. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 571. 27. Ibid., p. 568 28. Cunningham, ‘Avalanche’, WLLS 6/1. MF War Diary, Sept. 1943, ADM 199/641. Hewitt, ‘Allied Navies at Salerno’, pp. 975–6. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 295–300, 310, 314.

Notes

227

29. Churchill to Roosevelt, 18 Sept. 1943, C-416, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, p. 434. Cunningham, ‘Avalanche’, WLLS 6/1. Kimball, Forged in War, p. 222. 30. Hewitt, ‘Allied Navies at Salerno’, p. 976. Higgins, ‘Anglo-American Historians’, pp. 84–8. Stoler, ‘American Perception’, pp. 323–39. 31. Cunningham, ‘Avalanche’, WLLS 6/1. 32. Cunningham to aunts, 19 Sept. 1943, BLAM 52559. 33. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 560, 572. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p. 242. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, p. 309. 34. ‘Italian Armistice’, ADM 199/452. Cunningham to Willis, 14 Sept. 1943, WLLS 6/1. Italian Naval Chief to Cunningham, 4 Aug. 1946, BLAM 52573. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 572. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 304–6. 35. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 563, and pp. 562–5. 36. Cunningham to aunts, 12 Sept. 1943, BLAM 52559. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 350, 354–6. 37. MF War Diary, Sept. 1943, ADM 199/641. Greene and Massignani, Naval War, pp. 304–6. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, p. 268. 38. Cunningham to Admiralty, 12 Sept. 1943, and Cunningham to Mediterranean Station and Cin-C, Levant, 11 Sept. 1943, and Admiralty to Cunningham, 12 Sept. 1943, BLAM 52566. 39. Cunningham to aunts, 12 Sept. 1943, BLAM 52559. MF War Diary, Sept. 1943, ADM 199/641. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 564. 40. Cunningham to aunts, 25 Sept. 1943, BLAM 52559. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 572. 41. MF War Diary, Sept. 1943, ADM 199/641. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 573. Churchill to Roosevelt, 11 Oct. 1943, C-452, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, p. 519. 42. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 370. 43. Cunningham to Mediterranean Station, 17 Oct. 1943, BLAM 52566. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 573–6. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, pp. 274–6. Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, pp. 279–86.

13 Becoming First Sea Lord (October 1943–June 1944) 1. Pound died on Trafalgar Day, 21 Oct. 1943; Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, pp. 278–86. Churchill to A.V.Alexander, 25 Sept. 1943, AVAR 5/8/36. W.S.Chalmers, Max Horton and the Western Approaches (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1954), pp. 210–11. 2. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 236. 3. R-Adm L.H.K.Douglas-Hamilton (Naval Secretary) to Alexander, 14 Sept. 1943, AVAR 5/8/33a. 4. Churchill to Alexander, 25 Sept. 1943, AVAR 5/8/36. 5. Alexander to Churchill, 25 Sept. 1943, AVAR 5/8/37. 6. Ibid. 7. M.Muir, Jr., ‘The United States Navy in World War II: An Assessment’, in Sadkovitch, ed., Major Naval Combatants, pp. 1–14. 8. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 574. 9. Cunningham, notes, p. 89, BLAM 52581B. Alexander to Churchill, 25 Sept. 1943, AVAR 5/8/37. 10. R.Humble, Fraser of North Cape (London: Routledge, 1983), p. 178. 11. A phrase used by M of RAF Lord Tedder, e.g., to his wife, 26 Aug. 1941, T 75, Tedder Papers. Alexander to Churchill, 27 Sept. 1943, AVAR 5/8/39a.

Notes

228

12. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 574. 13. Churchill to King George VI, 4 Oct. 1943, AVAR 5/8/39b. 14. Cunningham, diary, 19 Feb. 1946, BLAM 52579. 15. Dill to Cunningham, 18 Oct., and Adm Sir P.Noble to Cunningham, 23 Dec. and 1 Oct. 1943, and Adm Sir J.Tovey to Cunningham, 5 Oct. 1943, BLAM 52571. 16. Cunningham to Adm Sir J.Somerville, 19 Jan. 1944, SMVL 8/2. 17. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 574–6. Adm J.H. Godfrey, ‘Autobiography’, p. 303, DUPO 6/1. Alexander to King’s Sec., 4 Oct. 1943, AVAR 5/8/42a. ‘He was modest but he knew he was modest!’—the late Prof. Colin Matthew (a nephew by marriage) to the author, 23 July 1999. 18. Cunningham to aunts, 15 Mar. 1944, BLAM 52559. Exchange of correspondence with Alexander, 18 and 19 Apr. 1944, ADM 205/39. 19. P.Beesly, Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre, 1939–1945 (London: H.Hamilton, 1977), p. 225. 20. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 577–8, 583–4. Cunningham to aunts, 23 Oct. 1943, BLAM 52559. Cunningham to Adm J.H.Godfrey, 17 May 1959, CUNN 5/4. Cunningham to Edelsten, 23 Apr. 1942, EDSN 1/2. 21. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 581. 22. Ibid., pp. 596–7. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, pp. 277–80. 23. Cunningham to aunts, 15 Mar. 1944, BLAM 52559. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 281–2. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 423–4. 24. R-Adm E.J.P.Brind to Cunningham, 24 Oct. 1943, ADM 205/28. 25. R-Adm H.R.G.Kinahan, ‘General Review of the Present Naval Manpower Situation’, 16 Nov. 1943, ADM 205/36. Sainsbury, Churchill and Roosevelt, pp. 58, 180–1. 26. Cunningham to Somerville, 19 Dec. 1943, SMVL 8/2. Cunningham to Adm Sir B.Fraser, 19 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52572. Churchill to Cunningham, 27 May 1944, ADM 205/36. 27. Kinahan, ‘Review’, 16 Nov. 1943, ADM 205/36. Board of Admiralty discussions, 8, 11 and 18 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52577. 28. CCS 131, 26 Nov., and Churchill to Ismay, 6 Dec., CCS 402, 18 Nov., Churchill to Cunningham, 22 Nov. 1943, CAB 99/25. Adm Sir A.Willis, report on ‘Accolade’, WLLS 6/2. Anon., ‘Naval Operations in the Aegean, Sept. 1943–Nov. 1944 (I)’, NR (1951), pp. 42– 50. Smith and Walker, War in the Aegean, pp. 52–60, 64, 268. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 218–9. Lamb, Churchill as War Leader, pp. 237–50. 29. V-Adm Sir M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 59–61, MANP. 30. COS, 4 and 7 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. Cunningham to Roskill, 3 Dec. 1955, ROSK 6/52. Cunningham to Adm Sir H.Kelly, 17 Dec. 1943, KEL 43. 31. Eden to Churchill, 12 Oct. 1943, CAB 120/501. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 588–9. Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely, pp. 681–5. Jones, War in the Mediterranean, pp. 97, 100– 2. 32. Willis, ‘Accolade’, WLLS 6/2. 33. Cunningham to VCNS, 9 Oct. 1943, CAB 120/500. Adm Sir J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 19 Sept. 1943, BLAM 52562. Willis to Cunningham, 27 Oct. 1943, BLAM 52571. Churchill and COS memos, 18, 22, 25 and 28 Nov., 3 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. Kelly to Cunningham, 4 Dec. 1943, BLAM 52571. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 588–9. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 218–23. S.W.Roskill, The Strategy of Sea Power: Its Development and Application (London: Collins, 1962), pp. 206–7. Anon., ‘Naval Operations in the Aegean (III)’, pp. 287–95. Jackson and Bramall, The Chiefs, p. 252. Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 464–5. 34. Willis to Cunningham, 27 Oct. 1943, BLAM 52571. 35. Churchill, minute, 22 Nov. 1943, CAB 99/25. Churchill to Roosevelt, 26 Dec. 1943, C-521, 8 Jan. 1944, C-540 and C-541, Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, pp. 632–3, 657–8. Jones, War in the Mediterranean, pp. 154–7. Morison, Sicily-SalernoAnzio, pp. 317–49.

Notes

229

36. J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 27 Jan. and 11 Feb. 1944, and replies, 6 Feb. and 21 Mar. 1944, BLAM 52562. 37. J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 27 Jan. 1944, BLAM 52562. Jackson and Bramall, The Chiefs, pp. 253–4. 38. J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 11 Feb. 1944, BLAM 52562. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 595. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 344–80. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 223. 39. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 6 Feb. 1944, BLAM 52562. 40. Jones, War in the Mediterranean, pp. 159–62. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 380–4. Weiss, Allies in Conflict, p. 142. 41. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p. 336. 42. Cunningham to VCNS (for PM), 9 Oct. 1943, CAB 120/500. 43. Cunningham to VCNS, 9 Oct. 1943, CAB 120/500. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 220. 44. CCS 409, 25 Nov. 1943, CAB 99/25. Jones, War in the Mediterranean, pp. 97, 100, 103–13. 45. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 6 May 1944, and J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 17 Feb. and 23 May 1944, BLAM 52562. 46. CCS 135, 5 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 252–73. 47. J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 25 May 1944, BLAM 52562. J.P.M.Showell, The Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939–1945 (London: Greenhill, 1990), pp. 392–3. CCS 409, 25 Nov., and CCS 132, 30 Nov. 1943, CAB 99/25. Adm Sir B.Ramsay, ‘Combined Operations’, autumn 1943, RMSY 8/22. Butcher, Three Years with Eisenhower, p. 371. Jones, War in the Mediterranean, pp. 138–47, 150. Ambrose, Eisenhower, pp. 265–6, 275. 48. Cunningham, diary, 13 Apr. 1945, BLAM 52578, and 8 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. Sainsbury, Churchill and Roosevelt, pp. 5–6. 49. Cunningham, diary, 19 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577. 50. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, p. 239. Ismay, Memoirs, p. 316. 51. Cunningham, diary, 14 Aug. 1944, BLAM 52577. 52. Ibid., 8 Aug. 1944, BAM 52577. 53. Ibid., 9 and 10 Aug. 1944, BLAM 52577. 54. Ibid., 29 Aug. 1944, BLAM 52577. 55. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 578. D.Richards, Portal of Hungerford (London: Heinemann, 1977), pp. 202, 211–12. Capt Sir R.Pym, DUPO 2/4. 56. Pack, Cunningham the Commander, p. 280. Rigby, ‘Combined Chiefs of Staff’, pp. 48–50, 54. 57. Cunningham, diary, 3 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 466, 520, 566–7, 589, 616, 628, 633, 700. Ismay, Memoirs, p. 317. Richards, Portal, pp. ix, 203, 208–9, 211–12. R.Overy, Why the Allies Won (London: Pimlico, 1996), pp. 269–70. Fraser, Alanbrooke, pp. 378, 416, 442, 530. 58. Cunningham, diary, 9 June 1944, BLAM 52577. Correspondence between Cunningham and Noble, Jan.-Feb. 1944, BLAM 52571. Capt C.E.Lambe (D of Ops) to Cunningham, 5 Feb. 1944, BLAM 52571. Richards, Portal, pp. 252, 271–2. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 406. 59. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 6 May 1944, BLAM 52562. C.G.Reynolds, The Historian and the Sea: Essays on Maritime Strategies (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989), p. 154. 60. Dill to Cunningham, 18 Oct. 1943, BLAM 52571. 61. JSM, ‘Report’, pp. 10, 15, 17, 22, 43, CAB 122/1579. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 586, 588– 9. Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, pp. 606, 613. Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 463, 471, 492, 503. 62. COS, 24 Nov. 1943,CAB 99/25. 63. CCS 426/1, and report, 6 Dec., COS to Churchill, 23 Nov., Churchill, 4 Dec., Cunningham, 5 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. ‘Post-Husky Operations: Some Naval Questions’, CAB 122/1202. Cunningham to V-Adm Sir G.Blake, 9 May 1944, BLAM 52571. Churchill, The Second

Notes

230

World War, pp. 729, 730, 738. King and Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, pp. 308, 324–7. J.M.Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971), pp. 408, 415. 64. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 585–9. Fraser, Alanbrooke, pp. 378, 381, 382–5. Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 477–8. Dallek, Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, pp. 425–8. F.Freidel, Franklin D.Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1990), pp. 477–92, 739. 65. Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 471–2, 482–3, 485, 489–90. Overy, Why the Allies Won, pp. 142–3, 250. 66. Churchill to A.V.Alexander, 29 Apr., 21 and 29 May 1944, ADM 205/35. 67. Cunningham, diary, 29 May 1944, BLAM 52577. 68. Cunningham to J.Ehrman, 6 Oct. 1951, BLAM 52575. 69. Correspondence between Cunningham and Blake, 28 Mar., 14 May, 17 Aug. 1944, BLAM 52571. Blake to Cunningham 25 Mar. 1944, ADM 205/38. 70. Cunningham to C-in-C, Mediterranean, etc., 3 Mar. 1944, ADM 199/954. BAD to Admiralty, 3 Mar., J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 25 May 1944, BLAM 52562. 71. Numerous exchanges of correspondence between Prime Minister and President, in Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, pp. 655, 659, 664–6, 669–71, 694–5, 698– 700, 765. 72. Sainsbury, Churchill and Roosevelt, p. 52. Jones, War in the Mediterranean, pp. 125, 136–9. 73. Simpson. ed., The Somerville Papers, pp. 366–76, 471–579. P Ziegler, Mountbatten (London: Guild, 1985), pp. 227–40. I.McGeoch, The Princely Sailor: Mountbatten of Burma (London and Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1996), pp. 103–5. 74. M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 96–7, MANP. 75. Chalmers, Horton, p. 238. 76. W.J.R.Gardner, ‘An Allied Perspective’, in S.Howarth and D.Law, eds, The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1945 (London: Greenhill; Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994), p. 521. ‘Coastal Command’, file 8, Portal Papers. E.J.Grove, ed., The Defeat of the Enemy Attack on Shipping, 1939–1945 (Aldershot: Ashgate; Navy Records Society, 1997). D.Syrett, ed., The Battle of the Atlantic and Signals Intelligence: U-boat Situations and Trends, 1941–1945 (Aldershot: Ashgate; Navy Records Society, 1998). D.Syrett, ed., The Battle of the Atlantic and Signals Intelligence: U-boat Tracking Papers, 1941–1947 (Aldershot: Ashgate; Navy Records Society, 2002). Hackmann, Seek and Strike, pp. 234, 238, 240–6, 254. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 228–31. 77. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 579. 78. Grove, ed., Defeat of the Enemy Attack, p. 122, and pp. 118–21. Somerville to Admiralty, and accompanying brief, box A1, Stark Papers, NHC. Syrett, ed., U-boat Situations and Trends, pp. 259–75. Syrett, ed., U-boat Tracking Papers, pp. 211–76. S.E.Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, vol. X, The Atlantic Battle Won (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), pp. 245–8. Terraine, The Right of the Line, p. 453. 79. Cunningham, diary, 30 May, 25 and 26 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52577. CCS 399/1, 23 Nov. 1944, and COS (45) 14 (0), ‘The U-boat Threat during 1945’, CAB 99/25. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 594, 625, 631. Showell, Fuehrer Naval Conferences, pp. 431, 445–6, 448, 463, 480, 483. P.Padfield, War beneath the Sea (London: Pimlico, 1995), pp. 357–61, 387, 458, 463. 80. Chalmers, Horton, pp. 208–9, 223–4. Morison, Atlantic Battle Won, pp. 133–5. I.L.Buxton, ‘British Warship Building and Repair’, p. 83, and G.Till, ‘The Battle of the Atlantic as History’, p. 594, in Howarth and Law, eds, Battle of the Atlantic. 81. CCS 399/1, 7Nov. 1943, CAB 99/25. Showell, ed., Fuehrer Naval Conferences, pp. 382–99. Morison, Atlantic Battle Won, pp. 105–7, 135–52. Terraine, Right of the Line, pp. 401–29, 434–5, 449. J.Buckley, The RAF and Trade Defence, 1919–1945: Constant Endeavour (Keele, Staffs.: Ryburn, 1995), pp. 113–14, 119–38, 178–81, 185–6, 214.

Notes

231

82. Hackmann, Seek and Strike, pp. 254–6. K.Knowles, ‘Ultra and the Battle of the Atlantic: The American View’, in US Naval Academy, ed., Changing Interpretations, pp. 445–8. Morison, Atlantic Battle Won, pp. 99–100, 153–77, 208–28. 83. Buckley, RAF and Trade Defence, p. 164. Knowles, ‘Ultra and the Battle of the Atlantic’, p. 448. 84. CCS 399/1, p. 22, CAB 99/25. 85. Syrett, U-boat Tracking Papers, pp. 254–5, 261–2, 274–6. Hackmann, Seek and Strike, p. 238. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 594. Showell, Fuehrer Naval Conferences, pp. 384, 391–2. G.Hessler, U-boat Warfare in the Atlantic, 1939–1945, vol. III (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1989), pp. 23, 27–8, 33, 51, 54, 55, 57, 61–4, 67, 83–7. Howarth and Law, eds, Battle of the Atlantic, Map 6. 86. Stalin to Churchill, transmitted to Roosevelt, 16 Oct. 1943, C-460, in Kimball, ed., Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence, vol. II, pp. 534–6. P.Lundeberg, ‘Allied Cooperation’, in Howarth and Law, eds, Battle of the Atlantic, pp. 362–5. 87. A.D.Lambert, ‘Seizing the Initiative: The Arctic Convoys, 1944–45’, in Rodger, ed., Naval Power, pp. 151–61. 88. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 580. Morison, Atlantic Battle Won, pp. 229–33. 89. Cunningham to Noble, 3 Jan. 1944, BLAM 52571. Cunningham, notes, pp. 106–7, BLAM 52581B. 90. Beesly, Very Special Intelligence, p. 225. 91. Cunningham to aunts, 1 Jan. 1944, BLAM 52559. Cunningham, notes, pp. 106–7, BLAM 52581 B.Humble, Fraser, pp. 187–224. 92. Cunningham, diary, 3 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 237–8. 93. Cunningham to Roskill, 30 Dec. 1957, ROSK 6/52. Cunningham, diary, 12 and 13 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. 94. Humble, Fraser, pp. 225–6, 230–2. 95. Cunningham, diary, 13 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577. Cunningham to Noble, 8 Apr. 1944, BLAM 51571. 96. Cunningham, diary, 13 and 25 Apr., 17 May, 17, 20 and 24 July 1944, BLAM 52577. 97. Cunningham, diary, 14 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577. 98. Cunningham, diary, 24 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. Morison, Atlantic Battle Won, pp. 305–10. Showell, ed., Fuehrer Naval Conferences, pp. 388–92. 99. Cunningham, diary, 22 May, 12 July, 18 and 19 Oct., 1 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. 100. Cunningham, diary, 27 Oct., and 30 Aug. 1944, BLAM 52577.

14 The Pinnacle of a Career (June 1944–May 1946) 1. Cunningham, diary, 1 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577. 2. Cunningham, notes, p. 142, BLAM 52581B. 3. CCS 426/1, 6 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 585, 587. R.W.Love, Jr., and J.Major, eds, The Year of D-Day: The 1944 Diary of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay (Hull: University of Hull Press, 1994), pp. xv–xxxv. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 235– 6. Danchev, ‘Being Friends’, p. 209. C.S.Gray, The Leverage of Sea Power: The Strategic Advantage of Navies in War (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 237. 4. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 585, 587. 5. AoF Sir George Creasy (then Ramsay’s CoS), pp. 2–3, and ‘LGD’, pp. 1–2, NR (1945). B.H.Ramsay, ‘Lecture on Combined Operations’, autumn 1943, RMSY 8/22. 6. F-M Lord Montgomery, quoted in Chalmers, Full Cycle, pp. 182, 186–8.

