The War Years

Max Hastings’s majestic book – Churchill – Finest Years – certainly led this reader to think again about the conduct of World War II. Although history is open to different interpretations, the author’s views on the British Armed Forces, President Roosevelt (FDR), the role of the parsimonious United States and senior British commanders such as Montgomery and Alexander fell some way short of admiration!  In all, a tome packed with home truths although not always bad ones; as a totally biased observer I rather wallowed in this from Hastings: “British artillery, always superb, was the only success story.”  UBIQUE.

Below is a random selection of quotations from the book that caught my eye; they are offered in no particular order but it is to be hoped they provide a flavour of a very forthright book:

Harry Woodring, US Secretary of State for War: “…an ardent isolationist, deliberately delayed shipment to Britain of war material condemned as surplus.” May/June 1940

“An Englishman’s mind works best when it’s almost too late”  Lord D’Abernon

“That woman….will undo everything during the night that I do during the day. But of course she can furnish him with facilities that I cannot afford him. I can reason with him but I cannot sleep with him” WSC on Prime Minister Reynaud’s mistress.

“…after the experience of the last war and Versailles have no desire to pull Britain’s chestnuts out of the fire for her, under the slogan of ‘Save the World for Democracy”. They rightly feel that little is to be gained by pouring our money and the lives of our young men for the cause of either the oppressor of the Jews and Czechs or the oppressor of the Irish and of India….”  Extract from a letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer Herbert Jones on lack of support for Great Britain.

“…at Manston ground crews huddled in its air raid shelters and rejected pleas to emerge and service Hurricanes.”

“Here was strength, resolution, humour, readiness to listen, to ask the searching question and, when convinced, to act” RV Jones, Scientist after briefing WSC

“The Royal Air Force, youngest and brashest of the three services, was the only one which thoroughly recognized the value of publicity…” Max

“His most conspicuous limitation was taciturnity which crippled his relationship with Churchill.”  Max on Wavell

Message to the Foreign Office on a signal sent by Sir Miles Lampson, Ambassador to Egypt: “I expect to be protected from this kind of insolence”

“Wars are won by superior will-power” WSC

“…one of the most foolish, if richest, men in Parliament” Max on Chips Channon

“New Zealand infantrymen, perhaps the finest Allied fighting soldiers of the Second World War.” Max

“Crete became the costliest single British naval campaign in the Second World War.” Max

$10M sent to Spanish Generals to stay out of the war.

On US support: “As far as I can make out, we are not only to be skinned, but flayed to the bone” WSC letter to Chancellor Kingsley Wood

Chief of the Air Staff Sir Charles Portal “…was widely considered the cleverest of the chiefs of staff. ‘Peter’ Portal displayed notable diplomatic gifts, especially later in dealing with the Americans. Like many senior airmen, his principal preoccupation was with the interests of his own service.” Max [plus ça change!]

Molotov negotiated with the Nazis for a share of the spoils of a defeated GB.

While the USSR munitions and loads of money for free….”Where Britain in 1940-41 was obliged to sell its entire negotiable assets to pay American bills before receiving Lend-Lease aid…” Max

Under terms of Neutrality Act, no belligerent could be granted credit. US demanded audited accounts to prove that GB could not afford to pay more dosh. Courtaulds were forced to sell out for $54M when its calculated worth was $120M.

“Such production of war materials as has been achieved up-to-date has therefore been all to their profit and in no way to their inconvenience.” WSC on US support.

“Post war British commercial aviation was hamstrung by the Lend-Lease terms” Max

A view of some “..Britain exhausted its gold and foreign currency reserves, and sold out its investments, to funs America’s resurrection from the Depression.” Max

“..the malignant US Ambassador, Joseph Kennedy…” Max

Mission Statement: “We seek no treasure, we seek no territorial gain, we seek only the right of man to be free; we seek his rights to worship his God, to live his life in his own way, secure from persecution.” WSC

“Only 1% of war material used by Britain in 1941 represented the fruits of Lend-Lease.” Max

“In all respects, during the Second World War the Royal Navy showed itself the finest of Britain’s fighting services..” Max [Excluding the Fleet Air Arm]

“In peace or war, the patience of democracies is seldom great.” Max [Let’s see how the war in Ukraine unfolds]

On Jap soldiers: “They moved quicker and ate less than our men.” WSC

“It was the absence of any scintilla of heroic endeavor, any evidence of last-ditch sacrifice of the kind with which British armies through the centuries had so often redeemed the pain of defeats that shocked Churchill”. Max

The US was hell-bent on disposal of Br Empire. Roosevelt cabled WSC asking for Cripps t stay in India and preside over the creation of a nationalist government. Yet Philippines was a US dependency! [A soupçon of hypocrisy]

Gandhi described Hitler as “not a bad man.”

