stupid political quarrel in WHITE HALL cost British lives for two years

A question for anyone: A source I was reading mentions that for two years, senior officials of the RAF and the British Navy quarreled stubbornly, thereby preventing the level of cooperation that needed to be attained in order to defend British transport ships and convoys against German U-boats. The source doesn't go into any specifics though, mentioning only that head officials quarreled in White Hall for years. Could someone tell me (or estimate) what these arguments were about? Two years seems like a preposterously long time during a world war to just not get along at the cost of your country's lives!

thank you

 

I'm currently reading Clay Blair's "Hitler's U-Boat War; The Hunters, 1939-1942". Blair does not go into a great deal of detail, but mentions the conflict between the RAF, which thought the war could be won by throwing all aircraft resources into a strategic bombing campaign, and the RN which desperately needed long range patrol aircraft to combat U-boats which were ravaging convoys transiting the Atlantic from the US and Canada.

Blair makes a very convincing case that, in retrospect, it would seem that Churchill made a serious mistake in allowing the RAF to monopolize long range aircraft and not setting up patrol squadrons to combat U-boats. Blair mentions that just 100 VLR B-24's going to Coastal Command could have made all the difference in the world in 1940-41, but the RAF refused to countenance their use in that role.

I presume this is the controversy to which your source is referring.

 

Cheers Jeff, I was looking for that reference. Is it worth reading?

 

Ahh..Clay Blair's two volumes on Hitler's U-boat war in the Atlantic are among my favorites.
Probably the most extensive works on the topic available.

If you haven't read it already I can also recommend his "Silent Victory" from 1975, dealing with the submarine (it would be wrong to call them U-boats in the Pacific, wouldn't it?) activities in, right, the Pacific...

(BTW, I was lucky to get a used slipcase edition of the latter in a used book store in the nineties. The slipcase is somewhat worn, but the book itself is in excellent condition.
It has a name engraved in gold on it, "William T. Clarke".
Does anyone know the guy?)

RAM

 

Yes, I've read and reread "Silent Victory" so many times my copy is very dog-eared. My next book to read is the second volume of "Hitler's U-boat War". It's refreshing to see a real historian writing on the topic for a change.

 

If you were reading a book or other document which would be in the public domain, why did you not give more details as to where these opinions/facts ? originate from ? e.g. give the book title if you read it in a book.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

 

An excellent book that deals with the quarrel between the Admiralty and the Air Ministry both before and during the War is Correlli Barnett's Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War. Barnett, a much-read and much-quoted British historian, goes into considerable detail about Britain's naval and air-force rearmament and how the two impinged on each other in the 1930s and 40s. He does not pull any punches; he plainly states and criticises the faults and foibles of Whitehall, including the Admiralty and the Air Ministry, in this area as in others before and during the War. I recommend this book if you really want a good detailed and very honest and objective account of the Royal Navy in the Second World War; indeed, the book covers, too, the wider British war effort and the industrial and economic position in which it placed Britain. It is a long book, but well worth reading.

 

The 4 volume Strategic Air Offensive against Germany by Frankland and Webster (part I) goes into some detail about this. Basically long range Maritime Patrol planes and Heavy Bombers were essentially the same (or similar) from a resource allocation standpoint i.e. to build more of one you would have be build less of the other. The Air Ministry and senior RAF officers were convinced that to divert heavy bomber production away from the bomber offensive to 'defensive' maritime patrol was a wasteful diversion.

There was also equally vociferous arguments that bombing had produced very little damage to Germany (pre 1943) and that to concentrate such a huge ammount of resources on heavy bombers (RAF wanted 4000 heavy bombers and a replacement rate of 1000 bomber per month) risked losing the war due to the dangers of starving other sectors to pay for this huge force.

This debate raged up until mid 1943 when airpower showed how decisive it was in the defeat of the U-Boats and after this there was little debate at the higher levels of the RAF with regard to the necessity of allocating resources adequately among the various branches of the RAF.

 

The Bomber Command Handbook by Jonathan Falconer puts the casualties suffered by Bomber Command in stark perspective: 1 in 5 aircrew would survive their 1st tour and 1 in 60! would survive their 2nd tour.