Britain’s Darkest Hour
BACK IN APRIL the previous year, President Roosevelt managed to get Congress to finally pass the Administrative Reorganization Act after two years of wrangling. Its name suggested it was little more than a dull piece of governmental bureaucracy, but actually it was something altogether more radical. Under this Act, lots of Government agencies and bureaus, previously under the oversight of Congress, were moved under the authority of a newly created Executive Office of the President. Among those shifted under White House control were the Army–Navy Munitions Board, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Bureau of the Budget and the National Resources Planning Board. Also included in the terms of the Act was the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), which gave provision for the President to set up a new and special agency to deal with defence or any other emergency under his direct authority.
The significance of this act was not felt immediately, but Congress had, in fact, given the President enormous new powers to lead the US without consulting with either his administration or Congress. In other words, he could choose specific men to do specific tasks for the nation without challenge. It was hardly democratic but it not only suited Roosevelt’s leadership and management style, it also ensured a far more focused and less fractious way of managing the proposed rearming of America.
For more than a year after the Act was passed, Roosevelt had not called upon the Office of Emergency Management, but now, on 25 May, he did. He planned to use it as the hub for other organizations, not least the National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC). His idea was to gather together a group of industrialists and businessmen, rather than politicians, just as General Marshall had suggested, to advise on how best to make a massive and rapid expansion of the US’s armed forces and defences.
But who were the right people for this new advisory committee? Roosevelt had conferred with Bernard Baruch, a hugely successful financier and long-time political advisor of both President Wilson and FDR. During the last war, Baruch had chaired the War Industries Board and very successfully too. Aged seventy in 1940, he was happier playing the elder statesman and being a sounding board than taking on an active position, but as an ardent interventionist he was only too happy to suggest names to the President.
In fact, it had been just one name. ‘First, Knudsen,’ he had told FDR, ‘second, Knudsen; third, Knudsen.’
Bill Knudsen was the President of General Motors and was quite simply a giant of the automobile industry. He was physically pretty big too, standing at six foot four inches, with broad shoulders, a mop of neatly combed silver hair and matching moustache. Gentle and kindly-looking, he was a highly moral and honourable man, but also an extremely tough, determined and brilliant businessman and a superb engineer.
Born in Denmark in 1879, he had emigrated, aged twenty, in 1900, and on arriving in New York had worked first in shipbuilding, then repairing railway locomotives, before landing a job building bicycles in Buffalo for John R. Keim. However, Keim was switching to making steam engines, so Knudsen began building those instead and in the process learned about the importance of machine tools and how to build them.
A machine tool was a name that could be applied to any machine that could cut metal into identical shapes. It could do this in a number of ways, whether by drilling holes and shapes, turning like a lathe, grinding or cutting, or shearing and pressing. It was machine tools that could drill lumps of metal into engine blocks or turn and stamp pistons, and could press sheets of metal to make car doors, for example. Machine tools, of course, had to be made in the first place and were both incredibly complicated and time-consuming to construct, and had to be custom-made, so they were incredibly expensive. But once done, as Bill Knudsen realized during his time with Keim, these bespoke, intricate tools then made mass production possible. They were, in fact, the backbone of mass production and in turn warfare. This meant the machine-tool-makers themselves were the key to the machine age. And they were a rare and very specialized breed.
While at Keim, Knudsen developed a new type of alloy and began an assembly line making steel axle housings for Henry Ford’s burgeoning motor car business in Detroit. Ford later bought Keim outright, and Knudsen was given the task of speeding up production. He concluded that the key to mass production was not speed per se, but rather creating a continuous and linear sequence that ensured every part could be fitted precisely where and when it was needed. ‘Everything,’ he said, ‘depends upon the sequence of an operation and the flow of material.’ Costs could be kept down not by cutting corners on materials but by economies of scale and by reducing the number and complexity of parts. Simplicity of both parts and construction was key. The less complex the parts, the easier they were to make, and the easier they were to make, the less the cost. The less the cost, the greater the demand for the end product.
Just as crucial was accuracy – each different part had to be exactly the same. Knudsen banned all files and hammers – if a part didn’t fit, it would be sent back. ‘Accuracy,’ he said, ‘is the only straight line in production.’
