The Great Myth of Britain's "Great Betrayal"

[Graham B]

You raise the eternal debate in defence Markus - what force is needed? You could be right that there was no case for air defence for Australia in 1939/40. Certainly that was how a lot of poiticans thought, including British. They were right - until. It's always like that. Britain had the ten year rule and that was fine too, until.
The Beaufort seemed a reasonsable plan, but it was years delayed and indeed, with manufacture in Australia, pretty much destroyed any chance of a locally developed industry. Many would argue that the aircraft (and industry) drove Australia's defence policy, rather than the other way.
The point with Australia's air defence is that they had nothing except a trainer. Australia was poorly prepared in the air and made some rather desperate purchases of Hudsons in 1941 (in lieu of Beaufort, as did Britain), but had no air defence when Darwin was bombed, only just got by in Port Moresby and (with Britain) were caught ill-prepared with the makeshift Buffalo in Singapore.

[Markus Becker]

I mean the problems Australia faced in early-42 weren´t the result of a flawed long term strategy but the result of failing to react to the events of the summer of 1940. In a way that is worse as that summer changed the strategic situation in the most dramatic manner. Yet, the USA, the UK and Australia seem to have been not alarmed. Had the Australian government put a fraction of the pressure on the UK in 40/41 it put on the UK after the war had broken out, the 330 to 550 operational warplanes would have been in Malaya by December 1941.

[Robert Rojas]

Greetings to citizen Markus Becker, the forum's British Commonwealth constituency and the community as a whole. Well sir, in light of your respective installments of Wednesday - November 03, 2010 - 12:03pm and Thursday - November 11, 2010 - 7:18pm, old Uncle Bob is of the anecdotal opinion that both the governments of the British Isles and the Dominion of Australia were collectively living in a subliminal world of assumed, if not false, security. As the Anglo-Saxons were all too aware, there was the political and military presence of the United States of America in both the Central and the Western Pacific Ocean and who within the greater Anglican reality would have ever guessed that the United States of America would ultimately fail to deter and contain the colonial ambitions of Dai Nihon? As you have subtly pointed out in your own way, the geopolitical position of the United States of America within the Commonwealth of the Philippines most certainly acted as a defacto security buffer between the home islands of Japan and the territorial interests of both the British Isles and the Dominon of Australia. After all, short of divine intervention anyway, who in their right minds would ever dare to conclude that there could be the very real possibility that the United States Navy's much vaunted Pacfic Fleet might not actually be in a position the challenge the power of the Imperial Japanese Navy? Then the unthinkable materialized on December 07, 1941. In short, why worry about the potential ambitions of Tokyo's warlords when Uncle Sam will be around to stop them cold at little or no cost to ourselves? It's just some complacent food for thought. Well, that's my latest two Yankee cents worth on this expansive topic of interest - for now anyway. In anycase, I would like to bid you an especially copacetic day over in the Fatherland. Auf Wiedersehen!

Best Regards,
Uncle Bob

[South]

Good morning Markus and Uncle Bob,

I think that the Allied western and central Pacific strategy can be found in the American = Rainbow Plans =.

Circa May, 1939, the US Army-Navy Joint Planning Commission developed its war plans. The theme was in lead Plan 1: "protect the United States, ...and its sea trade". This was approved by FDR on 14 Oct 1939.

Plan 2: This was Plan 1 plus "to sustain the authority of democratic powers in the Pacific zones".

Plan 3: "To secure control of the western Pacific".

Plans Number 2 and 3 were cancelled by the Joint Board in August, 1941.

(Plans Number 1 and 4 [western hemisphere defense] were cancelled in May, 1942.)

There were US-UK staff discussions in in 1941 and Rainbow Plan 5 was enlarged. Plan 5 became the overall strategic position when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

The revised Rainbow Plan Number 5 which eliminated Plans 1,2,3 and 4 :

"...to provide ultimately for sending forces to Africa or Europe in order to effect the decisive defeat of Germany or Italy or both. ...".