Notes

232

7. Cunningham, diary, 7 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 6 May 1944, BLAM 52562. Cunningham to Noble, 6 Feb. 1944, BLAM 52571. Ramsay, letters to his wife, RMSY 9/27A. Ramsay, diary, 14 Feb., 29 Apr., 7, 11, 20 and 27 May 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, pp. xxxvii, 26, 61, 65, 67, 73, 74, 77. Chalmers, Full Cycle, pp. 183–4, 189, 191, 204–9, 212, 239. 8. Ramsay, diary, 7 May 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, p. 67. Barnett, Engage The Enemy More Closely, p. 780. 9. Cunningham, notes, p. 115, BLAM 52581B. Ramsay, diary, 10 Mar., 29 Apr., 6, 7 and 15 May, 15 June 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, pp. 41, 61,64, 65, 70, 89. Ramsay, letters to wife, RMSY 9/27A. 10. Cunningham to Blake, 8 May, and reply, 14 May 1944, BLAM 52571. Blake to Cunningham, 25 Mar. 1944, ADM 205/38. 11. Adm H.R.Stark, USN, to Adm E.J.King, USN, 26 Jan. 1944, ADM 205/38. Cunningham to Noble, 6 Feb. 1944, BLAM 52571. Ramsay, diary, 5, 11, 18, 22 and 30 May 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, pp. 64, 70, 71, 74, 78. 12. Cunningham, diary, 4 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 13. Ibid., 6 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 14. Ibid., 7 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 15. S.E.Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, vol. XI, The Invasion of France and Germany (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1957), pp. 110–69. 16. Cunningham, diary, 7 and 9 June 1944, BLAM 52577. Chalmers, Full Cycle, pp. 235–8. Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely, pp. 810–38. 17. Cunningham, diary, 5 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 18. Ibid., 2 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 19. Ibid., 15 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 20. Ibid. 21. Churchill to Cunningham, 4 Aug. 1944, ADM 205/35. 22. Ibid., 13 July 1944, ADM 205/35. 23. Brooke, diary, 8, 10 and 11 June 1944, Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 554–6. 24. Cunningham to Churchill, 22 June 1944, ADM 205/57. Cunningham, diary, 21 and 23 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 25. Ramsay, diary, 19 June 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, p. 92. 26. Buell, Master of Sea Power, pp. 435–6. 27. Cunningham, diary, 8 and 9 June, 7 July 1944, BLAM 52577. Roskill, Strategy of Sea Power, p. 212. 28. Cunningham to Churchill, and to Alexander, 22 June, Churchill to Cunningham, 10 July, and reply, 11 July 1944, ADM 205/35. Correspondence between Churchill, Cunningham and A.V.Alexander, 22 Apr. to 27 Sept. 1944, ADM 205/39. 29. Rommel to Hitler, quoted in Muir, Jr., ‘The United States Navy’, p. 11. 30. Hessler, U-boat Warfare in the Atlantic, vol. III, pp. 55–6. 31. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 604. 32. Cunningham, diary, 6 and 8 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 33. Cunningham, diary, 3 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. Ramsay, diary, 15, 22 and 29 July, 12 Aug. 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, pp. 106, 109, 114, 121. 34. Ramsay, diary, 30 July and 14 Sept., and 1, 7, 22 Sept., 5 Dec. 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, pp. 114, 128, 129, 133, 149, 187. 35. Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely, p. 843. 36. Cunningham, diary, 15 July 1944, BLAM 52577. Ramsay diary, 6 July 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, p. 100. 37. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 609–10, 618–19.

Notes

233

38. Cunningham, diary, 7 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. Ramsay, diary, 4, 13, 22 and 30 Sept., Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, pp. 131, 135, 142, 148. Showell, ed., Fuehrer Naval Conferences, pp. 395, 397–9, 417–18. 39. Cunningham, diary, 6 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. CCS 172, 12 Sept. 1944, CAB 99/25. Chalmers, Full Cycle, pp. 244–56. 40. Cunningham, diary, 4 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. 41. Ibid., 4 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. 42. Ibid., 4 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. Cunningham to Roskill, 19 Oct. 1959, ROSK 6/52. 43. Cunningham to Godfrey, 27 Nov., n.d. (c. 1954), GDFY. 44. Cunningham, diary, 28 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. 45. Ibid., 21 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52577. 46. Ibid., 4 May, and 28 Jan., 8 and 21 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. COS 107, 23 Apr. 1945, CAB 79/32. 47. Cunningham, diary, 9 and 13 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. 48. Ramsay, diary, 25 July 1944, Love and Major, eds, Year of D-Day, p. 111. 49. Cunningham, diary, 2 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. Ramsay to Cunningham, 1 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. It was Ramsay’s concern about Antwerp that led to his fatal flight. 50. Cunningham, diary, 6 Jan., and 12 Apr. 1945, BLAM 52578. 51. Ibid., 6 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. 52. Ibid., 6 and 7 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. 53. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 597. J.M.Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 1940–1945 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971), p. 478. 54. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 606. Cunningham, diary, 26 June 1944, BLAM 52577. 55. Cunningham, notes, p. 111, BLAM 52581B. 56. Cunningham, diary, 14 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577. 57. Quoted in A.F.Wilt, ‘The Summer of 1944: A Comparison of Overlord and Anvil/ Dragoon’, JSS (1981), p. 188. 58. J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 4 Mar. 1944, BLAM 52562. 59. Cunningham, diary, 3 July 1944, BLAM 52577. CCS 132, 30 Nov., and 133, 3 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. 60. ‘Anvil-Dragoon Battle Summary’, ADM 186/796. 61. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 1 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52562. Cunningham to Roskill, 28 Nov. 1959, ROSK 6/52. 62. ‘Italian Surrender: Amendment of Armistice Terms and Naval Agreement’, 14 Nov. 1943, ADM 199/452. 63. ‘Agenda for a Meeting on the Mediterranean’, 18 Nov. 1944, ADM 205/57. Dill, note, 22 Nov. 1943, CAB 99/25. J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 26 May 1944, BLAM 52562. Rawlings to Cunningham, 27 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52571. 64. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 1 Sept., and reply, 25 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52562. 65. Cunningham, diary, 31 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. 66. Ibid., 30 Jan., and 29 Jan., 8 Feb. 1945, BLAM 52578. 67. Ibid., 6 and 8 Feb. 1945, BLAM 52578. 68. Ibid., 18 July 1945, BLAM 52578. 69. Ibid. 70. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 594. 71. Cunningham, diary, 30 May 1944, BLAM 52577. ‘The U-boat Threat during 1945’, CAB 99/25. Hezlet, Submarine and Sea Power, p. 228. 72. Showell, Fuehrer Naval Conferences, pp. 380–2, 390–1. Hessler, U-boat Warfare in the Atlantic, vol. III, p. 87. Hezlet, Submarine and Sea Power, p. 228. 73. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 647. 74. Hackmann, Seek and Strike, p. 322.

Notes

234

75. Anti-U-boat Warfare Cttee, 14 Dec. 1944, CAB 119/133. R-Adm C.D.Howard-Johnston to Roskill, 9 May 1979, ROSK 7/210. Showell, Fuehrer Naval Conferences, pp. 447, 457. 76. Cunningham to V-Adm G.C.Jones, RCN (CNS, Canada), 25 Jan. 1945, ADM 205/44. COS (45) 14 (0), ‘The U-boat Threat during 1945’, CAB 99/25. Anti-U-boat Warfare Cttee, 14 Dec. 1944, CAB 119/133. Morison, Atlantic Battle Won, pp. 60–2, 339. 77. W.J.R.Gardner, Decoding History: The Battle of the Atlantic and Ultra (London: Macmillan, 1999), p. 94. 78. COS (45) 14 (0), ‘The U-boat Threat during 1945’, CAB 99/25. 79. ‘Review of the Anti-U-boat War, 20 Dec. 1944–20 Jan. 1945’, ADM 205/44. 80. CCS, 2 Feb. 1945, CAB 119/133. Gardner, Decoding History, pp. 94–5. 81. ‘Minutes of the First Sea Lord’s Meeting to Discuss Methods of Frustrating the U-boat Campaign’, 15 Jan. 1945, ADM 205/44. 82. Admiralty, meetings, 19 Dec. 1944, 26 Jan. 1945, CAB 119/133. Chalmers, Horton, pp. 216–17, 222–8. 83. Cunningham to Fraser, 19 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52572. Cunningham to A.J.Power, 23 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52562. 84. E.Roessler, ‘U-boat Development and Building’, in Howarth and Law, eds, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 135. Gardner, Decoding History, pp. 105, 116–19, 144, 216–18. 85. Anti-U-boat Warfare Cttee, ‘The U-boat Threat during 1945’, 26 Jan. 1945, CAB 119/133, and see also 12 Jan., 15 Mar. 1944, CAB 86/6. 86. ‘Review of the Anti-U-boat War’, 20 Jan. 1945, ADM 205/44. 87. Cunningham to A.J.Power, 13 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52562. C.Madsen, The Royal Navy and German Naval Disarmament, 1942–1947 (London: Cass, 1998), pp. 29–34. Milner, ‘AngloAmerican Naval Co-operation’, p. 263. 88. Cunningham, diary, 1 Mar., and 19, 22 and 26 Feb., 2 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. ‘Meeting at Admiralty’, 10 Jan. 1945, ADM 205/58. 89. Cunningham, diary, 19 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52577. 90. Cunningham, diary, 26 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. Anon., ‘Hall and Godfrey: Doyens of Naval Intelligence’, NR (1973), pp. 125–36. Hackmann, Seek and Strike, p. 238. H.Probert, ‘Allied Land-Based Anti-Submarine Warfare’, in Howarth and Law, eds, Battle of the Atlantic, p. 384. 91. ‘Minutes of a Meeting at the Admiralty’, 1 Mar. 1945, ADM 205/44. 92. Cunningham, diary, 20 and 28 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. 93. Ibid., 3 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. Cunningham to Stark, 20 Nov. 1944, King to Stark, 28 Dec. 1944, ADM 205/52. COS 166, 13 Mar. 1945, CAB 119/133. 94. CCS 399/1, CAB 99/25. Cunningham, diary, 3 Oct., and 27 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. 95. Meeting, 7 July 1944, ADM 205/40. CCS 399/1, CAB 99/25. Cunningham to Stark, 20 Nov. 1944, ADM 205/52. Head of Plans to Sec. to FSL, 3 Jan. 1945, ADM 205/33. Memo by ACNS (UT), 24 Jan. 1945, ADM 205/44. 96. Cunningham, diary, 19 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52577, and 22 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. CCS 399/1, CCS 774/1, 3 Jan., CCS 774/2, 1 Feb. 1945, CAB 99/25. A-M Sir D.Evill, 6 Feb. 1945, CAB 119/133. Anti-U-boat Warfare Cttee, 31 Oct. 1944, CAB 86/6. P.W.Gretton, Former Naval Person, p. 19. 97. Anti-U-boat Warfare Cttee, 20 Jan. 1945, ADM 205/44. 98. CCS 399/1, CAB 99/25. Showell, Fuehrer Naval Conferences, pp. 391–2, 414, 421, 429, 440, 481–2. Hessler, U-boat Warfare in the Atlantic, vol. III, pp. 23–7. Gardner, Decoding History, pp. 96, 99, 203. 99. Morison, Invasion of France and Germany, p. 339. 100. Terraine, Right of the Line, p. 455. 101. Cunningham, diary, 9 May, 10 July 1945, BLAM 52578. COS 127, 15 May 1945, CAB 79/33. COS 135, 24 May 1945, CAB 79/34. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 643–4. 102. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 647.

Notes

235

103. Cunningham, diary, 16 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. Correspondence between Cunningham and Adm Sir G.Layton, 10 Nov. 1943–30 July 1944, BLAM 52571. 104. CCS 135, 5 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. 105. COS, ‘Strategy for the War against Japan’, J.Ehrman, Grand Strategy, vol. V (London: HMSO, 1956), pp. 566–8, and pp. 59, 183–6, 191–2, 259–62. C.Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War against Japan, 1941–1945 (London: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 412–15. 106. Cunningham, diary, 2 Mar., and 21 Mar., 7, 12 and 19 Apr. 1945, BLAM 52578. 107. Cunningham, diary, 6 and 7 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. 108. Cunningham to A.J.Power, 15 June 1945, BLAM 52562. CCS 135, 5 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. COS 110, 26 Apr., COS 113, 1 May 1945, CAB 79/32. COS 127, 15 May 1945, CAB 79/33. 109. Cunningham to A.J.Power, 15 June 1945, BLAM 52562. 110. Capt C.E.Lambe to Cunningham, 5 Feb. 1944, and memo for Noble, ‘The Employment of British Carrier Task Force in the Indian Ocean’, 19 Feb. 1944, and correspondence between Cunningham and Noble, 30 Jan.-28 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52571. Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers, pp. 589–96, 599–600, 604–55. J.D.Brown, ‘The Forgotten Bases: The Royal Navies in the Pacific, 1945’, in D.Stevens, ed., The Royal Australian Navy in World War II (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 107. 111. ‘Twelve Month Plan for the Defeat of Japan’, 25 Nov. 1943, and CCS 134, 4 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. 112. Dill, 14 Mar. 1944, quoted in Ehrman, Grand Strategy, V, p. 568. Board of Admiralty, 4 Nov. 1943, ADM 167/117. 113. COS, ‘Strategy for the War against Japan’, Ehrman, Grand Strategy, vol. V, p. 568. 114. Cunningham, diary, 23 Nov. 1945, BLAM 52578. COS, ‘Strategy for the War against Japan’, Ehrman, Grand Strategy, vol. V, pp. 566–8. Cunningham to Churchill, 18 Mar., JSM to COS, 9 Sept., COS, 13 Sept., CCS 452/27, 13 Sept. 1944, CAB 119/153. A.J. Marder, Old Friends, New Enemies, vol. II, The Pacific War, 1942–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 291–303, 334–7, 343–6, 349. J. Goldrick, ‘Australian Naval Policy’, Stevens, ed., Royal Australian Navy, pp. 10–11. 115. Cunningham, notes, p. 99, BLAM 52581B. Thorne, Allies of a Kind, pp. 410–11. 116. Cunningham, diary, 14 July 1944, BLAM 52577. 117. Cunningham, diary, 14 July 1944, BLAM 52577. S.E.Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, vol. XIV, Victory in the Pacific (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1975), p. 102. 118. Cunningham to Noble, 8 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52571. 119. Ehrman, quoted in Thorne, Allies of Kind, p. 411. Brooke, diary, 3 Mar. 1944, Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, p. 528. 120. Brooke, diary, 8 Mar., and 18 Aug. 1944, Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 530, 547–8. 121. Cunningham to Noble, 8 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52571. 122. Ibid. 123. Cunningham, diary, 5, 8 and 13 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. Brooke, diary, 24 and 26 May, 9 Sept. 1944, Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, pp. 550, 590. 124. Cunningham, diary, 13 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. 125. Ibid., 16 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. 126. Churchill, note, 12 Sept. 1944, CAB 119/153. 127. Lt-Gen Sir H.Pownall, quoted in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 415. 128. H.P.Willmott, Graveyard of a Dozen Schemes: British Naval Planning and the War against Japan, 1943–1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996), p. 149.

Notes

236

129. Buell, Master of Sea Power, p. 444. Brooke, diary, 14 Sept. 1944, Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, p. 592. Cunningham, notes, p. 117, BLAM 52581B. CCS 174, 14 Sept. 1944, CAB 99/29. Reynolds, Historian and the Sea, pp. 154–5, 157, 159. 130. Cunningham, diary, 14 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. 131. Fleet Adm W.D.Leahy, quoted in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 521. 132. Cunningham, at CCS, Cairo, 22 Nov. 1943, CAB 99/25. Cunningham to Churchill, 18 Mar. 1944, CAB 119/153. ‘History of the JSM’, pp. 53–4, CAB 122/1579. COS, ‘Strategy for the War against Japan’, in Ehrman, Grand Strategy, vol. V, pp. 566–8. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 586, 598. 133. Dill to Cunningham, 18 Oct. 1943, BLAM 52571. 134. Cunningham, CCS 174, 14 Sept. 1944, CAB 99/25. 135. King, CCS 174, 14 Sept. 1944, CAB 99/25. 136. King, quoted in Thorne, Allies of a Kind, p. 416. 137. Cunningham, notes, p. 117, BLAM 52581B. 138. Ibid., p. 128, BLAM 52581B. King and Whitehill, Fleet Admiral King, p. 372. 139. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 601. Simpson., ed., The Somerville Papers, pp. 375, 381, 551, 565, 574, 584. 140. Cunningham, diary, 30 Oct., 19 and 20 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. 141. Ibid., 27 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. 142. Ibid., 20 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. 143. Ibid., 6 and 8 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. 144. Humble, Fraser, p. 249. 145. Cunningham to Fraser, 19 Jan. 1945, Fraser Papers 23. 146. Fraser to Cunningham, 14 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52572. 147. Humble, Fraser, pp. 258–60, 283. 148. Cunningham, diary, 25 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. Fraser to Cunningham, 14 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52572. Cunningham to Fraser, 11 Nov. 1944, Fraser Papers 20. J.Winton, The Forgotten Fleet (London: Joseph, 1969), pp. 55–61. 149. Cunningham, Sea Lords’ meeting, 24 Oct. 1944, ADM 205/40. 150. Cunningham, diary, 23 Feb. 1945, BLAM 52578. 151. Ibid., 30 June, 13 July, 31 Aug., 2,4 and 21 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. Admiralty to Fraser, 6 Dec. 1944, Fraser Papers 20. 152. Cunningham, diary, 20 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52577. Cunningham, ‘Provision of Merchant Ship Types for the War against Japan’, 21 Nov., and notes, 6 and 7 Dec., and CCS 134, 4 Dec. 1943, CAB 99/25. 153. Cunningham, diary, 20 Sept., 13 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52577. 154. Cunningham, diary, 1 and 10 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577, and 22 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52578. Cunningham to A.J.Power, 23 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52562. COS 153, 22 May 1945, CAB 79/33. CCS 415/2, 5 Dec. 1944, CAB 99/25. 155. Cunningham to Fraser, 19 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52572. Fraser to Cunningham, 15 June 1945, BLAM 52572. 156. Milner, ‘Anglo-American Naval Co-operation’, p. 262. 157. Winton, Forgotten Fleet, p. 63. 158. Cunningham, diary, 13 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. Cunningham to Fraser, 5 July 1945, BLAM 52572. 159. Fraser to Cunningham, 14 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52572. Fraser to Hon. N.Makin, 17 May 1945, Fraser Papers 21A. Fraser to Admiralty, 1 May 1945, Fraser Papers 22. Cunningham, diary, 14 June 1944, BLAM 52577. Stevens, ed., Royal Australian Navy, pp. 64–5, 101–5, 180. 160. Cunningham to Fraser, 19 Jan. 1945, Fraser Papers 23. 161. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 635–6.

