British manpower crisis.

Hey guys,during the British army manpower crisis,did reinforcements have an oportunity to choose which unit they could join,or is that a common misconception.? Thanks,Wiltsy.!
Were there differences in the other commonwealth nations,and of course the U.S.Army.?

 

Dunno. Just thinking of the Salerno Mutiny, I would say there wasn't a choice-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salerno_Mutiny

Although they tried to send skilled men to the appropriate units-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_during_the_Second_World_War

 

Winston had a big ffy on the RAF Regiment in those days..Lots of trained fit young infantry men under the RAF banner...I seem to remember them not having a choice of unit...just off to join their army oppos if chosen.

 

In 1944 lots of people being shuffled around regardless of the Regimental system. Infantry reinforcements came from the RAF Regiment, the Royal Marines and the Royal Artillery. The Light AA and Anti Tank Gunners were required to provide drafts of infantrymen as well. In some cases this was a reversion to an infantry role as in 1942 20+ infantry battalions were converted to become Light AA Gunners. Some of these maintained their infantry traditions so Pegasus bridge was defended from air attack by 92 LAA (7th Battalion the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment) Regiment. Some RAC and RA units also acted as infantry in late 1944. 20th Atk Regiment the Atk Regiment for the Guards Armoured Division operated as an extra "all arms battle group " in the Guard Armoured Division in 1945 with the Towed Gun troops acting as infantry supported by the SP troops.

After Normandy 59th then 50th Infantry Divisions were broken up with men being sent either as individually or collectively to reinforce other units. Sometimes the receiving unit kept the reinforcements together under their existing commanders, forming a platoon in the company or company within the battalion. By and large recovering wounded seem to have tried to get back to their parent units where they were known, and by and large the units wanted them back too.

One eye witness account from Nijmegen makes the point that many of the "Guardsmen" in the Motor battalions of the Guards Armoured Division were ex RAF Regiment and Gunners. The Guards had serious problems maintaining their units at full strength. Montgomery and Brooke thought there were too many Guards units for the number of Guardsmen. Montgomery did not want the 6th Guards Armoured Brigade at all but was overruled by Churchill. So the British Army was really short of trained infantrymen, while a brigade of Guardsmen were (mis)employed as tank crew. This shortage hurts in Op Market Garden for example, the motor battalion of the Irish Guards starts the operation with only three rather than four rifle companies because of a shortage of soldiers. .

Some individuals get a very raw deal. There is an excellent pair of Bomber command memoirs "Lancaster Target" and "Mosquito Victory" by Jack Currie DFC. Lancaster Target is the story of the aircrew's 30 mission Bomber command tour - including the battle for berlin . After beating the odds and ending his tour as a heavy bomber pilot Currie answers a call for volunteers to join Air Transport command for what he thinks will be a safer role as a glider tug pilot. He finds himself in mid wales being trained as an infantryman having been posted to the Glider Pilot Regiment.

At the risk of hi-jacking this thread to a slightly related subject, there is another question to ask, which has not been fully answered. How is it that an empire covering 1/3 of the globe and with a population of 300m cannot find 50,000 infantrymen from one colony or the other to ensure that the British Liberation Army is fully manned for the decisive campaign of the war against the no 1 {priority enemy as agreed with its US Allies?

 

Since most of the Commonweath troops in Europe came from nations that had Dominion status, they naturally prefered to have their people fight under their own flag. Somewhat reminecent of WWI where there was a significant push by European nations to have the American troops serve directly under the command of individual British/French Divisions.

 

My impression was a reluctance to recruit to heavily in their most populace colony at least in time to affect the situation.

 

And also...to equip any more than the industrial base plan had already planned and allowed for...Where do they shift output from...and what equipment suffers in consequence.

 

In WW1 something like 40% of males(forget the actual number but it was significant) in England were not drafted because of their physical condition. Not sure if that was still the same in WW2. A large amount of troops were required to maintain control over the country.

 

Thankyou all very much.Ta.!

 

There's quite a lot of discussion of this in David Newbold's now-famous thesis on British invasion preparations 1939-40; even as early as 1940, the OC Home Defence had to find anything up to 40,000 men from those available to him for guarding strategic installations; everything from the two companies of troops at each Sector RAF station, to guards at marshalling yards, the first POW pens, brsentries at bridges, road junctions, rail signals etc. to prevent sabotage...every day!

Obviously this was a HUGE drain on resources...and ASAP the Home Guard was employed for these duties where possible, simply to free up regular troops.

It's worth noting that the 1942 National Service Act made Home Guard membership compulsory for 16-year olds; not only did it of course give them a years' training and exposure to military discipline before being called up, there was a spike in Home Guard numbers then too for home service IIRC by the end of the war, up to 2/3s of AA defences in the country were Home Guard-manned, they'd early on begun to share manning coastal batteries etc. with the Army/Navy, and the vast majority of security roles previously performed by the Army were taken up by the Home Guard.

