INTEREST WANES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20826, 3 July 1942, Page 3

INTEREST WANES

NO QUORUM LEFT CASE FOR THE CRITICS STRATEGY & ARMAMENTS (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (10 a.m.) LONDON, July 2. Back benchers continued the House of Commons debate on the war situation, chiefly concentrating on why we did not have dive-bombers, why the three services did not co-operate as one, and why we were never one jump ahead of the Germans. Eventually, in the early hours of the morning, the House adjourned for want of a quorum after the'longest war-time sitting. The Times’ Parliamentary correspondent points out that when the House was counted out owing to fewer than 40 members being present, the censure motion automatically lapsed, meaning that the Government must either move that the motion be restored, enabling the debate to continue, or to move its own motion of confidence. In opening the debate, Sir John Wardlaw-Milne had said that tanks designed before the outbreak of war were still being manufactured, and were quite unequal to those of the Germans. We had been at war for nearly three years and had had five Ministers of Supply. Each Minister of Supply appointed.a new tank designer, but none had any previous experience of tank construction. Not a single officer or general at present sitting on the tank board had recent experience of desert tank warfare. Various chairmen were suitably rewarded with knighthoods, and the board met monthly for two hours. “Rosy Statements”

This House, he continued, had been soothed with rosy statements about the wonderful things we were going to do, but it must decide whether it would merely be a packed assembly to receive often inaccurate Government statements or assert its determination to put things right without fear or favour. Criticism so far had been an offence, and almost regarded as a personal affront. This debate was the test of whether Parliament should function. Loyalty to the country came before loyalty to party. Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, in seconding the motion, said that because of the failure to use amphibious power in the first Libyan campaign, when we were able to strike with commandos against the enemy’s communications and island bases, we failed to knock Italy out of Africa before Germany was able to come to the rescue. We again failed to use amphibious power in the second Libyan campaign. “I made the four strongest possible representations to the War Cabinet between October, 1941, and January, 1942, offering to fly out in any humble capacity to help organise amphibious warfare,” he said. “The story that Mr. Churchill rides rough-shod over his service advisers and takes the whole direction of the war in his own hands is not true.” War Machine Blamed Was it conceivable that the man responsible for the Dardanelles campaign was blind to the immediate and immense advantage of shortening the route to the Middle East by capturing strategic positions in the Mediterranean and delivering surprise amphibious attacks against the enemy’s communications? Mr. Churchill had powerfully and insistently urged all these considerations and the chiefs-of-staff committee approved them in principle, but the war machine succeeded in producing so much obstruction that action was delayed for some months until the Germans forestalled us and introduced hazards which the Prime Minister did not feel able to face without the full support of his chiefs-of-staff, which was then denied him. It was a tragedy that the war machine had neglected to develop Crete’s aerodromes and defences. The Admiralty’s failure to insist on a properly-equipped naval air service in Crete was deplorable and placed the navy under a cruel handicap. It had happened that three times in the Prime Minister’s career he should be thwarted in carrying out in Gallipoli, Norway and the Mediterranean strategic strokes which might have altered the whole course of two wars, because his constitutional naval advisers declined to share the responsibility of the entailed risks. “Flood of Naval Disasters” “In addition to the unhappy Norway episode there has been a flood of naval disasters —a sorry tale for which the navy will never forgive the Admiralty. I believe that the country and the navy would approve if Mr. Churchill made long-overdue changes at the Admiralty, as there is no confidence in the direction of the present regime. The Admiralty’s failure to provide the Mediterranean Fleet with the necessary naval air force after three years of war is utterly inexcusable. It is simply intolerable to watch our war machine lumbering from disaster to disaster, in the course of which thousands of young fighting men die or are taken prisoner because they are using equipment inferior to the enemy’s, lack the type of air support the army and navy need, and because the Air Ministry always is obsessed with the idea that they can win the war alone and have neglected to develop naval and military aviation.” Mr. J. J. Tinker (Lab.) said that if the motion was carried Mr. Churchill would have to go, but Sir Roger Keyes' speech indicated that Mr. Churchill must not go. Sir Roger Keyes: It would he a disaster if Mr. Churchill was forced to go. We are on the eve of another battle for Britain. We look to Mr. Churchill to put the House in order and rally the country once again to its immense task. “People Bewildered” Mr. A. Greenwood, speaking for the Labour Party, said that the present debate arose out of a desire of members to find out the facts. He regretted the decision ,to challenge the whole central direction of the war, but added that it must be said that the Government to-day was standing in its defence. The British people had been bewildered and bitterly disappointed* when they heard the sombre news of the fall of Tobruk. What caused the shock was the 'feeling that things had gone wrong when they ought not to have gone wrong. They were not seeking scapegoats. They had the utmost admiration for, and complete confidence in, all branches of the fighting services. They desired to be assured that avoidable set-backs should have been avoided. He doubted whether the public would be prepared to let it go at what Captain Oliver Lyttelton had said. The real value of the debate was to restore and fortify public confidence by the Government telling the House and the country, without giving anything away to the enemy, the causes of the setback more definitely and enabling them to declare in emphatic terms their determination to root out every possible source of avoidable defeat or form of inefficiency wherever it might be. The debate was born'out of the agony of the people and ought to become an inspiration to them in the face of the dark days probably ahead.

Mr. W. Gallacher (Comm.) said that this was a political attack, not against the generals, but the Prime Minister, whose greatest offence was linking the fate of this country with the Soviet at a most critical time. There was no lack of confidence in Mr. Churchill, but there was lack of confidence in the higher command Qf the army.