Uncle Bob;

I don't think 7 Dec 41 was unthinkable. The Dec 37 Japanese attack on the USS Panay in China, the USN vessel designated a diplomatic unit with public notices sent to all, was the clear enough indicator of something big pending. FDR had to first defeat the American isolationists.


Warm regards,

Bob

"

[Graeme Sydney]

What Japan did in December '41 was geo-politically opportunistic and short sighted, driven by extreme optimism and blind nationalism, and inherent economic weakness and desperation.

I would not condemn the strategic planners and advisers of Australia, Britain, Holland and the USA for getting it wrong although there were enough signs and signals that Japan was acting strategically imprudently (attacking China then Russia - 'biting off more than they could chew').

The strategic surprise and performance is forgivable. The tactical surprise and performance is not.

Nor is the arrogance, complacency and incompetence of the civil and military leaders forgivable.

The political leaderships were guilt of spinning the lie and hiding behind the lie of Fortress Singapore, both before and after the Fall of Singapore.

[Markus Becker]

Uncle Bob,

I´m not sure the USA could have saved the bacon after Dec. 7th 1941, even if PH had not happened. The traditional Japanese warplan had been to let the US Fleet charge into the Japanese defenses inside Micronesia and the Marianas, wear it down and them win the Mahanian single decisive battle. As South pointed out the USA decided not to play along even before PH. Militarily the USA could have turned the situation around if there had been semi-decent forces on the Philippines. Politically the threat of a war with an industrial giant like the USA should have deterred Japan but the allied leaders were not the only ones guilty of arrogance, complacency and incompetence.

Back to the topic. I do I condemn the strategic planners and advisers of Australia, Britain and to a lesser degree the USA for getting it wrong. While the Fall of France and the Italian declaration of war and the German attack on Russia offered Japan a unique window of opportunity no one could have foreseen, the effect on Japan and SEA should have been all too obvious. Plus Japan did not hide its intentions. In September 1940 they occupied northern Indo-China and the south in August 1941. IIRC the British planners still did not think Japan would act before the summer of 1942 and the Australians did not challenge this most dubious assumption. Of all people the Brits(and Aussies) should have known that an enemy might make moves that you don´t have expected like Norway, the Ardennes, Crete...

The Americans did react to the occupation of southern Indochina with a last minute build-up of air power on the Philippines, the Dutch tried to do the same but I´m not aware of similar actions being taken by the British Empire.

[thejester]

My initial reaction to that review is 'Quadrant strikes again'. There's such an obvious anti-ALP agenda that I'm extremely wary of taking anything Davies says about the actual book seriously. Comments such as this are almost laughable:

All parties acquiesced, and he notes that “conservative” governments—especially the loose coalition United Australia Party of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons (a former ALP minister and Treasurer) in the 1930s—constantly referred to the Singapore strategy as if it absolved them from the need for greater local expenditure.

Good to see that with the suggestion of 'no true Scotsman' Davies has established that the root of all Australian evil is indeed the ALP - even when they're not the ALP! I'm no fan of Keating's bizarro Kokoda narrative but this is just Question Time bickering in print.

Beyond the obvious party politics a couple of other things stood out to me. One is the attack on Day. I've only read The Politics of War, which was an updated synthesis of his earlier two works. The impression I came away with was of an embarrassingly naive - maybe even wilfully ignorant - series of Australian governments grappling with two greater powers who knew full well that Australia's concerns were not particularly relevant in the greater struggle. Day's portrayal of Doc Evatt in particular is brutal - Evatt comes across as having an extraordinary ignorance matched only by his arrogance, is outmanoeuvred on all sides and doesn't even realise it. Either way there's not a lot of trumpeting of ALP heroics.

The other is this comment, almost an aside from Davies:

Meaher is not a naval historian, and does not detail these events of 1942. The crux of his argument is that Australian interwar elites—social, political, military and industrial—all failed to understand Australian and imperial defence needs in the interwar period, and thus no Australian political party made any useful effort to prepare Australia for a future crisis.