Notes

237

162. Edelsten to Cunningham, 29 Aug. 1945, BLAM 52572. Fraser to Cunningham, 17 July 1945, BLAM 52572. 163. Fraser to Cunningham, 14 and 21 Mar. (enc. D.Fisher to Fraser, 18 Mar.), BLAM 52572. D.Fisher to Fraser, 27 Mar. 1945, Fraser Papers 23. BPF War Diary, 4 Feb.-23 Mar., 9 June 1945, ADM 199/1457. Vian, Action This Day, p. 170. J.D.Brown, ‘The Forgotten Bases: The Royal Navies in the Pacific, 1945’, in Stevens, ed., Royal Australian Navy, p. 106. 164. Cunningham, diary, 16 Apr. 1945, BLAM 52578. 165. Ibid. Fraser to Nimitz, 22 Jan., 30 Mar. 1945, Fraser Papers, 23. BPF War Diary, 23 Nov. 1945, ADM 199/1457. 166. Cunningham to Portal, 4 Sept. 1944, ADM 205/42. 167. Cunningham, diary, 11 May 1945, BLAM 52578. 168. ‘Anglo-U.S. Naval Agreement on Future Employment of BPF against Japan’, 20 Dec. 1944, ADM 1/8699. Cunningham to Fraser, 1 Mar., 4 and 28 Apr. 1945, and n.d., Rawlings to Fraser, Fraser Papers, 23. 169. Fraser, despatch, 23 Nov. 1945, ADM 199/1457. Fraser, ‘The Royal Navy in the Pacific’, 11 Oct. 1945, Fraser Papers, 20. 170. Rawlings to Fraser, 17 Mar., enc. in Fraser to Cunningham, 24 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52572. COS 98, 16 Apr. 1945, CAB 79/32. 171. Fraser, ‘RN in Pacific’, 11 Oct. 1945, Fraser Papers, 20. 172. Fraser to Cunningham, 5 Sept. 1945, BLAM 52572. 173. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 646. Cunningham, diary, 10 Aug. 1945, BLAM 52578. 174. H.L.Stimson and McG.Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (London: Hutchinson, 1947), pp. 366–79. H.S.Truman, Memoirs, vol. I, 1945: Year of Decisions (New York: Time Signet, 1965), pp. 462–6. A.L.Hamby, Man of the People (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 324–6, 332–7. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 426. 175. Fraser, ‘RN in the Pacific’, 11 Oct. 1945, Fraser Papers, 20. 176. COS 201, 20 Aug. 1945, CAB 79/37. COS 226, 17 Sept. 1945, COS 231, 21 Sept. 1945, CAB 79/39. COS 250, 15 Oct. 1945, CAB 79/40. COS 53, 17 Feb. 1946, CAB 80/53. JSM to AMSSO, 20 Aug., Admiralty to FO, 30 Sept. 1945, ADM 119/153. 177. COS 200, 17 Aug. 1945, CAB 79/37. COS 279, 3 Dec., COS 283, 12 Dec., COS 287, 19 Dec. 1945, CAB 79/42. 178. Cunningham to Fraser, 20 Aug., Lieut J.Wells to Cunningham, n.d., Sept. 1945, BLAM 52572. Cunningham, diary, 15 and 20 Aug., 28 Sept., 3 Nov. 1945, BLAM 52578. See COS papers from COS 197, 13 Aug. 1945, CAB 79/37, to COS 30, 22 Feb. 1946, CAB 79/45. 179. Cunningham to Fraser, c. 7 Mar. 1945, ADM 1/18691. 180. Cunningham, diary, 22 Feb., and 25 Mar. 1946, BLAM 52579. 181. Cunningham to Fraser, 20 Aug. 1945, BLAM 52572. COS 260, 26 Oct. 1945, CAB 79/40. 182. COS 542, 23 Aug. 1945, CAB 99/39. 183. Rawlings to Cunningham, 18 Apr. 1945, BLAM 52572. 184. Ibid., 10 June 1946, BLAM 52572. 185. Nimitz to Fraser, 9 and 27 Apr. 1945, Fraser Papers, 23. 186. Fraser, despatch, 23 Nov. 1945, ADM 199/1457. Rawlings to Fraser, 17 Mar. (in Fraser to Cunningham, 21 Mar. 1945), BLAM 52572. Vian, Action This Day, p. 196. Marder, Old Friends, vol. II, pp. 404–7, 416. 187. Somerville, BAD desk diary, 29 Dec. 1944, SMVL 2/3, and 10 May 1945, SMVL 2/4.

15 Facing the Future (January 1945–June 1946)

Notes

238

1. Cunningham to Cowan, 18 Jan. 1945, COW 10. Ramsay to Cunningham, 1 Jan. 1945, BLAM 52572. 2. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 643, and pp. 622–3, 641–2, 648, 653. 3. Cunningham, diary, 3 Nov. 1945, BLAM 52578, and 7 Jan. 1946, BLAM 52579. Cunningham to Somerville, 9 May 1945, SMVL 9/3. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 653. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 266–8. 4. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 657. 5. Cunningham, diary, 30 Aug., 27 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577, and 26 June 1945, BLAM 52578. 6. Cunningham to Power, 17 Sept. 1945, BLAM 52562. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 654. 7. Cunningham, diary, 11 and 21 Jan., 6 Mar. 1946, BLAM 52579. Cunningham, note, 3 Sept. 1945, ADM 205/64. Cttee on Post-War Problems, 31 Dec. 1943, and Capt G.Grantham, ‘Manpower Requirements in 1945–46’, 17 Oct. 1944, ADM 167/121. Adm A.U.Willis, ‘Manpower Statement’, Jan. 1945, ADM 167/124. Adm C.E.Kennedy Purvis, ‘The Composition of the Post-war Navy’, 13 Aug. 1945, ADM 205/51. SL mtg, 28 Jan. 1946, ADM 205/65. E.J.Grove, From Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy since World War II (London: Bodley Head, 1987), pp. 14, 19, 20. 8. Cunningham, minute, 27 Mar. 1945, and Sec to FSL to Sec, 4th SL, 26 June 1945, ADM 205/51. R-Adm Phillips, ‘Report on Technical Branches’, 15 Mar. 1944, ADM 167/121. 9. Noble, Cttee on Entry into BRNC, 14 Feb. 1946, ADM 167/126. See NR (1945), esp. pp. 126–7, for debates on officer entry, training, etc. 10. Cunningham to Cowan, 13 June 1946, COW 7. 11. WRNS, 17 Apr. 1944, ADM 167/126. Willis, ‘The Growth of Wartime Complements of Ships’, 26 Mar., and Cunningham, minute, 27 Mar. 1945, ADM 205/51. SL mtg, 29 Jan. 1946, ADM 205/64. 12. Cunningham, diary, 17 Apr. 1944, BLAM 52577, and 9 July 1945, BLAM 52578. Cunningham to Fraser, 9 Oct. 1945, BLAM 52572. F-M J.C.Smuts to Cunningham, 6 May 1946, BLAM 52573. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 655, 659. 13. Grove, Vanguard to Trident, pp. 13–14, 20–1. 14. Cunningham, diary, 23 Feb. 1945, BLAM 52578. 15. Ibid., 27 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577, and 28 Feb., 13 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. WP (44) 764, c. 9 Apr. 1945, ADM 205/53. Cunningham to A.V.Alexander, 9 Nov. 1943, ADM 205/39. 16. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 577. Cunningham, diary, 30 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. Cunningham to aunt, 1 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52559. Cunningham, note, p. 92, BLAM 52581B. 17. Cunningham to aunt, 22 Mar. 1946, BLAM 52559. Cunningham, diary, 19 May, 10 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. SL mtgs, 19 May, 10 Nov. 1944, ADM 205/40. Kennedy Purvis to Cunningham, 10 May 1944, and mtg. on 1944 construction, 13 Jan. 1944, ADM 205/57. 18. R-Adm W.R.Patterson, ‘The Shape of Things to Come’, 28 Feb. 1945, ADM 205/51. 19. Cunningham, diary, 23 July, 8 Oct. 1945, BLAM 52578. Cunningham to Willis, 1 May 1955, CNM1. 20. Cunningham, diary, 1 June 1945, BLAM 52578. SL mtg, 5 Mar. 1946, ADM 205/64. 21. Cunningham, diary, 6 Oct., 22 and 24 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. SL mtgs, 30 June, 6 Oct., 24 Nov. 1944, ADM 205/40. 22. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 577–8. 23. Cunningham, diary, 18 Mar. 1946, BLAM 52579. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 577–8, 654, 659. 24. Cunningham to Admiralty, 31 May 1943, ADM 205/29. 25. Preston, Destroyers, pp. 191–2. R.Chesneau, ed., Conway’s, 1922–1946, p. 44. 26. Cunningham, notes, 11 and 29 Oct. 1945, ADM 205/51. SL mtg, 5 Mar. 1946, ADM 205/64. 27. Cunningham, diary, 13 Mar., 10 Apr., 5 and 18 May, 22 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577; 7 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. ‘Naval Shipbuilding Policy for the Post-War Navy’, 28 Dec. 1942, ADM 167/118. Kennedy Purvis, ‘New Construction Programme, 1943’, Feb. 1943, ADM

Notes

239

205/29. ‘1944 Construction’, 13 Jan. 1944, ADM 205/57. Cunningham, ‘The Empire’s PostWar Fleet’, 19 May, and ‘Shipbuilding Policy’, 22 Nov. 1944, ADM 167/120. ‘Empire’s Post-War Fleet’, 4 May 1944, ADM 167/121. Grantham, ‘The Post-War Navy and the Policy Governing Its Composition’, 29 May 1945, ADM 167/124. SL mtg, 29 June 1945, ADM 205/64. 28. COS 24, 13 Feb. 1946, CAB 79/44. ‘Meeting in First Lord’s Room’, 13 Dec. 1945, ‘Naval Estimates, 1946’, 14 Feb., and ‘Estimates, 1946–47’, 8 July 1946, ADM 167/127. Debates on post-war fleet, NR (1944), pp. 196–208, 306–9; (1945), pp. 122–3, 150–2. Grove, Vanguard to Trident, pp. 8, 10–14. 29. Cunningham, ‘The Future of the Royal Marines’, 5 May 1944, ADM 167/120. 30. Ibid. 31. Cunningham, diary, 5 May 1944, BLAM 52577. 32. Cunningham, diary, 18 May, 21 July 1944, BLAM 52577. COS, 116, 20 June; 132, 22 July; 133, 24 July; Ismay to Churchill, 157, 31 Aug. 1944, CAB 80/44. 33. Cunningham to Maj-Gen R.E.Laycock (Chief of CO), 6 Mar. 1945, ADM 205/58. COS, 170, 5 July 1945; 173, 10 July 1945, CAB 79/36. 233, 25 Sept. 1945, CAB 79/39. Anon., ‘The Royal Marines: The Post-War Policy’, NR (1945), pp. 292–7. 34. Cunningham, diary, 18 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. 35. Cunningham, diary, 12 July, 19 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. Cunningham to A.V.Alexander, 5 Dec. 1944, ADM 205/39. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 6 Feb. 1944, and Cunningham to A.J.Power, 23 Jan., 17 Sept. 1945, BLAM 52562. 36. Cunningham, diary, 1 Nov. 1944, BLAM 52577. Boyd to Cunningham, 6 Nov. 1943, ADM 205/31. Grove, Vanguard to Trident, pp. 5, 14. Till, Air Power and the Royal Navy, pp. 109– 10, 136. 37. Cunningham to Noble, 6 Feb. 1944, and Capt C.E.Lambe to Cunningham, 5 Feb. 1944, BLAM 52571. 38. Cunningham, diary, 4 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52577. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 231–2. 39. Cunningham, diary, 17 Apr., and 6 and 22 Mar. 1945, BLAM 52578. Lord Justice Sir R. Evershed, ‘Report on the Internal Organisation of Naval Aviation’, Feb. 1945, ADM 205/51. Admiralty reaction, 24 May 1945, ADM 167/123. 40. Cunningham, diary, 7 and 1, 6 and 18 Dec. 1944, BLAM 52577; 12 Jan., 13 Mar., 1 June 1945, BLAM 52578. 41. Cunningham to Cowan, 6 June 1945, COW 10. Madsen, German Naval Disarmament, pp. 1, 5, 28, 59, 78, 85, 93, 127–31, 199–207, 222–6. 42. B.Bracken, memo to Churchill, 7 July 1945, ADM 205/54. ‘Decisions of the Tripartite Conference’, 1 Aug. 1945, CAB 99/38. COS 103, 6 June 1944, CAB 80/44; 116, 3 May 1945, CAB 79/33; 143, 4 June, and 152, 14 June 1945, CAB 79/34. Madsen, German Naval Disarmament, pp. 113–15. 43. Admiralty to V-Adm Miles, 13 Aug. 1945, ADM 205/54. 44. Cunningham, diary, 21 Aug. 1945, BLAM 52578. COS, 202, 21 Aug. 1945, CAB 79/37; 23, 11 Feb. 1946. Madsen, German Naval Disarmament, pp. 152–5. 45. COS, 116, 3 May 1945, CAB 79/33; 172, 9 July 1945, CAB 79/36; 247, 11 Oct. 1945, CAB 79/40, 269, 9 Nov. 1945, CAB 79/41. Admiralty to Miles, 13 Aug. 1945, ADM 205/54. 46. Cunningham, diary, 22 July 1945, BLAM 52578. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 646–7. 47. Cunningham to Tovey and Ramsay, 17 Mar. 1944, ADM 205/40. 48. ‘Decisions of the Tripartite Conference on the Distribution of the German Navy’, 1 Aug. 1945, CAB 99/38. Cunningham, diary, 1 Aug., 15 Sept., 3 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577; 22 July 1945, BLAM 52578. Miles to Cunningham, n.d., 1945, BLAM 52572. CCS 176, 16 Sept. 1944, CAB 99/25. 49. ‘Decisions of the Tripartite Conference’, 1 Aug. 1945, CAB 99/38. COS, 103, 6 June 1944, CAB 80/44; 116, 3 May 1945, CAB 79/33; 143, 4 June, and 152, 14 June 1945, CAB 79/34.

Notes

240

50. Adm H.M.Burrough to Cunningham, 11 Feb. 1946, BLAM 52573. V-Adm P.W.Brock, ‘The Royal Navy in Germany, 1945–1947’, NR (1961), pp. 278–89. 51. Cunningham, diary, 4 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. 52. Cunningham to Miles, 13 Aug. 1945, ADM 205/54. 53. Cunningham, diary, 15 Sept. 1945, BLAM 52578. 54. COS 153, 15 June 1945, CAB 79/35 279, 3 Dec. 1945, CAB 79/42. Brooke, diary, 27 July 1944, Danchev and Todman, eds, Alanbrooke Diaries, p. 575. 55. Cunningham, diary, 23 Aug. 1945, BLAM 52578; 11 Feb. 1946, BLAM 52579. Papers in ADM 205/66. Willis to Cunningham, 8 May 1946, BLAM 52573. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 654–5, 657. 56. Cunningham, diary, 16 Feb., and 11, 18, 25 Feb. 1946, BLAM 52578. 57. Ibid., 10, 22 and 23 Apr., 10 Oct. 1944, BLAM 52577. J.Cunningham to Cunningham, 26 May, 25 Sept. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 1 Sept. 1944, BLAM 52562. 58. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 659. 59. Cunningham to Hamilton (1st Naval Mem., N.Z.), 29 Apr., and R-Adm C.B.Barry to Cunningham, 28 Feb. 1946, Cunningham to VCNS, 16 Apr., etc., all in ADM 205/66. Hamilton to Cunningham, 2 Aug., and reply, 7 Aug. 1945, BLAM 52572. 60. Cunningham to Hamilton, 29 Apr. 1946, Edelsten to Fraser, 12 Apr. 1946 (sent on to Cunningham), and Cunningham to VCNS, 1 May 1946, ADM 205/66. 61. COS 200, 5 Sept. 1945, CAB 80/49. 62. Cdr R.Smeeton to Adm Pott, n.d., 1943, in Noble to Cunningham, 30 Jan. 1944, BLAM 52571. 63. US Office of War Information, ‘The USN Presents Its Six-Point Post-War Program to Congress’, 20 June 1945, BLAM 52572. V.Davis, Post-War Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy, 1943–1946 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1966). R.G. Albion, ed. R.Reed, Makers of Naval Policy, 1798–1947 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980), pp. 592–4, 598, 603. R.G.Albion and R.H.Connery, Forrestal and the Navy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), p. 152. W.Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York: Viking, 1951). 64. Noble to Cunningham, 12 Jan. 1944, BLAM 52571. 65. Cunningham, ‘The Organisation of Command’, spring 1946, BLAM 52573. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. Cunningham to Willis, 20 Nov. 1941, CUNN 5/9. Tedder to wife, 13 Dec. 1940, T 67; 22 May, and to Portal, 26 May 1941, T 70; to Freeman, 3 June 1941, AIR 23/1386. 69. Cunningham, ‘The Organisation of Command’, spring 1946, BLAM 52573; subsequent quotations are from this document. 70. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 653. M of RAF Lord Portal to Cunningham, 1 Jan. 1946, BLAM 52573. 71. Cunningham, diary, 3 Nov. 1945, BLAM 52578. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 660. COS, 287, 19 Dec. 1945, CAB 79/42; COS1, 2 Jan. and COS 12, 23 Jan. 1946, CAB 79/43; 13 and 25 Jan. 1946, CAB 79/44; COS 27, 18 Feb. 1946, CAB 79/45. 72. Cunningham, diary, 10 and 23 Aug. 1945, BLAM 52578. 73. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 653. Cunningham diary, 3 Nov. 1945, BLAM 52578; 1 and 7 Jan., 16, 18 and 25 Feb. 1946, BLAM 52579. Grove, Vanguard to Trident, p. 3. 74. Cunningham, Odyssey, pp. 657, 661. COS 90, 7 June 1946, CAB 79/49. 75. Cunningham to aunt, 17 June 1946, BLAM 52559. 76. Cunningham, diary, 14 and 23 Aug., 23 Sept., 3 Oct., 6 Dec. 1945, BLAM 52578; 1 Jan. 1946, BLAM 52579. Cunningham, note, p. 89, BLAM 52581B. Cunningham to J.Cunningham, 18 Jan. 1946, and Fraser to Cunningham, 23 Jan. 1946, BLAM 52572. Humble, Fraser, pp. 299–300.

Notes

241

77. Cunningham, diary, 17 Aug. 1945, BLAM 52578; 16,18 and 25 Feb., 6 Mar. 1946, BLAM 52579. 78. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 662.

16 The Long Ebb Tide (June 1946–June 1963) 1. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 663. 2. Cunningham-Roskill correspondence, BLAM 52563. Capt. D.E.Holland-Martin (DP) to Cunningham, 11 Apr. 1953, BLAM 52575. McGrigor to Cunningham, 27 Oct. 1954, BLAM 52576. Extract from House of Lords debates, 2 Dec. 1954, BLAM 52582. 3. Presidential address, INA, 6 Apr. 1949, and, n.d., speech to INA, Cunningham to Willis, 1 May 1955, CNM 1. Lecture on naval strategy, RAF Staff College, 12 July 1946, and extract from House of Lords debates, 16 Mar. 1954, CNM 6. Cunningham to Godfrey, 2 and 18 Mar. 1954, DUPO 2/4. Willis to Cunningham, 9 Nov. 1954, BLAM 52582. 4. Speech on naval estimates, n.d., 1958, and Mountbatten to Cunningham, 26 Mar. 1958, BLAM 52582. 5. Cunningham to Willis, 1 June, and Alanbrooke to Cunningham, 11 Feb. 1955, speech to INA, n.d., CNM 1. McGrigor to Cunningham, 9 Oct. 1953, 5 and 15 Mar. 1954, and Extract from House of Lords debates, 16 Mar. 1954, CNM 6. Roskill to Cunningham, 2 Sept. 1953, BLAM 52563. 6. McGrigor to Cunningham, 9 Oct. 1953, Chatfield to Cunningham, 15 and 24 Oct. 1953, Dickens to Cunningham, n.d., Godfrey to Cunningham, 9 Mar. 1954, ‘Waiting for New Navy’, The Economist, 27 Feb. 1954, CNM 6. Holland-Martin to Cunningham, 11 Apr. 1953, BLAM 52575. McGrigor to Cunningham, 27 Oct. 1954, BLAM 52576. 7. Cunningham-Roskill correspondence, BLAM 52563. J.Colville to Cunningham, 13 Nov. 1946, Cunningham to Admiralty Sec., 20 Apr. 1947, and n.d., BLAM 52574. Cunningham to J.Ehrman, 6 Oct., and reply 8 Oct. 1951, BLAM 52575. 8. M.H.Murfett, ‘Admiral Sir John Cunningham’, in Murfett, ed., First Sea Lords, pp. 217–28. 9. T.Frame, ‘Admiral Lord Fraser’, in Murfett, ed., First Sea Lords, pp. 229–47. 10. E.J.Grove, ‘Admiral Sir Rhoderick McGrigor’, in Murfett, ed., First Sea Lords, pp. 249–64. 11. G.Till, ‘Admiral Lord Mountbatten’, in Murfett, ed., First Sea Lords, pp. 265–82. 12. Cunningham to J.P.L.Thomas, 22 Oct., J.P.L.Thomas to Cunningham, 30 Oct., Ismay to Cunningham, 28 Sept. and 18 Oct. 1954, BLAM 52576. M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 96– 7, MANP. 13. Mountbatten to Cunningham, 10 Feb. 1956, Cunningham to Mountbatten, 11 Nov., and reply, 12 Nov. 1962, BLAM 52576. 14. Britannia January Term, 1897: Term Dinner: 50th Anniversary of Going to Sea, United Services Club, 12 May 1948, CNM 6. 15. Cunningham to Stark, 5 July 1953, Stark Papers, box 8. Roskill to Cunningham, 23 and 3 Mar. 1953, BLAM 52563. Blake to Pound 10 Oct. 1940, BLE 9. S.W.Roskill, The War at Sea, vol. I (London: HMSO, 1954), pp. 308–20. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, pp. 159–67. A.J.Marder, The Dakar Expedition and the Dudley North Affair (London: Oxford University Press, 1976). Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers, pp. 39–51. 16. Cunningham to Fraser, 30 Dec. 1949, BLAM 52575. 17. Fraser to Cunningham, 5 Jan. 1950, BLAM 52575. 18. Cunningham to Fraser, 9 Jan., and reply, 12 Jan. 1950, BLAM 52575. 19. Correspondence in BLAM 52575 and 52576.

