The Ka of Gifford Hillary Read online

  It was a good vigorous paper full of blood and guts, but despite the buccaneering project of seizing Coastal Command, one could not escape the impression that the Admiralty were on the defensive, and, clearly, by their demands for more ships and craft of all sorts and sizes, their Lordships definitely favoured the Old Look policy.

  The War Office paper was much more subtle, as it started off with the frank admission that in a thermo-nuclear war some of its present formations would prove of little or no value, although it qualified the statement further on by remarking that should certain of these be eliminated the difficulties of suppressing outbreaks such as had occurred in Malaya and Kenya would be enormously increased.

  Having nailed the old flag to the mast, that by whatever means an enemy is rendered incapable of further effort large bodies of troops are still required to occupy the conquered territory, it went on to examine what the results might be should we succeed in inducing our allies to agree to our withdrawing our land forces from the Continent—that being the only practical means by which we could reduce our number of standing divisions. Such a withdrawal, and the precedent it would set, might so weaken the N.A.T.O. forces in Europe as to encourage our enemies to invade our allies’ territories while refraining from using nuclear weapons. In such an event, would we be the first to press the button? Our Government might well prove unwilling to plunge the world into chaos until all possible means of securing a ceasefire had been exhausted. Yet the price of such hesitation would prove ruinous. The forces the Russians could deploy were so overwhelming that within a few days Free Europe would collapse under their impact. In one stroke we should then have lost the war potential of allies whose populations total over two hundred million, every advance base on the Continent, billions of pounds worth of war-like stores, and have the Russians on our door-step at Calais.

  The Soldiers pointed out that they had already shown their willingness to accept radical changes by the Territorial Army’s handing over of Anti-Aircraft Command to the R.A.F. Regiment. Moreover they were even now examining the possibility both of reducing personnel and attaining greater flexibility by reorganising the Armoured Formations, eliminating a high proportion of old-type Artillery Units as atomic cannon became available, reducing the size of Divisions, and relieving Battalions of their heavier types of weapon.

  The foregoing led to a statement that only by increased mobility could the Armies of the Allies hope to hold the greatly superior Land Forces of their potential enemies, and that the real key to the rapid movement of fighting units lay in an unstinted allocation of aircraft, particularly helicopters. Several other types of aircraft were then enumerated and it was insisted that, to obtain maximum efficiency, the pilots of these should obviously be integrated in the Army units concerned, as had been the glider pilots of the Airborne Divisions in the last war.

  This proposed foray into the territory of the airmen was promptly followed by another. Attention was drawn to the fact that all the major German victories during the early days of the last World War were in large part due to the Luftwaffe’s having been subject to the orders of the Generals, which had enabled them to utilise it with maximum effect. As far as our own Army was concerned the creation in the latter stages of the war of Tactical Air Forces, to operate in close co-operation with our ground forces, had been a most valuable innovation. But it was not the proper answer. For any Army in the Field to operate to the best advantage it was requisite that its Tactical Air Force should be just as much an integral part of it as its Artillery, Engineers or Supply train; as there could then never be any difference of opinion between Air and Land Commanders as to its employment or—its diversion to assist in Air operations elsewhere at, perhaps, a critical time for the Land Force to which it was nominally attached.

  It had recently been accepted that in a thermo-nuclear war Land Forces must not expect air cover. That, of course, was on the assumption that such a war would be over very quickly. But, as stated previously, in order to hold the enemy at all great mobility would be required. This could be achieved only by air transport, and that, in turn, would render a combat Air Force essential for its protection. It should also be remembered that the close cooperation of aircraft with land forces was still required for local wars, and the suppression of organised terrorist activities in our dependencies. Under both heads it was therefore recommended that an Army Air Corps should be formed forthwith, and all suitable types of aircraft henceforth diverted to it.

  Passing then to long-term policy, it was accepted that when nuclear weapons had reached their full development in a major war, practically all old-type armaments would become redundant. Tanks, artillery, warships would all be out-moded, fighter aircraft would be replaced by land to air missiles, and eventually bomber aircraft would be suppressed by long-range rockets.

  But, for the present, in view of the possibility that a war begun with nuclear weapons might have to be finished with orthodox ones, the advisability of making any serious reduction in conventional forces in the immediate future might well be questioned.

  This clever, vigorous paper was so well reasoned that I found it most impressive; and I felt that the Soldiers were on a very strong wicket in their contention that the responsibility for maintaining, or restoring, order in our overseas dependencies fell much more largely on them than on either of the other Services; therefore to the Army the New Look could not be acceptable in its entirety as long as there was liable to be trouble in such places as Kenya, British Honduras, Cyprus, etc.

  The Air Ministry paper was obviously written by men who felt that they had nothing to defend, and had complete confidence in their own Arm. It was actually headed with a paraphrase of Churchill’s message to Roosevelt in 1940: ‘Give us the tools and we will tackle the job.’