Isn't this fairly important in the shaping of the argument? Particularly given how crucial naval strategy was in the forming of interwar strategy?

Overall I think Meaher's work sounds interesting but geez this review looks like a hijack. I'll try and find another before I commit the $40.

And while I'm on the subject:

Churchill had always stated that should Australia be genuinely threatened with invasion, the empire would abandon even the Middle East to save Australia. Many modern writers who sneer at this have apparently failed to note that in 1942 British reinforcements, including armoured divisions, headed around the Cape of Good Hope towards the Middle East were designated for diversion to Australia if invasion really threatened.

Most modern writers sneer at this commitment because Churchill continually revised until it had become virtually meaningless. 'Serious invasion' was eventually defined as a force of six-seven divisions, IIRC, more than the Japanese had used in their entire conquest of SEA. Anything less than that and Churchill could not be held to a promise, a fact Curtin seemed to have fully appreciated. This is covered not only by Day but also, IIRC, by Horner in Crisis of Command.

They also ignore Britain’s delivery of its promise to move the main British fleet to the Far East within six months. In April 1942 the Japanese raided the Indian Ocean, trying to defeat the British Eastern Fleet before it was fully assembled. Admiral Somerville’s force then consisted of five battleships, three aircraft carriers, seven cruises and sixteen destroyers, the biggest Allied fleet anywhere in the world. Planned reinforcements over the next two months—and within the six months the Royal Navy had originally suggested—included four battleships and two aircraft carriers. This assembly required the Royal Navy’s effective abandonment of the Mediterranean for several months (contributing to Rommel’s last advance to El Alamein). The British were hardly shirking on their promises.

This is a strange argument. Somerville's force may have been the largest but that seems fairly deceptive - the battleships were all old and the aircraft carriers were manifestly inadequate to fight the Japanese Combined Fleet. When actually faced with the full Japanese power Somerville's only choice was to beat a retreat to East Africa, out of the range of Japanese aircraft, losing a few ships (including the Vampire) on the way. Regardless of how effective/ineffective Somerville's force was on its own merits, it was on the far side of the Indian Ocean - poised to protect Britain's possessions in that region and not Australia, certainly not the far north or east coast where the 'threat' (such as it was) lay.

[Tim Smith]

They also ignore Britain’s delivery of its promise to move the main British fleet to the Far East within six months. In April 1942 the Japanese raided the Indian Ocean, trying to defeat the British Eastern Fleet before it was fully assembled. Admiral Somerville’s force then consisted of five battleships, three aircraft carriers, seven cruises and sixteen destroyers, the biggest Allied fleet anywhere in the world. Planned reinforcements over the next two months—and within the six months the Royal Navy had originally suggested—included four battleships and two aircraft carriers. This assembly required the Royal Navy’s effective abandonment of the Mediterranean for several months (contributing to Rommel’s last advance to El Alamein). The British were hardly shirking on their promises.

This is a strange argument. Somerville's force may have been the largest but that seems fairly deceptive - the battleships were all old and the aircraft carriers were manifestly inadequate to fight the Japanese Combined Fleet. When actually faced with the full Japanese power Somerville's only choice was to beat a retreat to East Africa, out of the range of Japanese aircraft, losing a few ships (including the Vampire) on the way. Regardless of how effective/ineffective Somerville's force was on its own merits, it was on the far side of the Indian Ocean - poised to protect Britain's possessions in that region and not Australia, certainly not the far north or east coast where the 'threat' (such as it was) lay.

The battleships were all old only because the two best ones, Prince of Wales and Repulse, had already been sunk. Britain theoretically could have replaced them with Duke of York and Renown, but feared this would leave the Arctic convoys dangerously exposed to Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. After the Battle of the Denmark Strait and the loss of Hood, the British ideally did not want to engage German surface warships without having the benefit of superior numbers.