Notes

242

20. H.Macmillan to Cunningham, 25 May, and extracts from House of Lords and House of Commons debates, 23 May 1957, BLAM 52576. North to Cunningham, 27 May, Chatfield to Cunningham, 27 May 1957, BLAM 52576. 21. Speech at Foyle’s Literary Luncheon, 28 Mar. 1951, to launch A Sailor’s Odyssey (London: Hutchinson, 1951). Cunningham to Stark, 6 June, n.d., Stark Papers, box 8. 22. See BLAM 52581 and 5281A and B.Simpson, ed., The Cunningham Papers, vol. I. 23. Information from a variety of Cunningham’s correspondence, mainly in CNM 1 and BLAM 52573. 24. Lascelles to Cunningham, 10 Apr. 1946, and Cunningham to Lascelles, 14 Aug. 1946, BLAM 52573. Cunningham to Stark, 18 Jan. 1953, Stark Papers, box 8. 25. Lascelles to Cunningham, 8 Apr. 1946, BLAM 52573. 26. Cunningham to Stark, 17 July 1950, Stark Papers, box 8. Warner, Cunningham of Hyndhope, p. 266. A painting by T.Cuneo shows the scene in Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953. 27. Cunningham-Stark correspondence, Stark Papers, boxes 1 and 8. 28. Cunningham, Odyssey, p. 663. Information from Sir Hugh and Lady Fiona Byatt, Mr Robin Byatt, Mr David Byatt, Miss Mary Cunningham, Mrs Hilda McKendrick, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jock Slater, the late Professor Colin Matthew, and Captain E.H. Lee, RN. 29. Mr R.Byatt to author, 27 Dec. 2002. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. Capt E.H.Lee to author, 14 Nov. 2002. 32. Family information. 33. Cunningham to Godfrey, 9 Dec. 1959, DUPO 2/4. Cunningham to Stark, 15 Oct. and 22 Nov. 1959, 24 Apr. and 1 Aug. 1960 (reporting a second but fortunately much less serious car accident), Stark Papers, box 8. 34. Cunningham to Godfrey, 27 Nov., n.d., DUPO 2/4. 35. Sir H.Byatt to author, 21 Feb. 1999. 36. Mr D.Byatt to author, 13 Oct. 2002. 37. M.Power, ‘Autobiography’, p. 18, MANP. Willis, ‘Autobiography’, p. 5, WLLSIZ/1. Godfrey, ‘Autobiography’, pp. 300–1, DUPO 2/4. 38. Mr D.Byatt to author, 13 Oct. 2002. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Mr R.Byatt, to author, 27 Dec. 2002. 42. Ibid. 43. Admiral of the Fleet Sir P.L.Vian, NR (1963), p. 263. 44. Vian, NR (1963), p. 263. 45. Ibid. 46. Vice-Adm J.A.G.Troup, NR (1963), pp. 264.

Bibliography

PRIMARY SOURCES Archives, Museums and Libraries Great Britain Public Record Office, Kew ADM

1 Admiralty and Secretariat 53 Ships’ Logs 116 Admiralty and Secretariat 137 First World War Histories 167 Board of Admiralty 178 Admiralty and Secretariat Cases and Papers 186 Admiralty Publications 196 Officers’ Service Records, Series III 199 Second World War Histories 205 First Sea Lord 223 Naval Intelligence 234 Navy Reference Books

AIR

20 Unregistered Papers 23 Overseas Commands

CAB

16 Committee of Imperial Defence [CID] Sub-Committees 24 CID Minutes 27 Defence Papers 53 Chiefs of Staff, 1924–39 54 Deputy Chiefs of Staff

Bibliography

245

69 War Cabinet Defence Committee (Operations) 79 Chiefs of Staff, 1939–45 80 Chiefs of Staff Memoranda 86 War Cabinet Committees (Battle of the Atlantic) 99 War Cabinet: Conferences (Anglo-American Relations) 105 War Cabinet Telegrams (JSM) 106 Cabinet Office (Wartime Despatches) 119 Joint Planning Staff 120 Minister of Defence: Secretariat 121 Cabinet Office (Anglo-American Relations) 122 JSM (Anglo-American Relations) DEFE

2 Intelligence Signals 3 Intelligence Signals

PREM WO

2 Operations Papers 33 Chiefs of Staff Papers

Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, London Admiral Sir Jock Whitworth National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake (BLE) Vice-Admiral Tom Baillie-Grohman (GRO and XGRO) Admiral of the Fleet Lord Chatfield (CHT) Admiral Sir Walter Cowan (COW) Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cunningham (CNM) Admiral Sir Howard Kelly (KEL) Admiral Sir Henry Pridham-Wippell (PWL) Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fraser (uncatalogued) British Library (Manuscripts Division [Additional Mss.]), London Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cunningham (BLAM) Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth Archives Churchill A rchives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge A.V.Alexander (Lord Alexander of Hillsborough) (AVAR) Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cunningham (CUNN) Admiral Sir John Edelsten (EDSN) Admiral John Godfrey (GDFY) Vice-Admiral Sir Anthony Miers (MIER) Commander Sir Allan Noble (NBLE) Admiral Sir Dudley North (NORTH) Admiral Sir Geoffrey Oliver (OLVR)

Bibliography

246

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (DUPO) Vice-Admiral Sir Manley Power (MANP) Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay (RMSY) Captain Stephen Roskill (ROSK) Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somerville (SMVL) Admiral of the Fleet Sir Algernon Willis (WLLS) Christ Church, Oxford Marshal of the RAF Lord Portal Private Archive Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Barnard (courtesy of Miss Betsy Barnard and Captain Hugh Owen, RN) Lord Tedder (by kind permission of Dr Vincent Orange) Personal Correspondence and Interviews Sir Hugh and Lady Fiona Byatt Mr Robin Byatt Mr David Byatt Miss Mary Cunningham Captain Hugh Lee, RN Mrs Hilda McKendrick The late Professor Colin Matthew Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jock Slater Mr John Somerville United States National Archives, II, College Park, MD Record Group 13 COMNAVEU Record Group 38 Records of the Chief of Naval Operations Record Group 80 Secretary of the Navy to CNO Record Group 218 Records of the JCS Naval War College, Newport, RI (archives and oral transcripts) Vice-Admiral Bernard L.Austin Admiral H.Kent Hewitt Fleet Admiral Ernest J.King Admiral Alan G.Kirk Admiral John L.McCrea Admiral Harold R.Stark Operational Archives and Naval Historical Center, Navy Yard, Washington, DC (NHC) Admiral H.Kent Hewitt Fleet Admiral Ernest J.King Admiral Alan G.Kirk Admiral Harold R.Stark Franklin D.Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY President’s Secretary’s File (PSF) Map Room Papers (MRP)

Bibliography

247

Vice-Admiral Wilson Brown Admiral John L.McCrea Library of Congress (Manuscripts Division), Washington, DC Fleet Admiral Ernest J.King Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox Fleet Admiral W.D.Leahy Admiral John L.McCrea Published Documents Publications of the Navy Records Society (NRS) Grove, E.J., ed., The Defeat of the Enemy Attack on Shipping, 1939–1945, Aldershot: Ashgate; NRS, 1997. Halpern, P.G., ed., The Keyes Papers, vol. I (1914–1918), London: Allen & Unwin; NRS, 1979. Halpern, P.G., ed., The Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, 1915–1918, Aldershot: Temple Smith; NRS, 1987. Lambert, A.D., ed., Letters and Papers of Professor Sir John Knox Laughton, 1830–1915, Aldershot: Ashgate; NRS, 2002. Lumby, E.W.R., ed., Policy and Operations in the Mediterranean, 1912–1914, London: NRS, 1970. Ranft, B.McL., ed., The Beatty Papers, vol. I (1902–1918), Aldershot: Scolar Press; NRS, 1989. Ranft, B.McL., ed., The Beatty Papers, vol. II (1919–1927), Aldershot: Scolar Press; NRS, 1993. Simpson, M.A., The Cunningham Papers, vol. I, The Mediterranean Fleet, 1939–1942, Aldershot: Ashgate; NRS, 1999. Simpson, M.A., ed., Anglo-American Naval Relations, 1917–1919, Aldershot: Scolar Press; NRS, 1991. Simpson, M.A., ed., The Somerville Papers, Aldershot: Scolar Press; NRS, 1995. Syrett, D., ed., The Battle of the Atlantic and Signals Intelligence: U-boat Situations and Trends, 1941–1945, Aldershot: Ashgate; NRS, 1998. Syrett, D., ed., The Battle of the Atlantic and Signals Intelligence: U-boat Tracking Papers, 1941– 1947, Aldershot: Ashgate; NRS, 2002.

Other Printed Sources Diaries Butcher, H.C., Three Years with Eisenhower, London: Heinemann, 1946. Colville, J., The Fringes of Power, 2 vols, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985. Danchev, A. and Todman, D., eds, War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001. Ferrell, R.H., ed., The Eisenhower Diaries, New York and London: Norton, 1981. Gilbert, M., ed., The Churchill War Papers, 2 vols, London: Heinemann, 1993, 1994. Kimball, W.F., ed., Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, 3 vols, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; London: Collins, 1984. Love, Jr, R.W. and Major, J., eds, The Year of D-Day: The 1944 Diaries of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Hull: University of Hull Press, 1994. Macmillan, H., War Diary: The Mediterranean, 1943–1945, London: Macmillan, 1984.

Bibliography

248

Millis, W., ed., The Forrestal Diaries, New York: Viking, 1951. Sherwood, R.E., ed., The White House Papers of Harry L.Hopkins, vol. II (1942–45), London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1949. Showell, J.P.M., ed., Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939–1945, London: Greenhill, 1995.

Memoirs Chatfield, Lord, The Navy and Defence, London: Heinemann, 1942. Chatfield, Lord, It Might Happen Again, London: Heinemann, 1947. Collins, J.A., As Luck Would Have It: The Memoirs of an Australian Sailor, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1965. Cunningham, Lord, A Sailor’s Odyssey, London: Hutchinson, 1951. Ismay, Lord, The Memoirs of General the Lord Ismay, London: Heinemann, 1960. King, E.J. and Whitehill, W.M., Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1953. Leahy, W.D., I Was There, New York and London: Whittlesey House, 1950. Longmore, A.W., From Sea to Sky, 1910–1945, London: Bles, 1946. Macmillan, H., The Blast of War, 1943–1945, London: Macmillan, 1967. Noble, A., A float and Ashore, privately printed, 1980. Stimson, H.L. and Bundy, McG., On Active Service in Peace and War, London: Hutchinson, 1947. Tedder, Lord, With Prejudice, London: Cassell, 1966. Truman, H.S., Memoirs, vol. I, 1945: Year of Decisions, New York: Time Signet, 1965. Vian, P.L., Action This Day, London: F.Muller, 1960.

SECONDARY SOURCES Books Albion, R.G. and Connery, R.H., Forrestal and the Navy, New York: Columbia University Press, 1962. Albion, R.G., ed. R.Reed, Makers of Naval Policy, 1798–1947, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1980. Alliston, J., Destroyer Man, Richmond, VA: Greenhouse, 1985. Ambrose, S.E., Eisenhower the Soldier, 1890–1952, London: Allen & Unwin, 1984. Aron, R., The Vichy Regime, London: Putnam, 1958. Bailey, C.H., Social Change in the Royal Navy, 1924–1970: The Life and Times of Admiral Sir Frank Twiss, Stroud, Glos.: Sutton; Royal Navy Museum, 1996. Barnett, C., Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991. Beesly, R, Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre, 1939–1945, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977. Beevor, A., Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, London: Murray, 1991. Bennett, G., Cowan’s War: The Story of British Naval Operations in the Baltic, 1919–1920, London: Collins, 1964. Blouet, B., The Story of Malta, Malta: Progressive Press, 1997. Boyce, R. and Robertson, E.M., eds, Paths to War: New Essays on the Origins of the Second World War, London: Macmillan, 1989. Bradford, E., Siege: Malta, 1940–1943, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1985. Bragadin, M.A., The Italian Navy in World War II, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1957.

Bibliography

249

Brodhurst, R., Churchill’s Anchor: The Biography of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, Barnsley, Yorks.: Pen & Sword, 2000. Buckley, J., The RAF and Trade Defence, 1919–1945: Constant Endeavour, Keele, Staffs.: Ryburn, 1995. Buell, T.B., Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral E.J. King, Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. Burns, J.M., Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 1940–1945, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971. Bush, E.W., Save Our Ship, London: Allen & Unwin, 1958. Butler, J.R.M., Grand Strategy, vols II and III, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1957, 1964. Carew, A., The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy, 1900–1939: The Invergordon Mutiny in Perspective, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1981. Chalmers, W.S., Max Horton and the Western Approaches, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1954. Chalmers, W.S., Full Cycle: The Biography of Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1959. Chapman, P., Submarine Torbay, London: Hale, 1989. Charmley, J., Churchill: The End of Glory, London: Book Club Associates, 1993. Chatterton, E.K., The Dardanelles Dilemma, London: Rich & Cowan, 1935. Chesneau, R., ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1906–1921, London: Conway Maritime, 1985. Chesneau, R., ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1922–1946, London: Conway Maritime, 1980. Churchill, W.S., The Second World War, London: Penguin, 1989. Clayton, A., The British Empire as a Superpower, 1918–1939, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986. Cowman, I., Dominion or Decline: Anglo-American Naval Relations in the Pacific, 1937–1941, Oxford and Washington: Berg, 1996. Curtwright, L.H., Muddle, Indecision and Setback: British Policy and the Balkan States, from August 1914 to the Inception of the Dardanelles Campaign, Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1966. Dallek, R., Franklin D.Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Davis, V., Post-War Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy, 1943–1946, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. Dawson, L., The Sound of the Guns, Oxford: Pen in Hand, 1949. De Belot, R., The Struggle for the Mediterranean, 1939–1945, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951. Deist, W. et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Dept. of History, US Naval Academy, eds, New Aspects of Naval History: Selected Papers from The 5th Naval History Symposium, Baltimore: Nautical & Aviation Publishing Co. of America, 1985. Dockrill, M. and McKercher, B., eds, Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890–1950, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Edwards, K., The Grey Diplomatists, London: Rich & Cowan, 1938. Ehrman, J., Grand Strategy, vol. V, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1956. Elliott, P., The Cross and the Ensign: A Naval History of Malta, 1798–1979, London: Grafton, 1982. Fanning, R.W., Peace and Disarmament: Naval Planning and Arms Control, 1922–1933, Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1995. Fisher, R.L., Salt Horse: A Naval Life, privately printed, 1986. Fraser, D., Alanbrooke, London: Collins, 1982.

Bibliography

250

Freedman, L. et al., eds, War, Strategy and International Politics: Essays in Honour of Sir Michael Howard, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Freidel, F., Franklin D.Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny, Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1990. French, D., British Strategy and War Aims, 1914–1916, London: Allen & Unwin, 1986. Friedman, N., British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and Their Aircraft, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Funk, A.L., The Politics of Torch: The Allied Landings and the Algiers Putsch, 1942, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1974. Fry, M.G., The Illusions of Security: North Atlantic Diplomacy, 1918–1922, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972. Gandin, R., Darlan, Weygand et Cunningham: Artisans de la victoire, 1939–1944, Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1977. Gannon, M., Operation Drumbeat, New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. Gardner, W.J.R., Decoding History: The Battle of the Atlantic and Ultra, London: Macmillan, 1999. Gibbs, N.H., Grand Strategy, vol. I, Rearmament Policy, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1976. Gilbert, M., Winston S.Churchill, vol. VI, Finest House, 1939–1941, London: Heinemann, 1983. Godson, S.H., Viking of the Assault: Admiral J.L.Hall, Jr., and Amphibious Warfare, Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982. Goldrick, J. and Hattendorf, J., eds, Mahan Is Not Enough: The Proceedings of a Conference on the Works of Sir Julian Corbett and Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1993. Gordon, G.A.H., British Sea Power and Procurement between the Wars: A Reappraisal of Rearmament, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988. Gordon, G.A.H., The Rules of the Game: Jutland and the British Naval Command, London: Murray, 1996. Gray, C.S., The Leverage of Sea Power: The Strategic Advantage of Navies in War, New York: Free Press, 1992. Greene, J. and Massignani, A., The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943, London: Chatham, 1998. Gretton, P.W., Former Naval Person: Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy, London: Cassell, 1968. Grove, E.J., From Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy since World War II, London: Bodley Head, 1987. Grove, E.J., Sea Battles in Close Up, vol. II, Shepperton, Middx: Ian Allan, 1993. Grove, E.J., The Battle and the Breeze: The Naval Reminiscences of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Edward Ashmore, Stroud, Glos: Sutton; Royal Navy Museum, 1997. Hackmann, W., Seek and Strike: Sonar and Anti-Submarine Warfare and the Royal Navy, 1914– 1954, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1984. Halpern, P.G., The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1914–1918, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987. Halpern, P.G., A Naval History of World War I, London: University College London Press, 1994. Hamby, A.L., Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Hattendorf, J., ed., The Influences of History upon Mahan: The Proceedings of a Conference Marking the Centenary of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1763, Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1991. Hattendorf, J., ed., Naval Policy and Strategy in the Mediterranean: Past, Present and Future, London and Portland, OR: Cass, 2000. Hattendorf, J. and Jordan, R.S., eds, Maritime Strategy and theBalance of Power: Britain and America in the Twentieth Century, London: Macmillan, 1989.