These factors were what made the Model T the first mass-produced car of the machine age. Until then, automobiles had been a luxury item of the privileged few. The Model T put cars in reach of the common man. What Knudsen had achieved for Ford was the creation of a simple production line, and one that could be readily replicated. To make a Ford car did not require vast numbers of skilled workers – it required men to assemble the bits in a simple and efficient way. This meant it was easy to set up branch factories – one factory was just like another – which were based on the principle of laying out the machinery first, then working out the flow of material, and then building the factory around it. By 1916, Ford had no fewer than twenty-eight branch factories.
Where Knudsen and Henry Ford began to diverge was over the patriarch’s continued insistence that one model of car was enough. Knudsen believed that the way to sell more cars was not to keep churning out exactly the same automobile but to make punters feel dissatisfied with their current car and want better. In 1921, he left Ford and moved to General Motors, a failing company that had bought up many smaller businesses such as Buick, Pontiac, Oakland and Chevrolet. It was Chevrolet, almost finished as a car manufacturer, that Knudsen was brought in to save. And save it he did. Using the principles of the assembly line, he developed what became known as ‘flexible mass production’ – that is, one that enabled easy modification and change. This he did by discarding single-purpose machine tools and bringing in new ones that could be adapted to making different shapes and designs. Model Ts had been outselling Chevys at thirteen to one, but the 1926 Chevrolet cut that advantage to two to one. The 1927 Chevy did even better, selling over a million cars and forcing Ford to finally abandon the Model T.
Bigger, better, faster, more comfortable Chevys continued to appear every year, so that by 1931 Chevrolet was finally outselling Ford. Knudsen had proved that it was possible to introduce new products swiftly in response to new technology or changing demands without interrupting the flow of production. By 1937, he was President of General Motors, the biggest car manufacturer in the world. The point was, the principles he had applied to the production of automobiles could just as easily be applied to tanks and aircraft, as Bernard Baruch was well aware. This was why he had recommended to Roosevelt that he call up Bill Knudsen without delay.
Sure enough, Roosevelt duly rang Knudsen at GM and personally invited him to come to Washington on Wednesday, 29 May. He was met at the White House by Harry Hopkins, who told him in a hushed and conspiratorial tone, ‘Mr Knudsen, the President has asked me to tell you that we can’t pay you anything, and he wants you to get a leave of absence from your company.’
‘I don’t expect a pay check,’ Knudsen told him. As far as he was concerned, America had been good to him, he had enough money in the bank, and he was more than willing to step down from GM to do his bit for his adopted country.
At the subsequent meeting, Knudsen met the six other people Roosevelt had assembled, all of whom had a specific role to play. Among them were Edward R. Stettinius Jr, for example, the Chairman of the United States Steel Corporation, who was to oversee the steady flow of raw materials, and Sidney Hillman, President of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, who was to head a division that would train apprentices for non-combat duties from airfield ground crews to camp cooks. Among the others were Chester C. Davis, the Defense Commissioner for Agriculture and a highly able administrator, brought in to help ensure there was no conflict between agricultural and defence policies, and Ralph Budd, Chair of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, to advise on all transportation problems and prevent bottlenecks. Knudsen’s task was to manage and advise all industrial manufacture of tanks, aircraft, engines, uniforms and other key war materiel. Only he, Stettinius and Hillman would be working full time.
Roosevelt had formed the National Defense Advisory Commission to kick-start industrial mobilization without Congress, politics and red tape getting in the way, but it was clear during that first meeting that its workings had not yet been thought through. This was hardly surprising, though, as the President had only decided on its formation a few days earlier. When Knudsen asked who was in overall charge, the President replied with a laugh, ‘I guess I am.’ After vaguely outlining his thoughts, the meeting ended with the promise that they would reconvene in a fortnight. The term ‘advisory’ was, however, clearly something of a misnomer. FDR didn’t want these men advising. He wanted them – and Knudsen, Stettinius and Hillman especially – heading their new divisions, or departments, within the committee. The trouble was, the authority for them to do so was rather vague.
Knudsen left the meeting and returned to Detroit for one last weekend at home thinking long and hard about just what it was he was being asked to do and how he was going to do it.