  It opened by quoting a statement by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Europe, to the effect that the disparity in conventional forces between ourselves and the Soviets was so greatly in favour of the latter that we could redress the balance, and hope to win a full-scale war against them, only by the use of thermo-nuclear weapons. Therefore our policy was now founded on this necessity and to plan for any other form of major conflict would be suicidal.

  It then outlined the type of conflict which must be envisaged, the kernel of the matter being that so destructive were the new explosives that it was impossible to conceive of a long war. With the present potential of the United States and ourselves it was estimated that we could kill fifty million Russians in the first five days; and although the present stock-pile gave the Allies a superiority over them in a ratio of five to one, it must also be accepted that the damage they would do us was incalculable.

  It followed that our first defence priority must be to ensure that we were able to win the nuclear campaign in the shortest possible time, and by a bombardment of the utmost intensity force our enemies to sue for peace before we ourselves were totally destroyed.

  The briefness of the convulsion envisaged determined beforehand which arms could be usefully employed in it and which would prove redundant. In so short a time only units already in being, or such as could be mobilised within forty-eight hours, would be able to play a part, and then only if they possessed the qualification of being in a position to engage the enemy.

  For all practical purposes the latter requirement ruled out the Navy, as its contribution during the first week could, at best, be only trifling. And that first week was all that mattered. During it, with due allowance for the destruction of stocks by enemy action, no serious shortage of food could arise in Britain; nor in that time could our reserves of raw materials be increased by imports to a degree that would have the least influence on the outcome of the battle. We should have to fight on what we already had in the national larder and petrol pump; for before even a first convoy, immediately despatched, could cross the Atlantic the war would be over.

  Thus the Navy’s historic task of keeping the sea-lanes open for our shipping no longer arose, and its offensive va
lue in a thermo-nuclear war could be rated at less than that of a single Bomber Squadron; so the fact should be faced that its maintenance on its present great scale was against all common sense, and an entirely unjustifiable expenditure of both man-power and money.

  Having disposed of the Navy, the paper tackled the Army. It pointed out that alone among the great nations Britain had developed her Air Force as a separate Service, and proceeded to contend that had it not been for this independence we should have lost the last world war. The German Generals had used the Luftwaffe as flying artillery, and only owing to the great initial losses it had suffered in support of land operations had its numbers been sufficiently reduced for the much smaller R.A.F. later to meet and defeat it in the Battle of Britain. Even so, it had been a desperately near thing, and had our Generals had control of the Air Arm they might well have been tempted to use and dissipate it with disastrous results.

  The principal functions of an Air Force were first to seek out and destroy the enemy air force, then so to disrupt the enemy’s economy as to render him incapable of continuing hostilities.

  It was accepted that the Allies must maintain Land Forces on the Continent; otherwise the way would be open for enemy spearheads to advance unopposed and, even in a few days, overrun Western Europe, doing great damage to cities and industrial plant before they accepted orders from their Government to surrender. The Air Force would, therefore, have to support these Land Forces in order to redress the disparity of numbers, and assist in blocking such breakthroughs as might occur.

  However, it should be borne in mind that, while the Land Forces at present on the Continent were a necessary commitment, it would be pointless to maintain Reserve Divisions in Britain with a view to their reinforcement, or to mobilise others on the outbreak of hostilities, as it would prove impossible to transport any but a limited number of light units to the scene of action in time for them to participate in the battle.

  It was also accepted that the Army must maintain a sufficiency of conventional forces to deal with eventualities arising outside Europe, and that for such operations Air support would be required. But this commitment, together with that of supporting our Land Forces in Europe, must now be regarded as a second priority to that of preparing swiftly to win a thermo-nuclear war by the use of Air Power; and no project of diverting aircraft or pilots for any other purpose could be entertained.

  In the future, aircraft production should, with a minimum of necessary exceptions, be devoted to turning out aircraft to win the air war. Only so could the R.A.F. hope to counter the might of the Soviet Air Force; and unless this was agreed neither the Home Country nor our Land Forces on the Continent could hope to survive.

  The paper then passed to the defence of the Kingdom. It said that we must expect nuclear explosives to be directed against our cities both by means of bombers and guided missiles. It was hoped that the latest scientific developments would enable us to explode a large proportion of these in the air, well before they reached their targets. For this purpose both fighter aircraft and missile to missile weapons fired from the ground would be employed. These two methods of defence were now in the process of being co-ordinated and would be controlled by Fighter Command.

  Coastal Command had, like the Navy, become redundant, as in the brief space of a one-week war it could serve no useful purpose.

  Finally, the Airmen went right to the core of the matter. Having courteously deplored the necessity brought about by a new age virtually to disestablish the Royal Navy and reduce the Army, the suggestion was put forward that the time had come to combine all three Services in a Royal Defence Force.