Bibliography

251

Heckstall-Smith, A.H. and Baillie-Grohman, H.T., Greek Tragedy, London: Blond, 1961. Hessler, G., U-boat Warfare in the Atlantic, 1939–1945, vol. III, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1989. Hezlet, A., The Submarine and Sea Power, London: P.Davies, 1967. Hezlet, A., Aircraft and Sea Power, London: P.Davies, 1970. Higgins, T., Winston Churchill and the Second Front, New York: Oxford University Press, 1957. Higgins, T., Winston Churchill and the Dardanelles, London: Heinemann, 1963. Higham, R., The Armed Forces in Peacetime: Britain, 1918–1940, a Case Study, London: Foulis, 1962. Higham, R., The Military Intellectuals in Britain, 1918–1939, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1966. Hinsley, F.H. et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 3 vols, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1981, 1984. Hodgkinson, H., Before the Tide Turned: The Mediterranean Experience of a British Destroyer Officer in 1941, London: Harrap, 1944. Horsfield, J., The Art of Leadership: The Royal Navy from the Age of Nelson to the End of the Second World War, Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood, 1980. Howard, M., The Mediterranean Strategy in World War II, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968. Howard, M., Grand Strategy, vol. IV, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1972. Howarth, S., ed., Men of War: Great Naval Leaders of World War II, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1992. Howarth, S. and Law, D., eds, The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1945, London: Greenhill; Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994. Humble, R., Before Dreadnought: The Royal Navy from Nelson to Fisher, London: MacDonald and Jane’s, 1976. Humble, R., Fraser of North Cape, London: Routledge, 1983. Hyatt, A.M.J., ed., Dreadnought to Polaris: Maritime Strategy since Mahan, Toronto: Copp Clark; Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1973. Jackson, W. and Bramall, D., The Chiefs: The Story of the United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff, London: Brassey’s, 1992. James, R.R., Gallipoli, London: Batsford, 1965. James, W., Admiral Sir William Fisher, London: Macmillan, 1943. Jones, M., Britain, the United States and the Mediterranean War, 1942–1944, London: Macmillan, 1996. Keegan, J., ed., Churchill’s Generals, London: Warner, 1992. Kemp, P., Underwater Warriors, London: Arms & Armour, 1996. Kemp, P.K., British Destroyers, London: H.Jenkins, 1956. Kennedy, P.M., Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945, London: Fontana, 1984. Kennedy, P.M., The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, London: Fontana, 1991. Kimball, W.E, The Juggler: Franklin D.Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Kimball, W.E, Forged in War: Churchill, Roosevelt and the Second World War, London: Harper Collins, 1997. Knox, McG., Mussolini Unleashed, 1939–1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy’s Last War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Lamb, C., War in a Stringbag, London: Cassell, 1977. Lamb, R., Churchill as War Leader, London: Bloomsbury, 1991. Lambert, A., The Foundations of Naval History: Sir John Knox Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession, London: Chatham, 1998. Lambert, N., Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

Bibliography

252

Larrabee, E., Commander-in-Chief: Franklin D.Roosevelt, His Lieutenants and Their War, London: Deutsch, 1987. Lewin, R., Churchill as Warlord, London: Batsford, 1973. Lewin, R., Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story, London: Hutchinson, 1978. Lloyd, H.P., Briefed to Attack: Malta’s Part in the African Victory, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1949. Love, Jr., R.W., History of the U.S. Navy, vol. II (1942–1991), Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole, 1992. Lyon, D., The First Destroyers, London: Chatham, 1996. MacDonald, C, The Lost Battle: Crete, 1941, London: Macmillan, 1995. McGeoch, I., The Princely Sailor: Mountbatten of Burma, London: Brassey’s, 1996. MacGuire, P. and F., The Price of Admiralty, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1944. McIntyre, D., The Rise and Fall of the Singapore Naval Base, 1919–1942, London: Macmillan, 1979. Mackay, R.F., Fisher of Kilverstone, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Mackenzie, H., The Sword of Damocles, Stroud, Glos.: Sutton; Royal Navy Submarine Museum, 1995. Madsen, C., The Royal Navy and German Naval Disarmament, 1942–1947, London: Cass, 1998. Maiolo, J., The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, 1933–1939: A Study in Appeasement and the Origins of the Second World War, London: Macmillan, 1998. Mallett, R., The Italian Navy and Fascist Naval Expansion, 1935–1940, London: Cass, 1998. Marder, A.J., The Anatomy of Sea Power, New York: Knopf, 1940 (repr. London: Cass, 1972). Marder, A.J., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, vols I and II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954, 1961. Marder, A.J., From the Dardanelles to Oran, London: Oxford University Press, 1974. Marder, A.J., The Dakar Expedition and the Dudley North Affair, London: Oxford University Press, 1976. Marder. A.J., Old Friends, New Enemies, vol. II, The Pacific War, 1942–1945, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Mars, A., British Submarines at War, 1939–1945, London: Kimber, 1971. Masterman, D.M., ed., Naval History: The 6th Symposium, Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1987. Morison, S.E., History of US Naval Operations in World War II, vol. II, Operations in North African Waters (1965); vol. IX, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio (1960); vol. X, The Atlantic Battle Won (1990); vol. XI, The Invasion of France and Germany (1957); vol. XIV, Victory in the Pacific (1975), Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Murfett, M., ed., The First Sea Lords: From Fisher to Mountbatten, Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995. Murray, W. and Millett, A.R., eds, Military Effectiveness: The Inter-War Period, Boston, MA, and London: Allen & Unwin, 1988. Murray, W. and Millett, A.R., eds, Military Innovation in the Inter-War Period, London: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Myres, J.N.L., Commander J.L.Myres, RNVR: The Blackbeard of the Aegean, London: Leonard’s Head Press, 1980. Neilson, K. and Errington, E.J., eds, Navies and Global Defence: Theory and Strategy, Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood, 1995. Neilson, K. and Kennedy, G., eds, Far Flung Lines: Studies in Imperial Defence in Honour of D.M.Schurman, London: Cass, 1997. Ollard, R., Fisher and Cunningham: Two Personalities of the Churchill Era, London: Constable, 1991. Overy, R., Why the Allies Won, London: Pimlico, 1996. Overy, R. and Wheatcroft, A., The Road to War, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000. Owen, C, Plain Yarns from the Fleet, Stroud: Sutton, 1997. Pack, S.W.C., The Battle of Malta, London: Batsford, 1961.

Bibliography

253

Pack, S.W.C., The Battle of Matapan, London: Batsford, 1961. Pack, S.W.C., The Battle for Crete, Shepperton, Middx: Ian Allan, 1973. Pack, S.W.C., Cunningham the Commander, London: Purnell, 1974. Pack, S.W.C., The Battle of Sirte, Shepperton, Middx: Ian Allan, 1975. Pack, S.W.C., Operation Husky: The Allied Invasion of Sicily, Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles, 1977. Padfield, P., War beneath the Sea, London: Pimlico, 1995. Parker, R.A.C., Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy and the Coming of the Second World War, London: Macmillan, 1993. Playfair, I.S.O. et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East, vol. I, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1954. Poolman, K., Night Strike from Malta: 830 Squadron, R.N., and Rommel’s Convoys, London: Jane’s, 1980. Pratt, L.R., East of Malta, West of Suez, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Preston, A., Destroyers, London: Hamlyn, 1979. Raugh, H.E., Wavell in the Middle East, 1940–1941: A Study in Generalship, London: Brassey’s, 1993. Reynolds, C., The Historian and the Sea: Essays on Maritime Strategies, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989. Reynolds, D., The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 1937–1941: A Study in Competitive Co-operation, London: Europa, 1981. Richards, D., Portal of Hungerford, London: Heinemann, 1977. Richardson, D. and Stone, G., eds, Decisions and Diplomacy: Essays on Twentieth-Century International History, London: Routledge, 1995. Robert, W.L. and Sweeney, J., eds, New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the 9th Symposium, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991. Rodger, N.A.M., ed., Naval Power in the Twentieth Century, London: Macmillan, 1996. Rose, N., Churchill: An Unruly Life, London: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Roskill, S.W., HMS Warspite, London: Collins, 1957. Roskill, S.W., The War at Sea, 3 vols, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1954, 1956, 1961. Roskill, S.W., The Strategy of Sea Power: Its Development and Application, London: Collins, 1962. Roskill, S.W., Naval Policy between the Wars, 2 vols, London: Collins, 1968, 1976. Roskill, S.W., Churchill and the Admirals, London: Collins, 1977. Roskill, S.W., Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty: The Last Naval Hero, London: Collins, 1981. Sadkovitch, J.J., ed., A Reevaluation of the Major Naval Combatants of World War II, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990. Sainsbury, K., The North African Landings: A Strategic Decision, London: Davis-Poynter, 1976. Sainsbury, K., Churchill and Roosevelt: The War They Fought and the Peace They Hoped to Make, London: Macmillan, 1996. Schofield, B.B., The Attack on Taranto, London: Ian Allan, 1973. Schreiber, G. et al., Germany in the Second World War, vol. III, The Mediterranean, South East Europe and North Africa, 1939–1941, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Schurman, D.M., The Education of a Navy: The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867–1914, London: Cassell, 1967. Semmel, B., Liberalism and Naval Strategy: Ideology, Interest and Sea Power during the Pax Britannica, London: Allen & Unwin, 1986. Seth, R., Two Fleets Surprised: The Story of the Battle of Cape Matapan, London: Bles, 1960. Simpson, G.W.G., Periscope View: A Professional Autobiography, London: Macmillan, 1972. Simpson, B.M., III, Admiral Harold R.Stark: Architect of Victory, 1939–1945, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989. Smith, D.M., Mussolini’s Roman Empire, London: Longman, 1976.

Bibliography

254

Smith, P., Government and the Armed Forces in Britain, 1856–1990, London: Hambledon, 1996. Smith, P.C., Action Imminent: Three Studies of the Naval War in the Mediterranean, London: Kimber, 1980. Smith, P.C. and Walker, E., War in the Aegean, London: Kimber, 1974. Spector, R.H., At War at Sea: Sailors and Naval Warfare in the Twentieth Century, London: A.Lane, 2001. Stephen, M., ed. E.J.Grove, Sea Battles in Close Up: World War II, Shepperton, Middx: Ian Allan, 1988. Stevens, D., ed., The Royal Australian Navy in World War II, St Leonard’s, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996. Sumida, J.T., In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technologyand British Naval Supremacy, 1889–1914, London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Sumida, J.T., Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Sweetman, J., ed., The Great Admirals: Command at Sea, 1587–1945, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Symonds, C.L., ed., New Aspects of Naval History: Selected Papers Presented at the 4th Naval History Symposium, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981. Terraine, J., The Right of the Line: The RAF in the European War, 1939–1945, Ware: Wordsworth, 1997. Thomas, D.A., Crete, 1941: The Battle at Sea, London: Deutsch, 1972. Thomas, M., Britain, France and Appeasement: Anglo-French Relations in the Popular Front Era, Oxford and New York: Berg, 1996. Thomas, R.L., Britain and Vichy: The Dilemma of Anglo-French Relations, 1940–1942, London: Macmillan, 1979. Thorne, C, Allies of a Kind: Britain, the United States and the War against Japan, 1941–1945, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Till, G., Air Power and the Royal Navy: An Historical Survey, 1914–1945, London: Jane’s, 1979. US Naval Academy, ed., Changing Interpretations and New Sources in Naval History: Papers from the 3rd Naval History Symposium, New York and London: Garland, 1980. Van der Vat, D., The Ship That Changed the World: The Escape of the Goeben to the Dardanelles in 1914, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985. Warner, O., Cunningham of Hyndhope: Admiral of the Fleet, London: Murray, 1967. Warner, O., Admiral of the Fleet: The Life of Sir Charles Lambe, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1969. Watt, D.C., How War Came, London: Heinemann, 1989. Weiss, S., Allies in Conflict: Anglo-American Strategic Negotiations, 1938–1944, London: Macmillan, 1996. Wells, J., The Royal Navy: An Illustrated Social History, 1870–1982, Stroud, Glos: Sutton; Royal Navy Museum, 1994. Whitehouse, A., Amphibious Operations, London: F.Muller, 1964. Willmott, H.P., Graveyard of a Dozen Schemes: British Naval Planning and the War against Japan, 1943–1945, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Willmott, H.P., Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982. Willmott, H.P., The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies, February to June, 1942, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983. Wingate, R., Lord Ismay: A Biography, London: Hutchinson, 1970. Winterbotham, F.W., The Ultra Secret, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974. Winton, J., The Forgotten Fleet, London: Joseph, 1969. Winton, J., Ultra at Sea, London: Leo Cooper, 1988. Winton, J., Cunningham: The Greatest Admiral since Nelson, London: Murray, 1998.

Bibliography

255

Ziegler, P., Mountbatten, London: Guild, 1985.

Theses S.May, ‘The British Submarine Campaign in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943’, unpub. MPhil, University of Wales, Swansea, 2000. D.Rigby, ‘The Combined Chiefs of Staff and American Strategic Coordination in World War II’, unpub. PhD, Brandeis University, 1997. R.Salerno, ‘The Mediterranean Triangle: Britain, France, Italy and the Origins of the Second World War, 1935–1940’, unpub. PhD, Yale University, 1997.

Articles Naval Review (NR) Anon., ‘Air Power, Part I’, pp. 106–35 (1913). Anon., ‘The Trinity of Efficiency’, pp. 102–13 (1914). Anon., ‘Notes on Appreciating a Situation, Part I’, pp. 186–99 (1914). Articles on the Dardanelles operations, various (1916). Anon., ‘Naval Discipline and Education’, pp. 24–52 (1919). Anon., ‘On Thought and Discussion’, pp. 190–7 (1919). Anon., ‘The Higher Education of Naval Officers in Relation to Staff Work’, pp. 276–81 (1919). Anon., ‘Battle by Night’, pp. 6–14 (1922). Anon., ‘The Art of Command’, pp. 100–6 (1924). Anon., ‘The Mediterranean Muddle’, pp. 441–5 (1924). Anon., ‘The Navy and Its Aircraft’, p. 646–8 (1924). Anon., ‘Command and Staff’, pp. 657–62 (1924). Anon., ‘Destroyers, or the Training Ships of the Service’, pp. 724–7 (1931). Anon., ‘The Combined Fleet Exercises’, pp. 220–6 (1934). Anon., ‘The Navy and the Air, Parts II and III’, pp. 11–28 (1935), pp. 65–71 (1935). Amery, L.S., ‘The Undefeated Spirit’, p. 415 (1937). Various, Tributes to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, pp. 283–5 (1943). ‘LGD’ and G.Creasy, Tributes to Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, pp. 1–3 (1945). Various, debates on post-war Royal Navy, pp. 196–208, 306–9 (1944); 122–7 (1945); 150–2 (1946). Anon., ‘The Royal Marines: The Post-War Policy’, pp. 292–7 (1945). Barnard, G., ‘The Battle of Matapan’, pp. 302–9 (1946). ‘Memor’, ‘The Action with the Italian Fleet off Calabria’, pp. 230–3 (1948). Power, M.L., ‘The Landings in North Africa’, pp. 199–206 (1949). Anon., ‘Naval Operations in the Aegean, September 1943–October 1944, Parts I and III’, pp. 42– 50, 287–95 (1951). Troup, J.A.G., ‘HMS Britannia, 1897’, pp. 474–80 (1955). Dewar, K.G.B., ‘The Dardanelles Campaign, Parts I–III’, pp. 147–57, 258–70, 393–404 (1957). Anon., ‘Dardanelles Days—and Nights’, pp. 331–2 (1958). Brock, P.W., ‘The Royal Navy in Germany, 1945–1947’, pp. 278–89 (1961). Various, Tributes to Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, pp. 262–5 (1963). Anon., ‘Hall and Godfrey: Doyens of Naval Intelligence’, pp. 125–36 (1973). Brewer, G.N., ‘The Melody Lingers On, Part II’, pp. 50–9 (1974). Gretton, P.W., ‘The Royal Navy in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, Parts I, II and III’, pp. 8– 17, 96–103, 203–13 (1974).

Bibliography

256

Anon., ‘Alexandria, 1935–1936’, Part I, pp. 269–74 (1975); Part III, pp. 141–4 (1976). Layard, A.F.C., ‘Algiers, 8th November 1942’, pp. 156–71 (1978).

Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSIJ) Binney, T.H., ‘Gallipoli and Normandy’, pp. 33–5 (1945). Tedder, A.W., ‘Air, Land and Sea Warfare’, pp. 59–63 (1946). Head, A., ‘Amphibious Operations’, pp. 489–94 (1946). Fraccaroli, A., ‘The Italian Navy in the Late War’, pp. 437–43 (1947). Lloyd, H.P., ‘Allied Air Power in the Mediterranean, 1940–1945’, pp. 554–66 (1947). Roskill, S.W., ‘Marder, Churchill and the Admiralty, 1939–1942’, pp. 49–53 (1972). van Creveld, M., ‘Rommel’s Supply Problem, 1941–1942’, pp. 67–73 (1974). Murray, W., ‘The Role of Italy in British Strategy, 1938–1939’, pp. 43–9 (1979).

Naval War College Review (NWCR) (US) Alves, D., ‘The Resupply of Malta in World War II’, pp. 63–82 (1980). Grove, E.J., ‘A War Fleet Built for Peace: British Naval Rearmament in the 1930s and the Dilemma of Deterrence versus Defence’, pp. 82–92 (1990). Barclay, G. St J., ‘Butcher and Bolt: Admiral Roger Keyes and British Combined Operations, 1940–1941’, pp. 18–29 (1982). Hone, T.C. and Mandeles, M.D., ‘Inter-War Innovation in Three Navies: U.S. Navy, Royal Navy, Imperial Japanese Navy’, pp. 63–83 (1996).

Proceedings of the US Naval Institute (USNIP) James, W., ‘Night Fighting by the British Navy’, pp. 645–51 (1944). Hewitt, H.K., ‘Naval Aspects of the Sicilian Campaign’, pp. 705–23 (1953). Hewitt, H.K., ‘The Allied Navies at Salerno: Operation Avalanche, September 1943’, pp. 959–76 (1953). Durand de la Penne, L., ‘The Italian Attack on the Alexandria Naval Base’, pp. 125–35 (1956). Bernotti, R., ‘Italian Naval Policy under Fascism’, pp. 722–31 (1956). Leighton, R.M., ‘Planning for Sicily’, pp. 90–101 (1962). Spigai, V., ‘Italian Naval Assault Craft in Two World Wars’, pp. 50–9 (1965).

English Historical Review (EHR) Parker, R.A.C., ‘Great Britain, France and the Ethiopian Crisis’, pp. 293–332 (1974). Salerno, R., ‘The French Navy and the Appeasement of Italy, 1937–1939’, pp. 66–104 (1997).

Historical Journal (HJ) Capern, A.L., ‘Winston Churchill, Mark Sykes and the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915’, pp. 104–18 (1998). Ferris, J., ‘Treasury Control, the Ten-Year Rule and British Service Policies, 1919–1924’, pp. 859– 82 (1987). Quartararo, R., ‘Imperial Defence in the Mediterranean on the Eve of the Ethiopian Crisis’, pp. 187–220 (1977).

Bibliography

257

International History Review (IHR) Herwig, H., ‘The Failure of German Sea Power, 1914–1945: Mahan, Tirpitz and Raeder Reconsidered’, pp. 68–105 (1988). Sullivan, B.R., ‘A Fleet in Being: The Rise and Fall of Italian Sea Power, 1861–1943’, pp. 106–24 (1988). Sumida, J.T., ‘“The Best Laid Plans”: The Development of British Battle-fleet Tactics, 1919– 1942’, pp. 681–700 (1992). Millman, B., ‘Credit and Supply in Turkish Foreign Policy and the Tripartite Alliance of October 1939: A Note’, pp. 70–80 (1994). Mills, W.C., ‘The Chamberlain-Grandi Conversations of July– August 1937 and the Appeasement of Italy’, pp. 594–618 (1997).

Journal of Modern History (JMH) Ben-Moshe, T., ‘Winston Churchill and the “Second Front”: A Reappraisal’, pp. 503–37 (1990). Renzi, W.M., ‘Great Britain, Russia and the Straits, 1914–1915’, pp. 1–20 (1970).

Journal of Strategic Studies (JSS) Wilt, A.F., ‘The Summer of 1944: A Comparison of Overlord and Anvil/Dragoon’, pp. 187–95 (1981). Gordon, G.A.H., ‘The Admiralty and Imperial Overstretch, 1902–1941’, pp. 63–85 (1995).