In France, René de Chambrun had returned to the headquarters of the Corps of Liaison Officers near Hazebrouck on the morning of 26 May, and reported to his boss, Colonel de Cardes. They were now completely surrounded.
‘You are to try and get to Paris,’ Cardes told him. ‘I know it will not be an easy job, but these documents must not fall into enemy hands, and I want them to be at our headquarters as soon as possible.’ The only way for him to get there, Cardes explained, was to take a ship to England from Dunkirk and then to fly to Paris. Having hastily scribbled a note for his wife, he gave the pile of documents to Chambrun and told him not to waste any time.
Hurrying to Général Blanchard’s headquarters nearby, he found a staff chauffeur prepared to take him to Dunkirk and off they went, dodging marauding Stukas all the way.
Meanwhile, the 6th Green Howards were also making their way to Dunkirk. Private Bill Cheall was not happy. He was hungry, no one seemed to know what the hell was going on, and none of them had enough weapons or ammunition. In fact, he reckoned he and his pals had had a pretty rough ride since arriving in March. Having joined his TA battalion, the 6th Green Howards, just before the outbreak of war, they had been given, as TA rather than Regular Army, very basic training indeed, with no real weapons training or tactical instruction. It had been intended that this would come in the fullness of time once the Army began to grow. When they were sent to France, it was as a labour battalion, and Cheall had taken a very poor view of their first task, which had been building latrines. Relief had come from his company commander, Major Petch, who asked him to become his batman – his soldier-servant. ‘I was a little browned off with unsoldierly work,’ admitted Cheall, ‘so I said yes.’
Then suddenly, with the German onslaught underway, they had been ordered forward and by 22 May were holding a stretch of the line along the River Scarpe to the east of Arras, still armed with only their rifles and now officially on active service, although the part where they were trained how to fight had never actually happened. They were not there long before being ordered north-west. Bombed on Vimy Ridge, where British, French and Canadians had fought the Germans a generation earlier, they then both marched and were later entrucked up to the coast, where they took up new positions along the River Aa, around Gravelines, on the morning of 23 May. They hadn’t slept a wink for two days and now on half-rations were ferociously hungry too. They had soon found themselves in the thick of the fighting, firing at German panzers with Boyes anti-tank rifles none of them had ever used before. Here they had lost ‘some good boys’ but, to their credit, had seen off their attackers.
Then came the order to evacuate their position around Gravelines and fall back to the town of Bergues, just a few miles from Dunkirk. This was soon countermanded and they were sent to Haeghe Meulen, a few miles to the east of Bergues. Here they were to protect the perimeter around Dunkirk as the rest of the BEF retreated to the port. Given better weapons and plenty of ammunition, Cheall and his mates were none the less keenly aware how undertrained they were. ‘But we were determined to give as good as we got,’ he noted, ‘and show the Jerries that we were not going to be a walkover.’
Also retreating were Capitaine Barlone and his Horse Transport Company attached to 2nd North African Division. There was no news, there were no newspapers and there was no wireless radio, but there were plenty of rumours, one of which was now confirmed – that the Germans had reached the Channel coast. ‘So we are encircled!’ he scribbled in his diary. ‘It’s flabbergasting!’ Two days later, he received orders to retreat to Dunkirk, moving 15–25 miles by night. Everyone was pulling back, it seemed, including Lieutenant Norman Field and the 2nd Royal Fusiliers. They had been in France since the previous autumn, but also part of III Corps, their division, the 4th Infantry, had been in reserve during the BEF’s move to the Dyle Line, and they had been based in Mouvaux, between Lille and Tourcoing. Apart from taking potshots at aircraft, they had barely seen any action at all but were part of the northern British line holding the German 6. Armee at bay. He didn’t have much idea what was going on. ‘We would have a few skirmishes with the Germans until we were told to withdraw again,’ he says. ‘It was all very peculiar and frightening. We didn’t know what the next day would bring.’
Nor did General Gort, although he had warned London that it was likely most of the BEF and its equipment would be left behind in France, despite the evacuation order. In fact, RAF squadrons had been returning to England for some days, replaced by squadrons flying from the UK, while the ‘useless mouths’ – the wounded, sick and all non-combat troops – had evacuated through the Channel ports as early as 19 May, the same day warning had been given to the Director of Military Operations and Plans at the War Office to start considering an evacuation. Three days later, more advanced preparations were underway at the Admiralty for what was to be called Operation DYNAMO.
