STATING THE CASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27025, 9 March 1949, Page 5

STATING THE CASE

American "Minimum Action"

By Winston S. Churchill

[Mr Churchill's long statement to President Roosevelt is continued from yesterday’s instalment.]

8. We hope that the two Italian Littorios will be out of action for a while, and, anyway, they are not so dangerous as if they were manned by Germans. Perhaps they might be! We are indebted to you for you for your help about the Richelieu and Jean Bart, and I dare say that will be all right. But, Mr President, as no one will see more clearly than you, we have during these months to consider for the first time in this war a fleet action in which the enemy will have two ships at least as good as our two best and only two modern ones. It will be impossible to reduce our strength in the Mediterranean, because the attitude of Turkey, and indeed, the whole position in the Eastern basin, depends upon our having a strong fleet there. The older, unmodernised battleships will have to go for convoy. Thus even in the battleship class we are at full extension.

9. There is a second field of danger: The Vichy Government may, either by joining Hitler’s new order in Europe or through some manoeuvre, such as forcing us to attack an expedition despatched by sea against the Free French colonies find an excuse for ranging with the Axis Powers the very considerable undamaged naval forces still under its control. If the French Navy were to join the Axis, the control of West Africa would pass immediately into their hands, with the gravest consequences to our communications between the Northern and Southern Atlantic, and also affecting Dakar and, of course, thereafter South America.

10. A third sphere of danger is in the Far East. Here, it seems clear that Japan is thrusting southward through Inao-China to Saigon and other naval and air bases, thus bringing them within a comparatively short distance of Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. It is reported the the Japanese are preparing five good divisions for possible use as an overseas expeditionary force. We have to-day no forces in the Far East capable of dealing with this situation should it develop.

11. In the face of these dangers we must try to use the year 1941 to build up* such a supply of weapons, particularly of aircraft, both by increased output at home in spite of bombardment and through oceanborne supplies, as will lay the foundations of victory. In view of the difficulty and magnitude of this task, as outlined by all the facts I have set forth, to which many others could be added, I feel entitled, nay bound, to lay before you the various ways in which the United Slates could give supreme and decisive help to what is, in certain aspects, the common cause. 12. The prime need is to check or limit the loss of tonnage on the Atlantic approaches to our island. This may be achieved both by increasing the naval forces which cope with the attacks, and by adding to the number of merchant ships on which we depend. For the first purpose there would seem to be the following alternatives: (1) The reassertion by the United States of the doctrine of the freedom of the seas from illegal and barbarous methods of warfare, in accordance with the decisions reached after the late Great War, and as freely accepted and defined by Germany in 1935. From this, United States ships should be free to trade with countries against which there is not an effective legal blockade. (2) It would, I suggest, follow that protection should be given to this lawful trading by United States forces, i.e., escorting battleships, cruisers, destroyers and air flotillas. The protection would be immensely more effective if you were able to obtain bases in Eire for the duration of the war. I think, it is improbable that such protection would provoke a declaration of war by Germany upon the United States, though probably sea incidents of a dangerous character would from time to time occur. Herr Hitler has shown himself inclined to avoid the Kaiser’s mistake. He does not wish to be drawn into war with the United States until he has gravely undermined the power of Great Britain. His maxim is “ One at a time.” The policy I have ventured to outline, or something like it, would constitute a decisive act of constructive non-belligerency by the United States, and, more than any other measure, would make it certain that British resistance could be effectively prolonged for the desired period and victory gained. (3) Failing the above, the gift, loan or supply of a large number of American vessels of war. above all destroyers, already in the Atlantic is indispensable to the maintenance of the Atlantic route. Further, could not the United States Naval Forces extend their sea control of the American side of the Atlantic so as to prevent the molestation by enemy vessels of the approaches to the new line of naval and air bases which the United States is establishing in British islands in the western hemisphere? The strength of the United States Naval Forces is such that the assistance in the Atlantic that they could afford us, as described above, would not jeopardise the control of the Pacific.

(4). We should also then need the good offices of the United States and whole influence of its Government, continually exerted, to procure for Great Britain the necessary facilities upon the southern and western shores of Eire for our flotillas, and, still more important, for our aircraft, working to the westward into the Atlantic. If it were proclaimed an American ifiterest that the resistance of Great Britain should be prolonged and the Atlantic route kept open for the important armaments now being prepared for Great Britain in North America, the Irish in the United States might be willing to point out to the-Government of Eire the dangers which its present policy is creating for the United States itself. IrGti Ccopi

19. If, as I believe, you are convinced, Mr President, that the defeat of the Nazi and Fascist tyranny is a matter of high consequence to the people of the United States and to the western hemisphere, you will regard this letter not as an appeal for aid, but as a statement of the minimum action necessary to achieve our common purpose.—