Mariner’s Mirror (MM) Griffiths, R.J.H., ‘Wolverines in Two World Wars’, pp. 319–21 (2000). Harding, R., ‘Learning from the War: The Development of British Amphibious Capability, 1919– 1929’, pp. 173–85 (2000). May, S., ‘Strangling Rommel: British Submarine Commanders in the Mediterranean, June 1940 to September 1943’, pp. 456–68 (2000).

Military Affairs (MA) Emerson, W., ‘Franklin D.Roosevelt as Commander-in-Chief in World War II’, pp. 181–7 (1958– 59). Higgins, T., ‘The Anglo-American Historians’ War in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945’, pp. 84–8 (1970). Burns, R.D., ‘The Regulation of Submarine Warfare, 1921–1941: A Case Study in Arms Control and Limited War’, pp. 56–63 (1971).

Other Journals Dilks, D., ‘“We Must Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst”: The Prime Minister, the Cabinet and Hitler’s Germany, 1937–1939’, Proceedings of the British Academy (1987), pp. 309–52. Gordon, G.A.H., ‘The Admiralty and Appeasement’, Naval History (1991), pp. 44–8. Kennedy, P.M., ‘“Appeasement” and British Defence Policy in the Inter-War Years’, British Journal of International Studies (1978), pp. 161–72.

Bibliography

258

Macfie, A.L., ‘The Straits Question in the First World War, 1914–1918’, Middle Eastern Studies (1983), pp. 43–54. Morewood, S., ‘Appeasement from Strength: The Making of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and Alliance’, Diplomacy and Statecraft (1996), p. 530–62. Sadkovitch, J.J., ‘A Reevaluation of Who Won the Italian-British Naval Conflict, 1940–1942’, European Historical Quarterly (1988), pp. 455–66. Santoni, A., ‘Italian Naval Policy from 1930 to 1941’, Revue Internationale d’Histoire (1991), pp. 87–99. Schmider, K., ‘The Mediterranean in 1941: Battleground of Lost Opportunities’, War and Society (1997), pp. 19–41.

Index

259

Index

Aboyneau, Capt. (French Navy), 61 Abyssinia, 32, 35, 38, 40, 48, 49 Admiralty, 14, 17–18, 19–21, 27, 32, 33, 36–40, 42–3, 51–2, 56–7, 58–61, 81–3, 99, 102, 120, 126, 127, 128, 131, 171, 173–6, 185–7, 189, 194, 196, 202, 203, 205, 208–9, 210, 212–15, 219, 222–4, 226 Admiralty Islands, 204 Adriatic, 8, 70, 72, 73 Aegean, 8, 12, 56, 58, 63, 68, 70, 72, 77, 85, 89, 90, 96, 160, 176–7, 178, 181 Africa, East, 79, 85; North, 47, 55, 58, 59, 64, 77, 79, 82–3, 85, 89, 107, 109, 115, 121–4, 139, 141, 143–5, 147, 150, 191; invasion of North Africa, 131–2, 133–55, 156–7, 168; West, 146 aircraft, British: Albacore, 92, 121; Barracuda, 205; Beaufighter, 118, 164; Blenheim, 92; Fulmar, 69, 71, 80, 97, 99, 108, 115; Hurricane, 64, 65, 105, 120; Mosquito, 205; Seafire, 205; Sea Gladiator, 66; Spitfire, 120–1; Sunderland, 66, 90; Swordfish, 63, 66, 67, 71, 72, 75, 90–5, 121, 140, 149; Wellington, 74, 75, 121; American: Avenger, 202, 205; Corsair, 205; Maryland, 72; German: Ju 87, 98, 99, 105; Ju 88, 93, 98, 100; Me 109, 120 Air Ministry, 82, 213 Air-to-Surface Vessel Radar (ASV), 121, 140, 196 Albania, 41, 43, 79

Index

260

Alexander, Rt Hon. Albert V. (later Viscount Alexander of Hillsborough), 127, 173–5, 210, 222 Alexander, Gen. Sir Harold (later F-M Lord Alexander of Tunis), 151–2, 153, 156, 157–8, 161, 167–8, 170, 179, 217 Alexander-Sinclair, R-Adm Edwyn, 17 Alexandria, 33, 37, 41, 42, 44, 46, 48, 53, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 65, 69, 71, 73, 74, 77, 79, 82, 89–90, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 106, 109, 110, 113, 115–16, 117, 118, 119, 121, 125, 150, 216; human torpedo raid on, 114–15 Algeria, 146, 159 Algiers, 133, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143, 145, 147, 152, 157, 161, 172, 181 Allies: First World War, 9; inter-war, 21; Second World War, 42, 44, 45, 51, 55, 56, 58, 86–7, 97, 101, 121, 125, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140, 154, 160–7, 169, 170, 177, 178, 179, 181, 184, 190, 193, 195, 197, 217 Alliston, Lt-Cdr J.H., 108 Altenfjord, 186 Amboina, 202 America, Latin, 24 American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) command, 217 amphibious operations, 9–11, 12, 20–1, 85–8, 99–101, 131–44, 152–3, 155–65, 166–70, 174–8, 180–188–94, 198, 211–12 Andaman Islands, 198 Anglo-American relations, 42–3, 127–32, 133, 135, 136, 139–40, 152–6, 166–7, 174, 179, 180–1, 182, 185, 188, 193, 202, 207, 211, 215–16, 219 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, 48 Anglo-German Naval Agreement, 32, 39–40 Ankara, 62 anti-aircraft (AA), 12, 13, 20, 29–30, 33, 34, 37, 47, 48, 50, 63–71, 81, 85, 86, 97–104, 114–19, 125, 140, 147, 161, 162, 164, 206, 211–12 Anti-Comintern Pact, 43 anti-submarine (A/S), 10, 12, 13, 20, 21, 31, 54, 63, 67, 68, 77, 94, 103, 114, 115, 124, 129, 162, 184–5, 220 Antwerp, 192 Anzac Cove, 11 Anzio, 178 Arabs, 40, 107 Arbuthnot, Cdre (later R-Adm Sir) Robert, 7 Arnold, Gen. H.H. (USAAF), 129–30, 155–6 Asia, 135, 136, 199, 201, 207 Atatürk, Kemal, 21 Athens, 86–7 Atkinson, A/B L., 125 Atlantic, 13, 23, 31, 43, 62, 137, 140, 143, 144, 147–50, 152, 214; Battle of, 134, 137, 142, 154, 184–5, 194–7; Wall, 154, 190–1 Attlee, Rt Hon. Clement R. (later Earl Attlee), 179, 210–11, 215 Auchinleck, Gen. Sir Claude (later F-M Lord Auchinleck), 108–9, 116, 216 Augusta (Sicily), 161, 163 Australia, 199, 200, 202, 204, 206, 207, 215, 217, 223 Austria-Hungary, 8, 9, 193 Axis, 42, 51, 58, 59, 61, 81, 89, 96, 104, 106, 114, 116, 119–20, 122, 123, 136, 137, 143, 145–50, 153, 154, 160, 162, 163, 164, 219

Index

261

Azores, 141, 185, 197 Backhouse, Adm Sir Roger, 38–9, 41 Bagdad, 8 Baillie-Grohman, Capt. (later V-Adm) H.Tom, 41, 156, 165, 236 Balkans, 8, 42, 48, 62, 89, 106, 121, 166, 176 Ballard, R-Adm G.A., 13 Baltic, 17–18 Barcelona, 37 Bardia, 58, 71, 84 Barnard, Cdr. (later V-Adm. Sir) Geoffrey, 45, 46, 65–6, 101 Battenberg, AoF Prince Louis of (later Lord Mountbatten), 8–9 Beatty, AoF Earl, 20, 174 Beirut, 59, 108, 161 Belgium, 14 Benghazi, 82, 83, 89, 95, 96, 123 Bennett, R-Adm A.C. (USN), 143 Berlin, 8, 39 Bermuda, 23–4 Biscay, Bay of, 140, 185, 190, 191, 193, 196 Bishop’s Stortford, 25 Bizerta, 44, 137, 138, 147, 149, 168 Black Sea, 45 Blake, V-Adm Sir Geoffrey, 25, 35, 41, 68, 182 Boer War, 3, 18 Bofors gun, 153 Bolshevism, 17, 21, 27 Bône, 147, 149, 150 Bougie, 141, 152 Bowyer-Smith, Capt. Sir Philip, 94 Boyd, Capt. (later Adm Sir) Denis, 80, 187, 207, 213 Brewer, Lieut G.N., 22–3 Bridge, Capt. A.R.M., 94 Brind, R-Adm E.J.P., 176, 203 Britain (United Kingdom), national policies: pre-First World War, 2–3, 5; First World War, 9, 13, 17, 18; inter-war years, 19, 21, 24, 25, 32, 33, 35–40, 42; Second World War, 50, 56–62, 74, 78, 83, 84, 89, 105, 133, 134, 159, 174, 176, 179, 197, 199, 202; post-war, 206–7, 209, 213–15, 217; Battle of, 63 Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, 2, 43, 125, 210, 221–2 British Admiralty Delegation (BAD), 125–32, 175, 182, 216 British Army: First World War, 11–12; inter-war, 25, 44; Mediterranean and Middle East, 44–8, 57, 63, 64, 71, 86–9, 96–7, 99–100, 103–4, 107, 108, 115, 135, 136, 148, 153, 157–61, 167–9; 1st Army, 137–9, 141–3, 147, 149, 150–2; 8th Army, 107, 109, 112, 113, 115, 116, 133, 149, 168;

Index

262

Western Desert Force, 73–7, 82, 84–5, 89; post-war, 174, 207–8, 219 Brooke, Gen. Sir Alan (later F-M Viscount Alanbrooke), 160, 173, 180, 181, 191, 199, 200, 217 Browne, Rev Andrew, 1 Brownrigg, Cdr (later Capt.) Tom M., 45 Brunei, 205 Burke, F-Adm Arleigh A. (USN), 130 Burma, 153 Burrough, V-Adm (later Adm Sir) Harold, 140, 141, 147, 193, 214 Butcher, Capt. Harry (USNR), 172 Byatt, Mr David, 225, 226 Byatt, Sir Horace, 24 Byatt, Sir Hugh, 219, 225 Byatt, Mr Robin, 225 Cabinet, War, 9, 11, 187, 199 Cairo, 48, 49, 72, 86, 109–10, 145, 157, 180–1, 199, 216 Calabria, Battle of, 65–8 Campioni, V-Adm I. (Italian Navy), 67 Canada, 24, 215; army, 159, 163, 192 Carden, V-Adm Sackville H., 9–10 Carne, Cdr (later Capt.) W.P., 45 Casablanca, 133–5, 137, 138, 140–2, 146, 155, 156 Casey, Rt Hon. Richard G. (Australia), 128, 145 Catania, 34, 158, 161, 163 Caucasus, 109, 125, 134 Cavagnari, Adm D. (Italian Navy), 55 Central Powers, 9 Cephalonia, 73 Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 198, 202 Chamberlain, Rt Hon. Neville, 43 Channel, English, 3, 4, 7, 26, 133, 155, 166, 178, 189, 191, 194 Chatfield, Adm (later AoF Lord) Sir Ernle, 3, 7, 26, 30, 33, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 174, 222 Chatham, 23, 26–7, 173 Chequers, 127 Cherbourg, 190, 191 Cherwell, Lord (Prof. Sir Frederick Lindemann), 76, 190, 211 Chiang Kai-shek, 199 Chiefs of Staff (COS): pre-Second World War, 20, 21, 33, 34, 40; Second World War, 43, 44, 56, 62–3, 64, 85, 97, 99, 104, 107, 109, 111, 116, 138, 173–5, 180, 192–4, 198–200, 216; post-war, 215–16, 217 China 17, 181, 199, 206, 207 Churchill, Rt Hon. (later Sir) Winston S., 86, 94, 134, 137, 144, 146, 151, 154, 155, 161, 204; First Lord, 8–10, 19, 43, 51–2; Prime Minister, 52; and British Admiralty Delegation, 127–9, 182; and Adm Pound, 9, 43–4, 51, 52–3, 59, 61–2, 69, 83, 99, 102, 113, 128, 173, 222;

Index

263

and Cunningham (Mediterranean), 51–3, 59, 60, 62, 64, 76–7, 83–4, 89, 99, 104, 113, 127–9, 134–5, 144–5, 156, 167; and Cunningham (First Sea Lord), 172–6, 178–80, 182–3, 186–93, 196–7, 199–202, 204, 206, 213 Clark, Gen. Mark (USA), 144, 153, 169 Collins, Capt. (later V-Adm Sir) John (RAN), 66 Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), 129–30, 136–9, 155, 156, 166, 174, 180, 181, 190, 194, 195, 216 Combined Operations, 76, 221; Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPP), 161 Commanders-in-Chief, Middle East, 49–50, 62–3, 65, 69, 72, 76, 85, 87, 96, 97, 105, 108–9, 116, 177, 216 Commando, 85 Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), 40 Common Cause, 223 Conferences, Casablanca (1943), 155–6; Washington (1943), 182; Quebec (1943), 180; Cairo and Tehran (1943), 180–1, 199; Quebec (1944), 180, 199, 200; Malta and Yalta (1945), 180, 194, 197; Potsdam (1945), 180, 194 Congress (US), 136 Conolly, R-Adm R.L. (USN), 160 convoy, First World War, 13, 14, 19, 29; Second World War, 34, 49, 65, 69, 70, 74, 76, 77, 82, 83, 86, 89, 90, 95, 104, 112, 116, 118–20, 122–4, 130–1, 140–2, 147–50, 156, 161–2, 196, 220 Coode, Capt. C.P.R., 8, 14 Corbett, Sir J., 5 Cor, fu, 16 Corinth Canal, 89, 97 Coronation (1953), 224 Corsica, 166, 167 Cowan, Adm Sir Walter, 17–19, 23–5, 27, 85, 209, 210 Cresswell, R-Adm G.H., 115 Crete, 42, 52, 56, 63, 89, 90, 92; battle for, 94, 96–104, 106, 107, 111, 113, 116, 118, 124 Cunningham, Gen. Sir Alan, 79 Cunningham, AoF Sir Andrew Browne (later Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope): family, 1–2, 23, 50, 70, 105, 118, 171, 209, 217–18; personality, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12–16, 18–19, 21–3, 26, 31, 34–5, 46–9, 77–8, 99, 100–2, 124– 5, 154, 160–1, 165, 168–70, 174–5, 179–80, 199, 224–6; education, 1–2, 25, 27–8, 35, 180; social life, 4, 23, 26, 70, 105, 128, 175, 223, 224–5; marriage, 24, 25–6, 30, 35, 42, 50, 105, 126, 128, 148, 175, 198, 223, 224; early naval career, 2–5, 6–16; First World War: 8–16; inter-war, 17–41; C-in-C, Mediterranean, 41–126, 150–72; First Sea Lord, 171–218; retirement, 219–26; promotions, 3, 4, 6, 12, 15, 17, 18, 26, 27, 29, 35, 42, 150, 171–5, awards, 12, 15, 18, 39, 145, 150, 209, 223–4;

Index

264

battles of: Calabria, 65–8; Matapan, 89–96; Taranto, 72–4, 77; and destroyers, 4–5, 6–16, 17–38, 39, 68, 77, 120, 150, 211–12; and Malta, 8, 9, 13, 29, 30, 31, 42, 44–8, 50, 52, 56, 64–5, 73, 75, 81–3, 95–6, 104, 106, 116– 20, 123–4, 126, 156–9, 161, 171, 181, 194, 213; and Mediterranean, 4, 6–16, 29–38, 40–1, 42–126, 132–72, 176–9, 193–4, 215; and British Army, 75–6, 79, 88, 112–13, 179, 192, 221; and army officers: H.Alexander, 151–2, 153, 161, 167–8, 179, 217; Auchinleck, 108–9, 216; Brooke, 173, 180, 181, 191, 199, 200, 217; Dill, 129, 130, 175; Montgomery, 153, 157, 158, 163–4, 167, 169, 191; Wavell, 48–9, 65, 69, 71, 76, 86, 105–8, 216, 217, 221; and RAF, 71–2, 76, 82, 84, 103–6, 110–13, 125, 184, 191, 196, 213, 220, 221; and RAF officers: Longmore, 49, 67, 72, 76, 86–7, 104, 108, 110, 121, 216; Mitchell, 49, 56; Portal, 174, 180, 197, 199, 213, 217; Tedder, 103–5, 108–13, 116, 150–2, 156–9, 174, 177, 178, 216, 217, 220; and Royal Navy officers: Blake, 25, 35, 41, 68, 182; Burrough, 140, 141, 147, 193, 214; Cowan, 17–19, 23–5, 27, 85, 209, 210; J.Cunningham, 46, 171, 178, 181, 193–4, 217–8, 224; W.W.Fisher, 30, 31, 34, 35; Fraser, 173, 185–7, 196, 202–4, 206–8, 210, 218, 221, 222; Harwood, 125, 127, 128, 144, 145, 150–1; Mountbatten, 82, 95, 102, 128, 183–4, 191, 198, 217, 221; Pound, 13, 36–8, 41–8, 50, 51–3, 56–9, 61–4, 67, 69, 71, 78, 81–3, 85, 86, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 112, 113, 121, 128, 131, 135, 150, 151, 158, 160, 171–2, 175, 179, 180, 191, 222; Pridham-Wippell, 70, 74, 87–8, 91–5, 97, 115, 124, 126; Ramsay, 136, 138–9, 141, 142, 147–9, 157, 188–92, 198, 214; Rawlings, 70, 100, 124, 136, 194, 203, 207–8, 225; Somerville, 60, 64, 69, 75, 81, 95, 114, 176, 182–4, 197, 198, 202, 210, 216, 218, 222; Tovey, 46, 66, 70, 127–8, 173, 192, 214, 218, 225; Willis, 45–6, 61, 181, 194, 210; Vian, 116–20, 124, 203, 225, 226; other naval officers, 4, 6–9, 14–15, 19, 25–8, 30, 35, 38–9, 45–7, 51, 68, 69, 70, 72, 76, 80, 82, 83, 85–7, 97, 98, 102, 105–6, 108, 124–5, 128–9, 141, 145, 147, 160, 170, 174, 184, 187, 193, 196, 198, 204–5, 210, 213, 214, 220, 222, 225, 226; and statesmen, 127, 146, 173, 175, 179, 210–11, 217, 219, 222, 226; and Churchill, 51–3, 59, 60, 62, 64, 69, 72, 76–7, 83–4, 89, 99, 104, 113, 127–9, 134–5, 144– 5, 156, 157, 167, 172–6, 178–80, 182–3, 186–93, 196, 197, 199–202, 204, 206, 213; and joint bodies: British Admiralty Delegation, 24, 125–6, 127–32, 182, 216; Chiefs of Staff, 137, 138, 174, 175, 180, 192, 193, 198, 200, 204, 215–16, 217; Combined Chiefs of Staff, 129, 130, 137, 174, 180–1, 190, 194, 216; Joint Chiefs of Staff (US), 129, 130, 135, 180, 193, 194, 198, 215–16; Joint Staff Mission, 128–9, 194;