Boulogne had been evacuated on 23 May. One of those heading back to England through the port was Squadron Leader George Darley; much of the Air Component were already heading home, and, unable to even remotely keep an Operations Room functioning, he had been recalled. Boulogne surrendered two days later; Calais was still holding out, but it clearly would not be long before the British-held port was forced to surrender too. That left just Dunkirk, and it was from here that the evacuation of the BEF, or whatever small proportion was lifted off, would take place. With the co-operation of Général Blanchard, the French First Army commander, who seems to have stoically accepted the inevitable, Gort worked out an agreed plan. On the night of 26–27 May, British I and II Corps would leave a rearguard then fall back into the main central corridor. Blanchard’s men would extend the line. The following night, the mass of the BEF would fall back again, behind another river line – the idea was to fight by day and fall back by night. Meanwhile, a perimeter, five miles inland and following a canal that ran all the way to Nieuport, twelve miles to the east, would be prepared. This was where Bill Cheall and his mates were now getting ready. There were not enough men to man a continuous line along the southern flank, so instead troops would defend highpoints, villages and towns. The idea was that these would keep the Germans along the southern flank of the corridor busy for long enough to allow the bulk of the BEF, both men and machinery, to reach Dunkirk. No one, however, including Gort, was very optimistic that DYNAMO would be a success.
On Saturday, 25 May, Edward Spears flew by Blenheim to Paris, as Churchill’s special emissary. He was to be liaison officer to Paul Reynaud, and as he flew over Normandy on that perfect early summer’s morning, he thought it had never looked lovelier or more somnolent. Safely reaching Paris, he hurried to the Quai D’Orsay, met Reynaud and was then ushered into his study to meet other members of the Comité de Guerre, including the new C-in-C, Général Weygand, Amiral Darlan and the Maréchal of France himself, Pétain.
During their talks, at no point had Spears been given the impression all was lost; clearly, the Northern Armies were in grave peril but the idea that France was about to collapse entirely still seemed, to him at any rate, remote. And then they were interrupted by an officer from Blanchard’s Army Group HQ. Spears listened with mounting shock as Commandant Fauvelle began to make his report. ‘As I realized that his catastrophic defeatism seemed to some extent at least to be accepted as the reflection of the real position,’ he noted, ‘I felt cold fingers turning my heart to stone. I have in my time seen broken men, but never before one deliquescent, that is, in a state where he was fit only to be scraped up with a spoon or mopped up.’
Spears listened, appalled, as Weygand and Fauvelle continued discussing the situation until, with exasperation, Weygand lifted his hands and said, ‘This war is sheer madness! We have gone to war with a 1918 army against a German army of 1939!’
The discussions continued. A new chain of command was agreed. It was also accepted there was now no chance of saving the Northern Armies from the south – they were doomed. But Weygand vowed to fight on, come what may. Before leaving, however, Spears asked why on earth nothing had been done to stop German armoured columns running amok through France. Why, he asked, had roadblocks not been organized, with 75mm guns placed on lorries? A simple order to civilians to telephone ahead the direction these columns were heading would have made such preparations possible. Bridges could be blown. How hard could it be?
‘A very interesting idea,’ Weygand replied. ‘I will consider it.’
Monday, 27 May, was to prove to be one of Britain’s most perilous days in its entire history. The night before, following a day of National Prayer at home called for by King George VI, Operation DYNAMO was put into effect on Sunday evening, 26 May, under the control of Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay from Dover. Naval and auxiliary naval vessels, channel steamers and a host of ‘little ships’ – small, privately owned vessels – had been called upon to carry out the hazardous evacuation. Because of minefields, the route was also much longer than it might have normally been.
Yet it was not the chances of the evacuation that were the concern that day, but the development of a potentially catastrophic split in the War Cabinet – one that could yet see Britain capitulate.
During the first Cabinet meeting the previous day, Lord Halifax, the most respected politician in Britain, the country’s Foreign Minister, a man whose very name was a byword for good sense and pragmatism, had not only accepted that the Nazis were now militarily unbeatable, but that Britain should, via Italian intermediaries, explore the possibility of peace talks.