His Majesty’s Government would of course take the most effective measures beforehand to protect Ireland if Irish action exposed it to German attack. It is not possible for us to compel the people of Northern Ireland against their will to leave the United Kingdom and join Southern Ireland. But I do not doubt that if the Government of Eire would show its solidarity with the democracies of the English-speaking world at this crisis a Council for Defence of all Ireland could be set up out of which the unity of the island would probably in some form or other

emerge after the war. 13. The object of the foregoing measures is to reduce to manageable proportions the present destructive losses at sea. In addition, it is indispensable that the merchant tonnage available for supplying Great Britain, and for the waging of the war by Great Britain with all vigour, should be substantially increased beyond the 1} million tons per annum which is the utmost we can now build. The convoy system, the detours, the zigzags, the great distances from which we now have to bring our imports, and the congestion of our western harbours, have reduced by about one-third the fruitfulness of our existing tonnage. To ensure final victory not less than three million tons of additional merchant shipbuilding capacity will be required. Onlv the United States can supply this need. Looking to the future, it would seem that production on a scale comparable to that of the Hog Island scheme of the last war ought to be faced for 1942. In the meanwhile we ask that in 1941 the United States should make available to us every ton of merchant shipping, surplus to its own requirements, which it possesses or controls, and to find some means of putting into our service a large proportion of merchant shipping now under construction for National Maritime Board. 14. Moreover, we look to the industrial energy of the Republic for a reinforcement of our domestic capacity to manufacture combat aircraft. Without that reinforcement

reaching us in substantial measure wi shall not achieve the massive preponderance In the air on which we must rely to loosen and disintegrate the German grip on Europe. We are at present engaged on a programme designed to increase our strength to 7000 first-line aircraft by the spring of 1942. But it is abundantly clear that this programme will not suffice to give us the weight of superiority which wifi force open the doors of victory. In order to achieve such superiority it is plain that we shall need the greatest production of aircraft which the United States of America is capable of sending us. It is our anxious hope that in the teeth of continuous bombardment we shall- realise the greater part of the production which we have planned in this country. But not even with the addition to our squadrons of all the aircraft which, under present arrangements we may derive from planned output in the United States can we hope to achieve the necessary ascendancy. May I invite you then, Mr President, to give earnest consideration to an immediate order on joint account for a further 2000 combat aircraft a month? Of these aircraft. J would submit, the highest possible proportion should be heavy bombers, the weapon on which, above all others, we depend to shatter the foundations of German military power. I am aware of the formidable task that this would impose upon the industrial organisation of the United States. Yet, in our hgavy need, we call with confidence to the most resourceful and ingenious technicians in the world. We ask for an unexampled effort, believing that it can be made.

15. You have also received information about the needs of our armies. In the munitions sphere, in spite of enemy bombardment, we are making steady progress here. Without your continued assistance to the supply of machine tools and in further releases from stock of certain articles, we could not hope to equip as many as 50

divisions in 1941. I am grateful for the arrangements, already practically completed, for your aid in the equipment of the army which we have already planned and for the provision of the American type of weapons for an additional 10 divisions in time for the campaign of 1942. But when the tide of dictatorship begins to recede many countries trying to regain their fredom may be asking for arms, and there is no source to which they can look except the factories of the United States. I must therefore also urge the importance of expending to the utmost American productive capacity for small aAns, artillery and tanks. 16. I am arranging to present you with a complete programme of the munitions of all kinds which we seek to obtain from you, the greater part of which is of course already agreed. An important economy of time and effort will be produced if the types selected for the United States services should, whenever possible, conform to those which have proved their merit under the actual conditions of war. In _ this way reserves of guns and ammunition and of airplanes become interchangeable, and are by that very fact augmented. This is, however, a sphere so highly technical that I do not enlarge upon it. 17. Last of all, I come to the question of finance. The more rapid and abundant the flow of munitions and ships which you are able to send us. the sooner will our dollar credits be exhausted. They are already, as you know, very heavily drawn upon by the payments we have made to date. Indeed, as you know, the orders already placed or under negotiation, including the expenditure settled or pending for creating munitions factories in the United States, many times exceed the total exchange resources remaining at the disposal of Great Britain. The moment approaches when we shall no longer be able to pay cash for shipping and other supplies. While we will do our utmost, and shrink from no proper sacrifice to make payments across the exchange, I believe you will agree that it would be wrong in principle and mutually disadvantageous in effect if at the height of this struggle Great Britain were to be divested of all saleable assets, so that after the .victory was won with our blood, civilisation saved, and the time gained for the United States to be fully armed against all eventualities, we should stand stripped to the bone. Such a course would not be in the moral or economic interests of our countries. We here should be unable, after the \yar r to purchase the large balance of imports from the United States over and above the volume of our exports which is agreeable to your tariffs and industrial economy. Not only should we in Great Britain suffer cruel privations, but widespread unemployment in the United States would follow the curtailment of American exporting power. 18. Moreover, I do not believe that the Government and people of the United States would find it in accordance with the principles which guide them to confine the help which thev have so generously promised only to such munitions of war and commodities as could be immediately paid for. You may be certain that we shall prove ourselves ready to suffer and sacrifice to the utmost for the cause, and that we glory in being its champions. The rest we leave with confidence to you and to your people, being sure that ways and means Will be found which future generations on both sides of the Atlantic will approve and admire.

[Copyright 1949 in USA by the New York Times Company and Time (Inc.) (publisher of Time and Life): in the British Empire by the Daily Telegraph, Ltd.; elsewhere by International Co-opera-tion Press Service, (Inc.). World rights reserved. Reproduction in full or in part in any language strictly prohibited.] _ The President’s “ wonderful decision ’ that resulted in Lend r Lease is described in to-morrow’s instalment.