Index

265

Middle East Cs-in-C, 62–3, 69, 72, 76, 85, 96, 97, 105, 107, 108–10; and other nations: France, 44–5, 51–2, 56–61, 107–8, 137, 139–40, 142–8, 154; Germany, 19, 32, 39, 79–81, 82, 84, 105, 115, 150, 184–6, 190–1, 194–7, 213–14; Italy, 44–5, 47–8, 50, 53, 55–7, 63, 65–9, 70–4, 85, 89–95, 106, 113, 115, 122, 161, 166–72, 182–3, 194; Soviet Union, 17–18, 45, 61–2, 181–3, 192, 197, 214–15, 220; and United States: 127–32, 135–6, 153; Gen. Eisenhower, 136, 141, 145–7, 151–2, 154, 156, 158, 161, 167, 171, 178, 181, 193, 217, 224; US Navy, 24, 128, 129, 135–6, 163, 182, 224; Adm Hewitt, 140, 153, 158, 163–4, 167–70; F-Adm King, 126, 128–32, 136, 140, 181, 189, 190, 192, 197, 200–3, 216, 217, 224 Cunningham, Prof. Daniel, 1–2 Cunningham, Mrs Elizabeth, 1–2, 23 Cunningham, R-Adm (later AoF Sir) John, 46, 171, 178–9, 181, 193–4, 217–18, 224 Cunningham, Miss Mary, 226 Cunningham, Nona (Viscountess Cunningham, née Byatt), 24–6, 30, 35, 42, 50, 70, 105, 126, 128, 148, 223–6 Cunningham-De Courten Agreement, 171, 182–3, 194 Cyprus, 62, 65, 71, 89, 96, 106, 107 Cyrenaica, 82, 106, 116, 117, 122, 123, 215 Czechoslovakia, 39–42 Dakar, 134, 135, 141, 146, 222 Daniel, V-Adm C.S., 203, 210 Dardanelles: First World War, 8–16, Second World War, 20, 51, 53, 56, 62, 70, 176, 214 Darlan, Adm J.-F. (French Navy), 40, 44, 59, 139, 143–6 Da Zara, V-Adm A. (Italian Navy), 171 De Courten, Adm R. (Italian Navy), 171 De Gaulle, Gen. Charles (French Army), 139, 144, 146, 215, 224 De la Borde, Adm (French Navy), 144 Dekheila, 63 Denmark, 192, 194, Derna, 112 Devonport, 6 Dewar, V-Adm K.G.B., 11 Dick, Cdr (later R-Adm) Royer M., 45, 83, 139, 144, 225 Dill, F-M Sir John, 86, 124, 130, 135, 154, 156, 167, 175, 179, 199 Dodecanese Islands, 45, 51, 56, 70, 85, 86–7 Doenitz, Grand Admiral Karl (German Navy), 184, 190, 196, 197 Dorling, Capt. T. (‘Taffrail’), 223 Dover Patrol, 14 Drax, Admiral Sir Ernle, 30 DUKW (amphibious vehicle), 160 Dunkirk, 14, 15 Dutton, Lieut A.B.S., 4 E-boats, 55, 141, 148, 149, 164, 165, 169, 179, 185, 190, 195 Edelsten, Cdre (later Adm Sir) John, 184, 203, 204–5

Index

266

Eden, Rt Hon. (later Lord Avon) Anthony, 86, 214, 224 Edinburgh, 1, 2, 32, 212, 224 Egypt, 35, 48, 49, 62, 106, 109, 114, 177, 181; invasion of, 64, 65, 71, 77, 82, 107, 113, 123, 125, 183, 215 Eisenhower, Lt-Gen. (later Gen. of the Army and later President) Dwight D., 176–7, 178, 181, 224; and ‘Torch’, 136–8, 141, 217; and ‘Husky’, 156, 161, 165; and invasion of Italy, 167, 169–71; and ‘Overlord’, 155, 178, 189, 192, 193; and Darlan, 143–6, 152 El Agheila, 79 El Alamein, 133, 136 Empire and Commonwealth (British), 9, 43, 59, 62, 125, 135, 156, 202, 206–7, 215, 219 ‘Enigma’ code, 185 Esteva, Adm J.-P. (French Navy), 44, 144 Estonia, 17 Europe, 34, 43, 52, 131, 134, 135, 154, 155, 168, 178, 181, 200, 203, 204, 208, 209, 215–16, 219 Evans-Lombe, Capt. E., 203 Evershed, Lord Justice, 213 Far East, 29, 40, 43, 44, 112, 115, 135, 149, 182, 199, 200, 212 Fascism, 35, 61 Fedhala, 142 Fénard, Adm (French Navy), 144 Field, AoF Sir Frederick, 26 Fisher, R-Adm Douglas, 203, 210 Fisher, AoF Sir John (later Lord Fisher of Kilverstone), 5, 8, 9, 13 Fisher, Adm Sir William W., 30–7, 41 Fleet Air Arm (FAA), 20, 21, 30, 34, 49–50, 56, 63, 66, 68, 69, 71, 79–80, 96, 103, 108, 111–13, 121, 186–7, 198, 203, 206, 208, 212–13, 220–1, 222; at Taranto, 72–4, 77, 94; at Matapan, 89–95 fleet train, 11, 202, 204, 208 Forbes, Adm (later AoF) Sir Charles, 41 Force X (French Navy), 144 Ford, Adm Sir Wilbraham, 82, 120, 122 Foreign Office, 19, 32, 33, 36, 146 France, 15, 54, 207; Franco-British relations, First World War, 8–10, 13; before armistice, 32–4, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42–5, 52, 55, 56, 63; after armistice, 58–61, 139–40, 143–6, 147; invasion of North African colonies, 132, 133–55; invasion of north-west France, 154, 166, 178, 181, 187; invasion of southern France, 139, 166, 178, 187, 190, 193 Franco, Gen. Francisco, 37, 42, 137 Fraser, Adm Sir Bruce (later AoF Lord Fraser of North Cape), 173–5, 185–7, 196, 202–9, 210, 218, 221, 222, Free French, 146 Freyberg, Gen. Sir Bernard, 97 Gallipoli, 11

Index

267

Gela, 163 Geneva, 32 Gensoul, Adm M.-B. (French Navy), 60 George VI, King, 156–7, 189–90, 223–4 Germany: Imperial, 8, 11, 13, 17–18; pre-war, 33, 34, 40, 43, 45; Second World War, 50, 53, 55, 58, 62, 77, 115, 136–8, 145–7, 166, 178, 186, 192; invasion of, 133, 155, 181, 192, 194, 196, 197, 200, 203; post-war, 192, 197, 210, 213–14; air force (Luftwaffe), 79–80, 81, 84, 89, 96–104, 107, 113, 114, 119–20, 134, 165, 170–1, 177, 179, 185, 190; army (and Afrika Korps), 79, 82, 86–8, 98–104, 107, 109, 121, 122, 125, 134, 137, 144, 153, 154, 162, 164, 165, 169, 170, 176, 178; navy (Kriegsmarine), 8, 10, 14–15, 20, 32, 89, 123, 185, 186, 191, 198, 212, 213–14, 219 Ghormley, V-Adm Robert L. (USN), 128 Gibraltar, 26, 33, 37, 40, 44, 48, 62, 64, 69, 73, 75, 79, 95, 116, 119, 140–2, 149, 150, 217, 222; Straits of, 137, 140, 148, 150, 179 Giraud, Gen. Henri (French Army), 139, 144, 146 Glennie, R-Adm I.G., 97, 98, 124 Godfrey, Adm John, 46 Godfroy, V-Adm R.E. (French Navy), 52, 58–61, 107, 144–5, 151 ‘Gooseberry’ breakwaters, 191 Gozo, 160 Graham, Marquis of, 224 Graziani, Marshal (Italian Army), 64, 71 Greece, 4, 12, 13, 21, 37, 38, 40, 43, 45, 51, 52, 62, 63, 65, 77, 82, 92, 99; invasion of, 72, 77, 79, 82; British expedition, 86–9, 94, 96, 102, 105, 150, 177, 225; navy, 13, 90, 103 Gretton, V-Adm Sir Peter, 36 Grindle, Capt. J.A., 131 Haifa, 65, 71 Halifax, Lord, 43 Halifax, Nova Scotia, 24 Hall, Adm J.L, Jr (USN), 160, 167 Hankey, Capt. Maurice, RM (later Lord Hankey), 11 Harcourt, R-Adm C., 147 Harwich, 14, 18 Harwood, V-Adm (later Adm) Sir Henry H., 125, 127, 128, 144–5, 150–1 Haslar hospital, 217 Helles, 11 Heligoland, 19 Helsingfors (Helsinki), 18 Henderson, Adm Sir Reginald, 41 Heraklion, 98, 100 Hewitt, Adm H.Kent (USN), 140, 142, 153, 158, 160, 163, 164, 167–70, 178 High Frequency Direction Finding (HF/DF), 184, 196 Hitler, Adolf, 34, 35, 39–40, 42, 51, 52, 59, 62, 79, 89, 107, 123, 133, 134, 150, 191 Hobbs, Jack, 224

Index

268

Holyroodhouse, Palace of, 224 Hong Kong, 199, 207 Horton, Adm Sir Max, 184, 195–6 House of Lords, 219, 226 Iachino, Adm I. (Italian Navy), 89–95 Imperial Defence College, 25, 72 Imperial General Staff, 86, 129 Imperial War Museum, 223 India, 1, 67, 108, 158, 199, 207, 215 Indian Ocean, 107, 115, 125, 131, 154, 178, 182, 198, 199 Inshore Squadron, 76, 81, 84, 141 Institute of Naval Architects, 223 Inter-Allied Commission of Control (Naval), 19 Invergordon Mutiny, 27, 36 Ionian Sea, 71 Iran, 107 Ismay, Lt-Gen. Sir Hastings (later Lord Ismay), 217, 221 Istanbul, 10, 11 Italy, 9, 13, 32–5, 38, 40, 41, 43–5, 48, 50, 52, 62, 67, 79, 83, 109, 134, 137, 140, 146–7, 149, 150, 157, 164, 177–9, 193; armistice, 165, 167–71, 176; invasion of, 155, 156, 166–72; air force (Regia Aeronautica), 51, 52, 54, 55, 64–9, 71, 75, 77, 79–80, 85, 86–7, 89, 114, 119– 20; army, 54, 64, 71, 75, 77, 162–4; navy, 8, 13, 33, 34, 36, 38, 47, 53–6, 58, 62, 63–74, 77, 79, 82, 89–95, 96–8, 104, 106, 112, 113, 116, 117–20, 122, 123, 140, 141, 147, 148, 150, 159, 162, 167, 168, 219; co-operation of navy, 170–1, 182–3, 194, 198 James, Adm Sir William, 35, 38 Japan, 33–5, 40–4, 62, 90, 106, 107, 115, 125, 129, 134, 182; final attacks on, 198, 199–208, 214; navy, 13, 21, 131, 219 John, Adm (later AoF) Sir Caspar, 226 Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), (US), 129–30, 135, 155–6, 180, 193, 194, 200, 201, 205, 216, 217 Joint Planning Committee and Staff (UK), 43, 45, 53, 137 Joint Staff Mission (JSM) (UK), 128–9, 138, 179, 194, 199 Jutland, Battle of, 17, 19, 30 Kalamata, 87 Kastelorizo, 85, 177 Kelly, Adm Sir William A.H., 51, 62, 106, 119, 129, 145 Kennedy-Purvis, V-Adm Charles, 39, 210 Keyes, Cdre Roger (later AoF Lord Keyes), 11, 14, 15, 19, 76 King, Adm (later F-Adm) Ernest J. (USN), 126–32, 136, 137, 138, 140, 154, 155–6, 181, 182, 189, 190, 192, 197, 198, 200–1, 203, 205, 216, 217, 224 King, R-Adm (later Adm) E.L.S., 97, 98, 102, 108, 124 Kirk, Adm Alan G. (USN), 160, 163, 189, 197 Kithera, 98 Kos, 177;

Index

269

Strait of, 63 Labour, Ministry of, 204 Labour Party, 209, 210, 218 Labrador, 24 Lambe Capt. (later AoF Sir) Charles, 198 Lampson, Sir Miles, 49, 70 landing craft, 12, 85, 134, 142, 153, 156, 158, 160, 163, 164, 167, 168, 178, 180, 181, 183, 189, 192 landing ship (infantry) (LSI), 85, 87, 99, 100, 114 landing ship (tank) (LST), 131, 193 Larken, Cdre Frank, 15 Latvia, 17 Laughton, Prof. Sir John Knox, 5 Laval, Pierre, 143 Layton, V-Adm (later Adm Sir) Geoffrey, 46, 198 League of Nations, 19, 32 Leahy, Adm (later F-Adm) William D. (USN), 129, 136, 201 Leatham, V-Adm Sir Ralph, 120 Leathers, Lord, 194, 204 Lebanon, 61, 107 Lee, Lieut (later Capt.) E.Hugh, 90, 91, 225 Lees, Capt. D.M., 101, 124 Lemnos, 9, 11 Leros, 12, 75, 177 Levant, 59, 96, 115, 124, 151, 194 Libau, 18 Libya, 34, 44, 57, 63–5, 70, 72, 74, 77, 82, 83, 103, 104, 106, 109, 112, 116–17, 120 Linton, Cdr J., 81 Little, Adm Sir Charles, 125, 128, 129, 222 Lloyd, Air Vice-Marshal (later Air Chief Marshal Sir) Hugh P., 121 London, 35, 44, 59, 60, 61, 84, 89, 99, 104, 105, 111, 127, 129, 135, 139, 172 London Gazette, 220 Longmore, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur W., 49, 65, 71, 72, 75, 76, 86, 87, 104–5, 108, 110, 216 Lord High Steward (of the Church of Scotland), 224 Lyster, R-Adm (later Adm Sir) A.Lumley StG., 69, 72, 80 Lyttelton, Rt Hon. (later Lord) Oliver, 109, 110 MacArthur, Gen. (later Gen. of the Army) Douglas (USA), 200, 201, 204 Mack, Capt. (later R-Adm) Philip, 82, 83, 92–4, 95, 98, 121, 124, 160 Macmillan, Rt Hon. (later Lord) Harold, 145, 146, 222 Mahan, Capt. A.T. (USN), 5 Malaya, 199 Maleme, 90, 97, 101 Malta, First World War, 8, 9, 13; inter-war, 29, 32–5, 37, 38, 42; Second World War: naval base, 44, 45, 64, 156–62, 168, 170, 171, 180, 181, 194, 213, 223; supply of, 56, 64–5, 68–70, 76–9, 81, 83, 89, 95–6, 101, 103, 112–23; defence of, 48, 50, 52, 63, 64, 71, 73, 75, 80, 81, 96, 104, 106, 109, 123, 124, 126, 134, 156–7; attack from, 47, 50, 55, 62, 63, 64, 66, 68, 72, 73, 75, 81–2, 95, 123, 141, 149–50, 156–7, 161

Index

270

Manus, 204–5 Marseilles, 194 Marshall, Gen. (later Gen. of the Army) George C. (USA), 129–30, 136, 138, 151, 155–6, 158, 166–7 Matapan, Battle of, 89–95, 96, 152, 223 McGrigor, R-Adm (later AoF Sir) Rhoderick, 160, 167, 212, 220, 221 McKendrick, Lt-Cdr Gordon, 171 McKendrick, Mrs Hilda, 98, 171, 225–6 Mediterranean, First World War, 3, 4, 8, 13, 14; inter-war, 21, 29, 32, 33, 36, 38, 41; Second World War, 42–126, 127, 128, 131, 134, 136, 139, 147, 149, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157, 158, 160, 161, 163–6, 168, 171–2, 173, 174, 178, 179, 181, 187, 193; post-war, 210, 215, 223 Merchant Navy, 126 merchant ships, 12, 19, 36, 37, 55, 69, 87, 115, 118–19, 140, 147, 149–50, 154, 156, 158, 165, 166, 171, 181, 184, 185, 204, 206, 207, 211, 213, 214, 220; Clan Campbell, 118–19; Endymion, 37; Georgic, 115; Pampas, 118–19; Slamat, 87; Talabot, 118–19; Ulster Prince, 87 Mersa Matruh, 65, 71, 113 Mers-el-Kébir, 60, 148, 222 Messina, 164; Straits of, 164 Micklethwaite, Capt. StJ.A., 118 Middle East, 9, 21, 41, 42, 44, 48, 56, 57, 62, 65, 67, 76, 89, 106, 107, 110, 126, 146, 213, 215 Miers, Cdr (later V-Adm Sir) A.C.C., 81, 121 Miles, V-Adm G.J.A., 214 Milner Fund, 223 Milos, 90 Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, 41 Ministry of Aircraft Production, 213 Mitchell, Air Chief Marshal Sir William, 48–9, 50, 54 Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation (MNBDO), 95 Monte Corvino, 160 Montenegro, 9 Montgomery, Gen. (later F-M Viscount Montgomery of Alamein) Sir Bernard L., 151, 153, 157, 158, 163–4, 167, 169, 188, 189, 191, 192, 224 Moore, R-Adm (later Adm Sir) Henry, 46, 210 Moreno, Adm (Spanish Navy), 37 Morocco, 8, 135, 137 Morse, Capt. (later R-Adm) J.A.V., 108, 147 Moscow, 214 Mountbatten, Capt. Lord Louis (later AoF Viscount Mountbatten of Burma), 82, 95, 98–9, 102, 128, 183–4, 191, 198, 199, 217, 220, 221 Mudros, 11 ‘Mulberry’ artificial harbours, 191 Munich, 38–9 Murphy, Mr Robert L. (USA), 139, 144, 146

Index

271

Muslims, 9, 40, 62 Mussolini, Benito, 32–4, 35, 40, 42, 43, 45, 52, 53, 55, 57–9, 62, 77, 79, 89, 94, 109, 165 Myres, Lt-Cdr, RNVR (Prof.), J.L., 12 Naples, 54, 74, 159, 168, 169, 170 national service, 210 Naval Control Commission (Germany), 214 Naval Review, 5, 11, 20, 21, 25 Navy Records Society, 5 Netherlands, The, 192, 207, 217 New Zealand, 199, 206, 215 night fighting, 7, 10, 20, 29–31, 34, 37, 92–4 Nile, River, 61 Nimitz, Adm (later F-Adm) C.W. (USN), 201, 203, 204, 205, 207 Noble, Lt-Cdr D.J.D., 18 Noble, Adm Sir Percy, 127, 132, 175, 182, 213, 216 Nore, The, 26, 214 Norman, Capt. H.G., 72, 110 Normandy, 184 North, Adm Sir Dudley, 46, 128, 151, 222 North America and West Indies Station, 23–4 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), 221 North Cape, Battle of, 202 North Sea, 7, 26 Norway, 14, 99, 185, 192, 197 nuclear weapons, 174, 194, 206, 211, 212, 220, 224 Nyon, Convention of, 36 O’Connor, Lt-Gen. (later Gen. Sir) Richard, 75 Oerlikon gun, 114, 153, Officers’ Association, 223 Okinawa, 205 Oliver, Lt-Cdr (later Adm Sir) Geoffrey N., 26, 140–1, 147, 167, 169, 170 Ollive, Adm (French Navy), 44 operational research, 184 operations: ‘Abstention’, 85; ‘Accolade’, 176–8; ‘Anvil/Dragoon, 188, 190, 193; ‘Avalanche’, 168–70; ‘Battleaxe’, 106–7; ‘Baytown’, 168; ‘Bolero’, 133, 154; ‘Collar’, 74–5; ‘Crusader’, 108–9, 113, 115; ‘Demon’, 87; ‘Excess’, 79–80; ‘Halberd’, 114, 116; ‘Hats’, 69; ‘Husky’, 155–65, 170, 217; ‘Judgement’, 72–4;

