Captain Leach was not what many Americans assumed a British officer to be; he was devoid of any affectation, much less pomposity. His first real contact with the US Navy was on the China Station from 1936–1938 when he was captain of HMS Cumberland. The American ship that he encountered most often was USS Augusta. Both ships were heavy cruisers and their captains had much in common, being the products of proud naval traditions.
It is unknown how often Captain Leach entertained Captain Harold V. McKittrick of USS Augusta, but it can be assumed that McKittrick did his best to reciprocate. Those officers who were fortunate enough to be invited for cocktails and dinner in Cumberland surely enjoyed themselves much more than their British counterparts when they were entertained aboard USS Augusta, since the US Navy prohibited any alcohol on its ships. One of the most memorable of Captain Leach’s social contacts with the US Navy took place outside Manila on 14 January 1937. This is described in Patrick Boniface’s Chronicle of HMS Cumberland:
The Americans, who ran the US Navy Base at Cavite, seven miles outside of Manila, welcomed the British cruiser on 14 January. Cumberland anchored inside the breakwater and sent boats ashore full of crew members eager for some rest and relaxation. The US Forces in the Philippines laid on a full programme of entertainment and sports. One of the best attended was the Santa Anna Cabaret which was the largest dancehall in the world. On one evening the British Club entertained some 300 sailors and about 3,000 gallons of beer was drunk.125
Boniface does not explain how these Jack Tars managed to consume 10 gallons per person.
When Harry Hopkins crossed the Atlantic four-and-a-half years later as a passenger in HMS Prince of Wales, he was not at his best. He was still recovering from an exhausting trip to Russia, suffering from the effects of colon surgery and was probably violently seasick for most of the voyage. With his arduous duties Captain Leach had virtually no time for social amenities. It is regrettable that the two men had little time to become acquainted. He spent more time with Hopkins’ master President Roosevelt when the latter attended divine service on 10 August 1941 (see previous chapter). He was the first to greet the American, who had a keen interest in naval history, particularly naval engagements between the British and the Germans. He clearly wanted to have a chat with Leach about the battle with the Bismarck.
Captain Leach also greeted General George Catlett Marshall – who would become America’s greatest General – and Admiral Ernest J. King, who was destined to head the US Navy during the coming war but whose prejudice against the British and the Royal Navy hardly enhanced Anglo-American relations. Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham later wrote of King, ‘A man of immense capacity and ability, quite ruthless in his methods, he was not an easy person to get on with.’126 Another American admiral whom Leach met that day was Admiral Harold Stark who since 1939 had been Chief of Naval Operations. In less than eight months he would take command of all US Naval Forces in the European area with his headquarters in London. He always worked well with the Royal Navy.
In the time allowed Captain Leach could only welcome each of these Americans and exchange a few pleasantries, except for one man. General Henry Arnold, known to his many friends as ‘Hap’, would later write:
At 4:30 (Saturday, 9 August 1941) we went aboard the Prince of Wales to make a boarding call and pay our respects. I had an opportunity to become acquainted with Captain John Leach, her commander, who had fought her against the Bismarck …127
Leach and Arnold had much to discuss. On 21 July 1921 General ‘Billy’ Mitchell’s aircraft, using 1,000lb bombs, had sunk the battleship Ostfriesland off the North Carolina Cape. Only three years before the Ostfriesland had been one of the most important ships in the German High Seas Fleet having survived the Battle of Jutland. She had been completed only three years before the start of the First World War and had a displacement of 22,808 tons and a main armament of twelve 12-inch guns. Many in the US Army and the US Navy considered her unsinkable by aircraft because of the four separate skins of steel which covered her decks. Arnold was a close friend and ardent admirer of General Mitchell. At the time he was a junior officer at Langley Field in Texas and the sinking of the Ostfriesland did not go unnoticed. Arnold later wrote, ‘Everybody throughout the Air Force (then still part of the Army) celebrated at Langley Field. They put planes in the air to meet the returning bombers; and every man, woman and child was down at the line to meet the men as they got out of their planes.’128 The navy however took the sinking of the Ostfriesland in its stride and maintained that since the bombing did not take place under combat conditions it was inconclusive. ‘The battleship was still the backbone of the fleet and the bulwark of the nation’s sea defense’.129
The year before, Captain Leach had pondered the lessons to be learned from the Fleet Air Arm’s highly successful strike against the Italian main fleet in Taranto Harbour on the night of 11 November, as mentioned briefly in Chapter VI. That night shortly after 2300 the first wave of twelve Swordfish armed with torpedoes took off from the aircraft carrier Illustrious. The Swordfish was quite old fashioned with its open cockpit and its ungainly fixed wings at two levels. The second wave consisted of only nine Swordfish but as a result of the combined strikes three Italian battleships were badly damaged. They were Conte di Cavour, Italia and Caro Diulio; Cavour would never go to sea again. It was perhaps the most decisive blow dealt the Italian Navy in the entire conflict and ushered in a new era in naval warfare that did not go unnoticed by the Japanese Navy. It is unclear whether Captain Leach and General Arnold discussed the sinking of Ostfriesland and the disabling of the three Italian battleships at Taranto but both understood the reality that the time of the battleship was nearing its end.
One other American would play a role in Captain Leach’s life. Cecil Brown would reveal Captain Leach to America in a dramatic radio broadcast on 11 December 1941 and had already written about the Captain in his war diary, which was eventually published to much acclaim in 1942. Brown was a seasoned war correspondent who had covered the war in Yugoslavia – where he had been captured by the Germans – and in the western desert where he had been on the receiving end of German bombs. He had flown into Singapore on the huge flying boat Canopus, arriving there on 3 August 1941. Shortly after Prince of Wales reached Singapore on 2 December, Brown had boarded that great ship to have a long talk with her captain. Brown liked Leach immensely from the very start of their all too brief association; indeed, almost every American who met Captain Leach was taken with his candour and his charm.