  It was pointed out that Technicians, Gunners. Signallers, Supply, Medical and other specialist Services could all be integrated without difficulty; that two-thirds of the personnel of the Navy were now employed in its twenty Fleet Air Arm Stations and in Aircraft Carriers, so were in fact already Airmen; and that it should be possible to find administrative posts for the majority of officers still on the purely nautical side.

  Finally, it was stated that a nuclear war would be determined neither on the sea nor on the land, but in the air. Therefore the training of personnel to fight in such a war, and the direction of operations should it come about, must be mainly the province of officers who had qualified for high command by a life-time of service in the R.A.F.

  So that was that. By offering to sink their own identity in a Royal Defence Force, the Airmen had at least proposed a means by which the ‘face’ of the Navy could be saved, and which should prove much more acceptable to the Army than having to surrender its missile-launching sites to Fighter Command.

  I should add that I have mentioned only the salient points in these papers, and having only the ordinary man’s very limited acquaintance with their subjects may even have unwittingly somewhat distorted an opinion here and there. They dealt with many other subjects, including the potentialities of numerous secret weapons of which I had never heard, and their length may be judged by the fact that they took me over an hour and a quarter to read.

  After re-reading a few paragraphs to verify statements made in them, I put down the papers and looked round at Sir Charles. Catching my glance, he said:

  ‘Finished, eh? Well; what d’you think of them?’

  ‘All three, each in its own way, are brilliant,’ I replied. ‘And you must know that I am not competent to give an opinion; but, since you ask me for it, I think that, by and large, the Air people have put up the most logical arguments. Their paper is the only one which really faces up to the possibility of a nuclear war. Of course the Army has a cast-iron case for insisting that orthodox formations should be retained for dealing with Communist-inspired risings such as that of the Mau Mau, but I notice they side-step the question of armour, and if the New Look were adopted I take it tanks are one of the items that would have to go on the scrap heap. As for the Sailors, what can the poor chaps do but heat up the round shot to defend their wooden-walls.’

  Sir Charles nodded. ‘It’s good to hear you express such a balanced view, Hillary; but I thought I could count on you for that, because although all the traditional interests of your family lie with the Sailors, you served as an Airman in the war. My belief that I should find you impartial was one of the reasons why I picked on you to play a hand in this extremely tricky business. That is, of course, if you agree to do so. But first there is one more paper that I want you to read.

  ‘You will appreciate that, having considered the three papers you have just read, I felt that the alternatives involved were much too weighty for any single individual to take a decision upon. Naturally, anything I decided would have to go to the Cabinet, but every member of it is up to his eyes with problems of his own; so short of the P.M. coming down heavily against me, it was more or less a foregone conclusion that, in the main, whatever recommendations I made would be accepted. I don’t think anyone could accuse me of having shirked my responsibilities often, but on this occasion I was not prepared to shoulder them until I had had a further opinion. To procure it I decided to resort to a secret Court of Enquiry. For its chairman I secured one of our younger Judges, who is perhaps one of the most brilliant men who has ever practised at the English Bar. Then as members I coopted a Civil Servant, whose abilities have brought him very near the top of his profession, and a Trade Union Leader, who is a patriot through and through and has more good, sound, common sense than any man I know.’

  ‘It certainly sounds as though you got a first-class team together.’

  ‘Yes. I doubt if it could have been bettered. To these three chaps I submitted the papers you have read; then I arranged that every type of information they required should be furnished to them, and that any Service or scientific personnel they wished to question should be made available to give evidence before them.

  ‘You may have noted that the papers date from the late spring. During the four months since they were got out the members of the Court have very generously given up a great deal of their le
isure time to reading scores of others, giving much more detailed particulars of the organisation and the functioning of the three Services. They have also listened to the sworn testimony, given in camera, of well over two hundred serving officers, scientists, and armament experts. I received the findings of the Court ten days ago. Here they are.’

  I took the document Sir Charles handed to me, and settled down to read it. No doubt the Judge had played a major part in directing the enquiry, and drafting the admirably lucid phrases in which the Court’s conclusions were set out; but both the ingrained regard for caution of the Civil Servant and the blunt good sense of the Trade Union Leader came through.

  The paper was not very long but very much to the point. It opened with the statement that in a conflict with the Soviet Union two sorts of war might be envisaged: orthodox and nuclear. In either type it was to be expected that, as far as Europe was concerned, and apart from isolated pockets of resistance, a decision would be reached very swiftly.

  In an orthodox war, two factors weighed against us. Firstly, the forces of the Soviet Union and its satellites, on land and in the air, were much superior to those of the N.A.T.O. powers in Europe. Secondly, the forces of the Soviet Bloc would be directed by a single will, whereas those of the N.A.T.O. powers would almost inevitably suffer from the divided councils of numerous Governments; who, as had been demonstrated in the last war by that of France, whatever their undertakings to their allies, could not be restrained from entering into a separate peace. Therefore, a strong N.A.T.O. Army might delay, but could not prevent, the Russians arriving at Calais.