Index

272

‘Lustre’, 86, 90; ‘Mandibles’, 76–7, 85; ‘Neptune/Overlord’, 133, 134, 163, 188–91, 193; ‘Retribution’, 150; ‘Roundup’, 133–5, 154–5; ‘Shingle’, 178; ‘Sledge-hammer’, 133, 134; ‘Substance’, 114, 116; ‘Tiger’, 95–7; ‘Torch’, 131–2, 133–54, 155, 163, 164, 217; ‘Tungsten’, 186–7; ‘Whipcord’, 109; ‘Workshop’, 76–7 Oran, 52, 133, 138, 140–3, 145, 147 Ostend, 14, 15 Otranto, Straits of, 74 Pacific, 24, 131, 135, 136, 138, 154, 190, 198–201, 203, 205, 206, 207 Palembang, 205 Palestine, 62, 65, 86 Palma, 31 Pantelleria, 76–7 Patterson, R-Adm Wilfred, 132 Patton, Gen. George C. (USA), 142, 158, 164 Pearl Harbor, 135, 204 Peloppenese, 88 Peninsula Press, 11 Persian Gulf, 110 Pétain, Marshal H. (France), 58, 61, 143, 144 Peters, Capt. F.T., 143 Philippines, 205 Pipe Line Under The Ocean (PLUTO), 191 Piraeus, 13, 72, 73, 79, 86, 87, 90, 111 ‘Plan Dog’ (US), 135 Poland, 41, 42 Portal, M of RAF Sir Charles (later Viscount Portal of Hungerford), 111, 112, 116, 174, 180, 197, 199, 213, 217 Portal, R-Adm R.A., 203 Port Augusta, 34 Port Edgar, 19, 23 Port Laki, 75 Port Lyautey, 142 Port Said, 65, 107 Portsmouth, 6, 28, 35, 48, 219, 221 Potsdam, 194 Pound, Adm (later AoF) Sir Dudley, C-in-C, Mediterranean, 36–8, 42, 56–7, 63; becomes First Sea Lord, 41; and Churchill, 9, 43–4, 51, 52–3, 59, 61–2, 69, 83, 99, 102, 113, 128, 173, 222; and Cunningham, 13, 43–8, 50, 51–3, 56–7, 56–9, 61–4, 67, 69, 71, 78, 81–3, 85, 86, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 112, 113, 117, 121, 128, 131, 135, 150, 151, 158, 160, 171–2, 175, 179, 180, 191, 222

Index

273

Power, R-Adm (later Adm Sir) Arthur J., 170, 184, 196, 198, 210 Power, Cdr (later V-Adm Sir) Manley, 45, 46, 102, 124, 139, 157 Prentis, Cdr O., 9 Pridham-Wippell, V-Adm (later Adm Sir) Henry, 70, 74, 87–8, 90–5, 97, 115, 124, 126 Radar, 49, 50, 54, 65, 69, 92, 94, 114, 115, 121, 122, 147, 163, 195, 206, 211 Ramree island, 198 Ramsay, V-Adm (later Adm Sir) Bertram H., 41, 136, 138–9, 141–2, 147; and Mediterranean landings, 148–9, 153, 157, 160, 163; and Normandy landings, 188–92, 214 Ramsey, Adm C.G., 222 Rangoon, 198 Rawlings, Capt. (later Adm Sir) Bernard, 70, 98, 100, 124, 136, 194, 203, 207–8, 225 Red Cross, 225 Red Sea, 33, 56, 65, 110, 115 Reggio, 168 Renouf, R-Adm E. de F., 70 Reval, 17, 18 Rhineland, 34 Rhodes, 69, 83, 85, 115, 177 Richmond, Adm Sir Herbert, 5, 25 Riga, 17 Ripult, Adm (French Navy), 145 River Plate, Battle of, 127 Roberts, F-M Lord, 3 Romania, 43, 45, 51 Rome, 43, 67, 70, 90, 168, 176, 178 Rommel, Gen. (later F-M) Erwin (German Army), 79, 82, 84, 95, 113, 121, 122–3, 134, 191 Roosevelt, President Franklin D., 58, 129, 135, 136, 138, 145, 146, 155, 166, 167, 182–3, 190, 198–201 Roosevelt, President Theodore, 135 Roskill, Capt. S.W., 186, 219, 220, 222 Royal Air Force, 19, 21, 29, 33, 63, 69, 71, 75–6, 86, 125, 187, 221; naval support, 7–8, 47–8, 52, 56, 65, 67, 72, 75, 77, 81, 82, 84, 85, 90, 92, 94–7, 99, 103–13, 115–21, 123, 124, 131, 140, 152, 157, 159, 163, 174, 176–7, 184, 186, 187, 191, 194–7, 213; post-war, 207, 219–20 Royal Australian Navy, 44, 68, 88, 176 Royal Indian Navy, 45 Royal Marines, 192, 212–13 Royal Naval College, Greenwich, 4, 39 Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, 12 Royal Navy: pre-First World War, 1–7; First World War, 8, 9, 16; inter-war, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 32, 33, 36, 37, 42; Second World War, 47, 50, 54, 58, 70, 76, 83, 91, 104, 111, 114, 131, 149, 159, 161, 174, 176, 180, 182, 185, 189, 192, 193, 196, 198, 200, 201, 203, 204, 207, 208, 223, 226; post-war, 187, 209–18, 219–21; fleets: Atlantic, 19, 21, 26, 27, 29; Channel, 2, 4;

Index

274

China, 33; Eastern (and East Indies), 131, 182–4, 198, 202; Grand, 14, 17; Home, 7, 29, 31, 32, 34, 41, 116, 127, 174, 185–7, 202, 210; Mediterranean, 2, 4, 8, 21, 25, 26, 29, 31, 34, 35–8, 40, 42, 43, 45, 45, 47, 49, 52, 53, 62, 67, 69, 70, 71, 77, 79, 84, 89–95, 99, 101, 102, 104, 110, 116, 125, 166, 194, 210; Pacific, 41, 182, 187, 199–208; Reserve, 6, 19; personnel, 3, 4, 13, 19–20, 27, 29–30, 34–6, 101–4, 176–7, 202, 206, 209–10; ships: aircraft carriers, 20, 33, 34, 37, 38, 47, 49–50, 55, 65, 66, 67, 72–3, 75, 79–81, 89, 90–4, 97, 99, 103, 104, 113, 116, 140, 152, 155, 159, 163, 168, 180, 182, 198, 202, 208, 211, 212, 220–1; battle cruisers and battleships, 4, 5, 8, 10, 15, 17, 26, 33, 37, 44, 47, 49, 52, 55, 60, 62, 65, 66, 67, 70, 73, 74, 75, 82, 91–2, 95, 98–9, 103, 114–16, 123, 124, 140, 152, 156, 159, 161, 162, 169, 170, 171, 180–2, 185, 191, 211, 212, 214, 224; cruisers, 3, 4, 8, 17, 23–4, 29, 32, 33, 42, 46, 47, 52, 54–5, 62, 63, 65–8, 72–4, 77, 79, 80, 82, 85, 88, 90, 91, 95–7, 98, 100–2, 114, 116–21, 123, 124, 140, 147, 149, 156, 163, 168, 169, 170, 177, 185, 202, 211, 212; destroyers, 4–19, 21–3, 29, 31, 33, 36, 37, 39, 44, 47, 52, 54–5, 65–8, 75, 77, 79, 87, 88, 93, 95, 96, 98–100, 108, 114, 116–21, 123, 124, 143, 147–50, 156, 159, 170, 171, 177, 185, 191, 202, 206, 211–12, 226; escort vessels, 20, 39, 47, 65, 67, 114, 140, 143, 156, 159, 180, 194–7, 202, 212; minelayers, 33, 64, 125, 140, 149, 159; minesweepers, 10, 11, 13, 29, 34, 47, 48, 84, 114–16, 125, 140, 159, 220; motor torpedo boats (MTBs), 85, 97, 114, 125, 147, 149, 150, 165; submarines, 29, 31, 33, 34, 39, 47, 63–4, 65, 77, 81–2, 84, 90, 114, 120–2, 125, 140, 149, 159, 161, 186, 202; support vessels, 1, 2, 6, 9, 14, 33, 47, 49, 71, 73–4, 85, 87, 95, 97, 99, 100, 114–19, 141, 143, 147, 149, 153, 156, 159, 163, 165, 168, 170, 177, 180, 190, 202, 212 Royal Navy Pipers, 223 Russia (Imperial), 8 Safi, 142 Sakishima Gunto, 205 Salerno, 168–70 Samos, 177 Sardinia, 137, 155, 156, 160, 166, 167 Scandinavia, 52 Scapa Flow, 22 Scarpanto (Karpathos), 67, 97, 99, 103 Scheldt, River, 192 Schnorkel, 195, 196 Scotland, Church of, 223, 224 Seine, Bay of the, 189 Serbia, 9 Servaes, R-Adm R.M., 203 Sfax, 149, 159 Shaw, Capt. A.P., 45 Sicily, 33, 79, 81, 95, 109, 133, 140; invasion of, 155–65, 168 signals intelligence (sigint), 65, 82, 90, 94, 96–7, 121, 123, 166, 184–6, 196

Index

275

Singapore, 29, 33, 40, 45, 62, 198, 199, 207 Sirte, first battle of, 103, 116–17; second battle of, 103, 117–20 Skerki Channel, 69 Slater, Lieut (later Adm Sir) Jock, 219, 225, 226 Slatter, Air Cdre L.H., 112 Smyrna, Gulf of, 9 Somaliland, 215 Somerville, V-Adm (later AoF) Sir James, and Force H, 41, 60, 64, 69, 75, 81, 116, 221; and Eastern Fleet, 176, 182, 183–4, 198, 199; and BAD, 182, 197, 202, 210, 216, 218, 222 Somerville, Cdr John, 46 Sousse, 149, 159 South Africa, Union of, 215 South East Asia Command (SEAC), 183–4, 198, 212, 217, 221 South West Pacific Area, 202 Spaatz, Gen. Carl (USAAF), 152 Spain, 37, 61, 134, 137; Civil War, 36, 39, 42, 49 Spezia, 74 Sphakia, 99–100 Stalin, Marshal Josef V., 51, 166, 181, 183, 214 Stalingrad, 154 Stark, Adm Harold R. (USN), 127–8, 135, 182, 224 Starkie, Lieut Walter, 45, 70, 98 Suda Bay, 52, 62, 64, 72, 73, 75, 79, 86, 89, 90, 95–7, 101, 111 Surabaya, 202 Suez (port), 65, 159; east of, 107, 134, 203 Suez Canal, 9, 34, 56, 62, 64, 65, 71, 81, 85, 96, 104, 106, 107, 115 Sumatra, 199 supreme command, 216–17, 224 Sutherland, 224 Suvla Bay, 9 Sydney, 202 Syfret, V-Adm (later Adm) Sir E.Neville, 210 Syracuse, 158, 161, 163 Syria, 107–8, 124 Taranto, 34, 54, 66, 154, 168, 170, 171; attack on, 72–4, 77, 94, 114, 187 Tedder, Air Chief Marshal (later M of the RAF Lord) Sir Arthur W., 103–5, 108–13, 116, 150–2, 156–9, 174, 177, 178, 216, 217, 220 Tehran, 180–1 Thomas, Rt Hon. J.P.L., 221 Tientsin, 41,42 Times, The, 1–3 Tobruk, 71, 81, 84–5, 104, 112–13, 115, 124, 178 Toulon, 134, 140, 141, 144, 179, 194 Tovey, R-Adm John C. (later AoF Lord), 46, 66, 67, 70, 127–8, 173, 192, 214, 218 Treasury, the, 127, 204

Index

276

Trenchard, M of the RAF Lord, 108, 220 Trewby, V-Adm George, 221 Trinidad, 24 Trinity College Dublin, 1 Tripartite Naval Commission, 214 Tripoli (Libya), 75, 81, 122, 123, 137, 146, 149, 156, 191; bombardment of, 82–4 Tripolitania, 215 Troubridge, R-Adm (later Adm Sir) Ernest, 8–9 Troubridge, Cdre (later Adm Sir) Thomas, 140, 141, 160, 213 Troup, Capt. (laterV-Adm Sir) J.A.G., 28, 226 Tunis, 137, 138, 141, 144, 147, 148, 154, 156, 159, 177 Tunisia, 79, 83, 119, 136, 146, 147, 149, 152, 158 Turkey: First World War, 8–13, 14; inter-wars, 21; Second World War, 38, 40, 43, 45, 51, 56, 62, 65, 77, 85, 89, 107, 126, 134, 155, 176, 177, 205 Twiss, Adm Sir Frank, 50 Tyrwhitt, Capt. (later AoF Sir) Reginald, 6, 14, 19, 26–7, 225 U-boats, 10, 13, 14, 19, 39–40, 103, 113, 114, 116, 118, 123–4, 140–2, 147, 148, 161, 162, 165, 179, 184–5, 187, 190, 191, 194–7, 204, 212, 214; Type XXI, 195–6; Type XXIII, 195–6; Walther boat, 195–7, 212, 214 Ultra, 82, 90, 97, 114, 121, 123, 184–5, 186, 196 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 17, 45, 61–2, 79, 89, 106–7, 121, 126, 133, 136, 154, 165, 167, 176, 181, 185, 186, 189, 194, 197, 205, 206, 215–16, 224; navy, 182–3, 214, 219, 220 United Nations, wartime, 155, 165, 171; post-war, 214, 215–16, 224 United States of America (USA), 24, 43, 59, 89, 127–32, 133, 134, 140, 159, 196–200, 205, 206, 211, 215–16, 217; equipment and production, 129, 131, 176, 180, 185, 187, 210–11, 213; US Army, 129, 135–7, 139, 141, 143, 148, 158, 160, 163, 169, 216; US Army Air Corps (later USAAF), 129; US Coastguard, 143; US Marine Corps, 212; US Navy, 20, 21, 24, 127, 129, 131, 135, 138, 153, 159, 174, 180, 182, 184, 185, 189, 192, 198, 201–4, 206–8, 211–13, 216, 219 Vian, R-Adm (later AoF Sir) Philip, 116–20, 124, 160, 168, 189, 203, 225, 226 Victoria, Queen, 1 Victoria Cross, 81, 125, 143, 222 Vourlah Bay, 9 Wanklyn, Lt-Cdr M.D., 81, 121 warships: British: aircraft carriers: Argus, 116;

Index

277

Ark Royal, 49, 114, 116; Eagle, 65–7, 72–3, 75, 80, 104; Formidable, 81, 90–4, 97, 99, 103, 104, 113, 159; Glorious, 47; Illustrious, 67, 72–3, 75, 79–80, 103, 104, 113; Indomitable, 159, 163; battle cruisers and battleships: Barham, 70, 73, 82, 99, 103, 114, 124; Goliath, 10; Hood, 37; Howe, 159; Implacable, 4; King George v class, 211; King George V, 159; Malaya, 65, 66, 75, 116; Nelson, 26, 159, 169, 171; Prince of Wales, 114; Princess Royal, 17; Queen Elizabeth, 95, 114; Ramillies, 74, 75; Renown, 181; Repulse, 114; Rodney, 26, 159, 169; Royal Sovereign, 65, 66; Swiftsure, 15; Valiant, 65, 75, 91, 92, 98, 114, 159, 169, 171; Vanguard, 428; Warspite, 47, 49, 65, 66, 75, 98, 159, 169, 171, 191, 224; cruisers: squadrons: First, 17; Third, 46, 73; Seventh, 66, 90; Fifteenth, 124; ‘C’class, 82; Dido class, 77; Ajax, 70, 91, 97, 98, 100, 114, 123; Aurora, 120, 123; Berwick, 73, 74; Bonaventure, 79; Calcutta, 23–4, 68, 97, 100–2, 104, 124; Calypso, 63, 68; Carlisle, 97, 98, 100–2, 117, 118; Cleopatra, 118–20, 163; Coventry, 29, 68; Dauntless, 24; Despatch, 23–4, 32; Dido, 95–7, 100, 118, 120; Doris, 3; Enterprise, 185; Euryalus, 185; Exeter, 67; Fiji, 95, 98;

Index

Fox, 3; Galatea, 32; Glasgow, 72, 73, 185; Gloucester, 65, 80, 82, 91, 95, 98; Kent, 68; Liverpool, 68; Manchester, 74; Naiad, 95–7, 117; Newcastle, 74; Neptune, 65, 123; Orion, 91, 97, 98, 100; Penelope, 42, 118–20, 123; Raleigh, 24; Southampton, 74, 80; Suffolk, 4; York, 67; destroyers: flotillas: First, 21; Fifth, 8, 82, 95, 124; Sixth, 19; Seventh, 124; Fourteenth, 14; ‘Battle’ class, 211–12; ‘Beagle’ class, 10; ‘Hunt’ class, 39, 118, 150, 212; ‘J’, ‘K’ and ‘L’ classes, 77; ‘River’ class, 10; ‘S’class,17; ‘V and W’ class, 21; Avon Vale, 119; Broke, 143; Decoy, 100, 108; Diamond, 87; Gallant, 79; Greyhound, 98; Hambledon, 177; Hampshire, 226; Havock, 36, 93, 119; Hereward, 100; Hero, 88; Hotspur, 100; Hyperion, 75; Imperial, 100; Jersey, 95; Jervis, 114; Juno, 98; Kandahar, 98, 100, 123; Kashmir, 99; Kelly, 99; Kelvin, 100; Kingston, 96, 119;

278

Index

Kipling, 99; Legion, 118, 119; Locust, 4; Malcolm, 143; Napier, 100, 104; Nizam, 100, 104; Nubian, 99; Offa, 170; Ophelia, 14; Orwell, 4; Rattlesnake, 13; Roebuck, 6; Scorpion, 6–14; Scotsman, 18; Seafire, 17–18; Shakespeare, 19; Sikh, 118; Southwold, 119; Termagant, 14–15; Vulture, 6; Wallace, 21–3; Warwick, 22; Wolverine, 9, 10, 11, 13; Wryneck, 67; minelayer: Abdiel, 95, 97, 163; monitor: Terror, 14, 71, 73, 84; submarines: flotillas: First, 121, 161; Eighth, 149, 161; Tenth, 121, 149, 161; ‘T’ class, 77; ‘U’ class, 77, 81; Rover, 90; Torbay, 120; Triumph, 90; Upholder, 120; Urge, 122; other warships: Blenheim, 9; Breconshire, 116–19; Britannia, 2; Bulolo, 141, 147; Glenearn, 85, 87; Glengyle, 85, 87, 100, 114; Glenroy, 49, 85, 87, 99; Hartland, 143; Hindustan, 2; Largs, 141, 168, 170; Racer, 2;

279

Index

280

TB 14, 6; Sagona, 114; Walney, 143; Wye, 1; American: Bernardou, 142; Cole, 142; Ranger, 140; Saratoga, 198; Australian: Perth, 88, 91, 97, 100; Sydney, 68; Stuart, 66; French: Jean Bart, 142; German: Göben, 8; Scharnhorst, 185, 186; Tirpitz, 186–7; U-331, 114; Italian: ‘Navigatori’ class, 54; Bartolomeo Colleoni, 68; Bolzano, 66, 91; Caio Duilio, 74; Conti di Cavour, 73; Espero, 68; Fiume, 93, 94; Giovanni delle Bande Nere, 68; Guilio Cesare, 66; Giuseppe Garibaldi, 63; Littorio, 73–4, 118; Lupo, 98; Pola, 92–4; Roma, 171; Saggitario, 98; Trento, 91; Trieste, 91; Vittorio Veneto, 89, 91–4, 122; Zara, 54, 93, 94; Soviet: Sverdlov class, 220 Washington, DC, 24, 125–32, 139, 175, 182, 199; Naval Treaty of, 19 Wavell, Gen. (later F-M Lord) Sir Archibald, 48–9, 65, 69, 71, 72, 76, 86, 105–8, 216–17 Wemyss, Capt. (later AoF Lord Wester Wemyss) Rosslyn, 4 West Indies, 4, 24–5 Western Approaches Command, 127, 132, 184, 191, 195–6 Western Desert, 135 Western Front, 9 Western Hemisphere, 23, 135 Weygand, Gen. (France), 44

Index

281

Whitworth, Adm Sir Jock, 125, 174 Willis, Cdre (later AoF Sir) Algernon U., 45, 46, 61, 177, 181, 194, 210 Wilson, Gen. (later F-M) Sir Henry M., 88, 177, 179, 190 Windau, 18 Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), 125, 176, 210 World Wars: First, 8–16, 19, 44, 47, 51, 54, 191, 223; Second, 9, 12, 31, 35, 42, 44, 50–208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 223, 225 X-craft, 186 Yugoslavia, 37, 38, 51, 89 Zante, 8 Zeebrugge, 14 Zhukov, Marshal (USSR), 214