Winston Churchill, the new Prime Minster, whose judgement was widely held to be questionable, and who to many people was little more than a romantic old soak, thought this was tantamount to suicide. He was insisting Britain should never accept Nazi domination of Europe, that Britain and its Empire and Dominions should never even think about entering into talks because to do so would inevitably mean agreeing to terms that would affect their complete liberty and independence, which, to his mind, was utterly unacceptable.
The discussion was not resolved then, because there was the service of National Prayer in Westminster Abbey followed by a visit from Paul Reynaud. At the next Cabinet that Sunday, Halifax had been more bullish, unable to understand what harm there was in putting out feelers. Churchill replied that even to do that, to give the Germans a whiff of the possibility of suing for terms, would be a catastrophic sign of weakness that would send a terrible message to the entire world. The discussion became heated between the two, while the other three listened but added little. Churchill was keenly aware that if they sided with Halifax, he would be obliged to go along with them or resign, which amounted to the same thing. ‘Herr Hitler has the whip hand,’ Churchill told them. ‘The only thing to do is to show him that he cannot conquer this country.’
With no resolution in sight, Churchill ended the meeting that day with vague agreements that Halifax should pursue possible means of an approach to the Italians, but clearly had no intention of letting anything of the sort occur. But it was late, and they needed clearer heads. The following morning, however, it would have to be thrashed out once and for all. Later, after dining with Anthony Eden, his new Minister for War, he confessed to feeling physically sick with anxiety.
So Monday, 27 May, dawned. Ironically, the battle to decide Britain’s future lay in Whitehall, not Flanders. Churchill understood that the key figure was Chamberlain. The two new Labour men, Attlee and Greenwood, did not have the influence to decide this issue, but the former PM most certainly did. Naturally, Chamberlain would be most likely to side with Halifax. He was, in fact, not at all well and was suffering from cancer, although it had not yet been diagnosed, but he had loyally and tirelessly served his replacement since his forced resignation.
Not until the afternoon Cabinet meeting did the question of sending peace feelers raise itself. Halifax had drafted a letter to Mussolini, which he read out. When Churchill again underlined the dangers of going down this route, Halifax, normally so calm and measured, lost his temper. He simply could not understand the harm in making overtures. The argument rambled on, with Halifax eventually threatening his resignation, an act that would very likely bring down the Government at the worst possible moment. He stormed out into the garden at No. 10, Churchill following, doing his best to calm him.
News later arrived that Belgium had surrendered – it had been inevitable, but their doing so left a huge hole in the line that threatened the withdrawal of the BEF. The last Cabinet meeting of the day dealt with the implications of this latest piece of bad news. And fewer than 8,000 troops of the BEF out of some half a million in France had been lifted off on the first day of the evacuation. Britain, too, now stood on the brink.
That night, Lieutenant Norman Field, as Battalion Adjutant, was heavily involved in moving his battalion back yet again, this time behind the River Lys. Vehicles arrived in the rain at around 11 p.m. and the move got underway. Meanwhile, 3rd Division, at the end of II Corps’s line, had to move behind 4th and 5th Divisions and fill the hole left by the Belgians on the corps’s left flank. It meant travelling the entire division some fifty miles, yet by morning, under the careful eye of their commander, Major-General Bernard Montgomery, they managed it. Operationally, it was a superb achievement which gave the BEF a small, but crucial, breathing space.
Back in London, Churchill and Chamberlain had talked man-to-man, each expressing his loyalty to the other. Churchill was conscious that at no point had Chamberlain spoken for Halifax’s view and sensed he now had the crucial support he needed. Later, the PM addressed the wider Cabinet, telling them that despite the terrible news from France, and despite the fact that the Germans would undoubtedly soon turn their attentions to Britain and look to invade, such an operation would be very difficult for them and it was far better for Britain to fight it out. At this there was only approval and no dissent.
With Chamberlain behind him and also the wider Cabinet, at the next War Cabinet meeting, that evening, Churchill ruthlessly dismissed any further talk of peace talks. There would be none. Halifax, beaten, raised no further objection. The crisis was over, never to be mentioned again.
Britain would fight on.