Ten ofthe twelve Japanese battleships were also old. The Kongos were fast but poorly armoured, while the Fuso and Ise classes had more guns but were slow and also poorly armoured. Nagato and Mutso had 16" guns but were pretty old too.

I wonder whether the British really appreciated that their carriers were inferior to the Japanese in early 1942. Yes, their ships carried fewer planes, but had armoured decks so were much better able to withstand bomb damage.

And yes, you're right, Britain's strategic priority was the defence of the Suez Canal (supply line to the Eighth Army in Egypt) and the trade routes to it from Africa and India. The Eastern Fleet was positioned accordingly. Churchill, like Hitler, made strategic decisions based on looking at maps, and the prospect of a German/Japanese linkup in the Middle East was something he was determined to prevent.

[Markus Becker]

Ten ofthe twelve Japanese battleships were also old. The Kongos were fast but poorly armoured, while the Fuso and Ise classes had more guns but were slow and also poorly armoured. Nagato and Mutso had 16" guns but were pretty old too.

Yes and NO! The Fuso and Ise classes were much faster than the R´s and a bit faster than Warspite. Their guns also had a significantly greater range than the R´s. In the inter war years the angle of elevation of battleship guns was increased from 20 to 30°. The R´s and Malaya were not modernized. The only BB in Somerville's fleet that was a match for a Japanese BB was Warspite. It was just as bad with the CV; Somerville had two and one CVL vs. five CV and his planes sucked. The RN carriers were still operating Fulmars instead of actual figthers.

That was hardly a fleet that fullfilled pre-war promises made to AUS/NZ.

[Tim Smith]

Ten ofthe twelve Japanese battleships were also old. The Kongos were fast but poorly armoured, while the Fuso and Ise classes had more guns but were slow and also poorly armoured. Nagato and Mutso had 16" guns but were pretty old too.

Yes and NO! The Fuso and Ise classes were much faster than the R´s and a bit faster than Warspite. Their guns also had a significantly greater range than the R´s. In the inter war years the angle of elevation of battleship guns was increased from 20 to 30°. The R´s and Malaya were not modernized. The only BB in Somerville's fleet that was a match for a Japanese BB was Warspite. It was just as bad with the CV; Somerville had two and one CVL vs. five CV and his planes sucked. The RN carriers were still operating Fulmars instead of actual figthers.

That was hardly a fleet that fullfilled pre-war promises made to AUS/NZ.

Each degree of battleship gun elevation translates to roughly 1,200 yards of range. So the unmodernised British battleships could fire at roughly 24,000 yards, while the Japanese could fire at roughly 36,000 yards.

However, being able to fire at 36,000 yards and being able to HIT at 36,000 yards are two different things. In the 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf, the long-range accuracy of the Japanese battleships was poor. As far as long-range accuracy goes, the Japanese battleships were no better than the Italian ones. And the 'R's held off the Italians in the Med.

Plus the British were hoping for a night engagement at much shorter range - similiar to the Guadalcanal naval battles. Such a short-range engagement would favour the British as far as battleship vs battleship goes. Although not as far as battleship vs destroyer goes.

The British sent to the Eastern Fleet as many fleet carriers as they could. Their carrier fleet had already been devastated by the loss of the fleet carriers Courageous, Glorious, and Ark Royal to the Germans before December 1941. Furious was too old and in poor condition. Argus and Eagle were too slow and carried too few planes to be of any use. Illustrious and Formidable had already been badly damaged in the Mediterranean and had only just been repaired in the USA. Plus the British needed at least one modern Illustrious-class carrier in the Mediterranean for the Malta convoys - without it, the convoys could not have been run, Malta could not have been kept supplied, and would have either been starved into surrender or even invaded and overrun.

The Royal Navy also seriously underestimated Japanese naval capabilities, especially her carriers. Pearl Harbor was a great surprise, but also a one-off since the US Fleet had been caught by surprise at anchor with no air cover, circumstances which would not be repeated.