“Our soldiers are the most pathetic amateurs, pitted against professionals…” Sir Alexander Cadogan, Foreign Office

“For every officer such as Brooke, Ismay or Jacob, there were a hundred others lacking skill, energy and imagination, who nonetheless performed their duties in a cloud of cultural complacency. Their courage was seldom in doubt, but much else was.” Max

“Our [career officers] regard [war] as an upsetting rather exhausting and distinctly dangerous interlude in the happier more desirable days of peace-soldiering.” Lt Gen Pownall [I can identify with that!]

“All too many senior officers were indeed men who had chosen military careers because they lacked sufficient talent and energy to succeed in civilian life.” Max

“At the end of their careers, they are just fit to be secretaries of golf clubs.” Harold Macmillan on the Army [He over-estimated my abilities, bearing in mind that I failed an interview for the Secretaryship of Wilmslow Golf Club in the 1980s]

“British artillery, always superb, was the only success story” Max [UBIQUE bravo]

Industrial inactivity: In 1944 1,048,000 days and 3 million tons of coal lost via industrial action.

“Roosevelt’ evasive bonhomie” Max

“The Asiatic war has revived the profound anti-imperialism of the American tradition.” Walter Lippman, columnist

1941/2 British Communist Party grew from 12,000 to 56,000.

Admiral Sir Henry Harwood R. Plate: “a notoriously stupid officer”  Max [The hero of the Battle of the River Plate]

On Montgomery: “Pity our 1st victorious general should be a bounder of the 1st water” WSC: “Montgomery’s conceit was notorious.” Max

“in the autumn and winter of 1942 it was the newcomers’ good fortune to display adequacy at a time when the British achieved a formidable superiority of men, tanks, aircraft.” Max [Not in the book but collateral: “brutally inconsiderate, unimaginative and monumentally vain”. Lord Chalfont. He particularly criticised the hesitant follow-up to the victory at Alamein.]

“England’s grievous offence in de Gaulle’s eyes is that she has helped France.” WSC

“The better I get to know that man the more selfish and superficial I think him…….” Field Marshal Dill on Roosevelt

“He always enjoys other people’s discomfort.” Averell Harriman on Roosevelt

“Trying to maintain good relations with a communist is likely wooing a crocodile, you do not know whether to tickle it under the chin or beat it on the head. When it opens its mouth you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile, or preparing to eat you up.” WSC

“But much of what FDR served up to Churchill between 1943 and 1945 was gall and wormwood.” Max

“In the history of France, Resistance is more important as a social and political phenomenon than a military one.” Julian Jackson

“They found the Albanians far more eager to accept weapons and to steal equipment and supplies than to fight Germans” Max

“France would not have been liberated one day later had the Maquis never existed.” Max

The PM “….had never liked Montgomery whose egoism and crassness grated on him.” WSC

WSC to Clementine: “I feel that de Gaulle’s France will be a France more hostile to England than any since Fashoda [1898].” [Very prescient]

563 RAF personnel surrendered to ELAS in Kifissia, nr Athens.

WSC referred to General Nikolaus Plastiras as “Plaster-Arse”.

90K British troops deployed to Greece.

“Montgomery’s boorish behavior towards Eisenhower sustained friction.” Max

Yalta: Stalin ensured the discomfort of the Allies by packing four Generals to a bedroom and eleven Colonels to a bedroom

“State-school boys who occupied most of the RAF’s cockpits” Max on WSC comment

“I do not believe in this brave new world….Tell me any good in any new thing.”  WSC

“The Royal Navy was Britain’s finest fighting service, its performance tarnished only by the limitations of the Fleet Air Arm”. Max

“Alexander, his unworthy favourite” Max on FM Alexander