Granted, the Fulmar was no match for a Zero. But it was capable of shooting down Vals, Kates, and Japanese land-based bombers. British carrier doctrine was to keep the fighters for CAP and send their bombers off on strikes unescorted. If the Japanese did the same, the British might have been OK. But Japanese doctrine was different, unfortunately.

[Markus Becker]

No argument that the Brits send what they could BUT that wasn´t what the Aussies expected, thus the feeling of having been let down by the motherland they had so far supported 100%. And it also wasn´t enough. The RN could not even defend the eastern Indian Ocean, much less the waters close the AUS/NZ. That was done by the USN.

[Tim Smith]

No argument that the Brits send what they could BUT that wasn´t what the Aussies expected.

Well, what did the Aussies expect, then?

The entire British fleet sent to the defence of Australia, ignoring Germany and Italy? Doesn't work that way.

Britain could send everything she had if she was only at war with Japan and no-one else - but that's not the historical situation, is it?

[Markus Becker]

Well, what did the Aussies expect, then?

They had been promised a fleet and 300+ operational first rate warplanes or 500+ operational first rate warplanes. In the end they got neither.

The entire British fleet sent to the defence of Australia, ignoring Germany and Italy? Doesn't work that way.

Britain could send everything she had if she was only at war with Japan and no-one else - but that's not the historical situation, is it?

I agree and I´m confident the Australians would have understood that if the UK had told them. I also think the Empire could have found some assets to reinforce the Far East but only if the powers-that-be had admitted the old warplans were unrealistic.

[Graham B]

I don't think there's any doubt that Britain witheld information from her imperial allies (ANZ) in 1940. The so-called Automedon affair highlights the point and is discussed in a number of historical accounts.
Around August 1940 Britain revised its appreciation of the Far East to a much gloomier outlook than previously held. Though the revised appreciation was held tight and not released to ANZ, if modern writers can be believed it concluded that the Far East was indefensible, that Britain was in no position to go to war with Japan and that a policy of appeasement was the only alternative.
Churchill would not have the appreciation discussed at his war cabinet and did not release it to ANZ. He agreed to send one copy to Singapore for the CinC, aboard the Blue funnel liner Automedon. Unfortunately, Automedon was intercepted by a German raider off the Nicobar Islands; the RN courier was killed by the opening shots and the appreciation captured and handed to Japan. The detail available to Japan, about the paltry state of defences for Singapore in particular, was (some authors claim) a major encouragement to Japan's war plans.
Britain never did tell her allies of either the existence of the appreciation, or its capture by Japan. And Britain continued to play down any threat from Japan in intelligence reports and discussions with ANZ, while steadily revising (both up and down) the number of aircraft and troops needed.
For its part, unaware of Britains real thoughts on Singapore, Australia upped its contribution of troops (8 Div) and aircraft (3 squadrons added then I think, but need to confirm timing).
Certainly Australia was naive and in retrospect should have yelled the obvious. But in any assessment you have to make an allowance for a young country with very strong and dependent ties to its former master.
During 1941 of course, Britain exported Hurricane fighters to Russia but could not spare any for the Far East, at least not until January 1942 when quite a few became available, but much too late then. Plus of course the Norfolk/Suffolk Brigades (18 Div I think) and AIF Divs released from the Middle East - but again, too late. What if they had been released during 1940/41?

[Tim Smith]

That's a good point actually.

Maybe it could be said that Britain 'betrayed' Australia and New Zealand by sending Lend-Lease weapons to the USSR during 1941 and not to them.

During 1941, 487 Matilda, Valentine and Tetrarch tanks were received by the USSR from Great Britain, and 182 M3A1 "Stuart", and M3 Lee medium tanks were received from the USA. The first units equipped with Valentines and Matilda IIs fought in the Staraya Russia and Valdai areas in the winter of 1941/42.

Australia and New Zealand could have really done with those 487 tanks in early 1942.

Of course, Britain wasn't to know that Japan was going to attack in December 1941....