 

You mean India obviously? India did have a very large number drafted/recruited into the services, but the problem was more difficult trying to train & equip them.

Having to maintain industrial production & having to maintain the world's largest navy & global infrastructure for the duration of the war was a massive drain on manpower.

Still, Canada did provide a large number of men to serve in the RN & RAF, as well as the RCN & RCAF

 

The other Commonwealth nations were quite different, (at least for the Dominions) I'll let the Aussies & Kiwis speak to their own situation, but in Canada there was a significant problem as the governing party at the time (the Liberals) had a large base in French Canada, where there was a significant opposition to participation in the war, after France had surrendered.
The PM (Mackenzie-King) wanted at all costs to avoid having to draft men and send them overseas. We were able to raise 6 divisions with volunteers, but the parts of the 6th division were transferred to make good losses in the other divisions in 1943. (The bulk of the 2nd division was lost at Dieppe of course).

The 6th division was reconstituted with partly draftees, and although it was used in 1943 for the invasion of Japanese held Kiska, it was part of North America and so was not technically sending draftees "overseas".
It wasn't until late 1944 that the Canadian government authorized the sending of drafted men for overseas combat, by which time it was pretty clear that the Allies would be victorious.

The difficulty in raising more divisions was also made more difficult by the simultaneous massive expansion of the RCAF & RCN

 

My understanding was that the troops raised in India were all volenteers. Not sure where I got that though so it may not be correct. Language problems as well as literacy ones would indeed raise training issues. Most of this could have been dealt with but additional time would have been required so either someone with the authority to do something has to forsee the problem or it doesn't get resolved as quickly as some would wish.

 

Re India (and Africa and the West Indies). The acute British Army manpower problem was to find some 100,000 infantrymen to do the work at the sharp end of the 2nd British Army in NW Europe and in Italy. Infantrymen were the least technical arm and required the least advanced equipment or training. Some of the finest commonwealth troops were recruited from agricultural populations in the Punjab and Nepal. There were 2.5 million men in the Indian Army by the end of WW2, compared to a pre-war army of 200,000. I find it hard to believe that 5% of these men could not have been sent to Europe, if they had really needed them..

Canada had problems providing people willing to serve overseas in the infantry. There was conscription, but overseas service was voluntary and after Normandy the Canadian army was very short of infantrymen..

 

Burmah was a big drain on Indian troops (and West and East African) - especially infantry where two thirds were non-British. There was also the problem of financing them. Any Indian troops used outside of India were paid out of British Coffers from London and not by the India Office.

Thus at the end of War the easily the biggest debt was owed by Britain to India (and paid I believe before Independance).

And Australian (maybe NZ as well) were redeployed to the Pacific War against Japan once the North Africa Campaign were completed.

 

It's my impression that they over-expanded too quickly, and there were some organizational problems.
The lower numbered divisions (5th - "Ball of Fire") performed quite well in Africa, as did the lower numbered brigades (8th, 12th etc) in Malaya. The newer units (28th brigade, 44th brigade, 17th division) in the Far East were not properly trained or equipped before combat, and caused a domino effect of problems. For some reason they abandoned the long-standing practice of pairing up two Indian battalions with one British battalion in these newer brigades, which resulted in a much weaker formation.

The root of the problem comes back to Churchill, he didn't belive that the Japanese would attack the Allies, or that their soldiers were capable of much, so consequently he "dumped" weak or untrained Indian units in the Far East.

 

My impression is that the British officers comanding such units were not always the best and that especially in the case of hte newer ones the officers and ncos were not as well trained as one would hope. Again I'm not an expert but from what I've read when they had good leadership they did well the problem was too often they didn't. Which goes back to the issue of it takeing time and resources to raise a unit and even more of the same to raise an effective unit.

 

To be fair to Churchill...like the Americans...Europe first Pacific and Aisa second....Especially with Africa on the boil when it was...The east was always going to suffer...Singapore's defence plan was passed originally from Baldwins mob onwards with all the General staff names..and our Commonwealth brothers...and watered down by many afterwards much to Percivals eventual disgust...Europe Had to come first...This was not just down to Winnie. It was the agreed way forward with troop and RAF reinforcement schedules since well before Winnie took over in MAY 40.

Makes you wander if Percival had gotten everything planned for him to have from the 30's onwards....would there have been a different outcome? A what if...And I don't do em...but I do do the plans and logistics...and they were not decided in May 40 onwards alone...They were planned far in advance of that date. So I for one will lean towards Winni and the advice his war cabinet and general staff gave him.

 

Hardly.Percival was still....Percival; a general who couldn't find a hundred or so active IRA volunteers that were wandering around the West Cork countryside, half-starved, trying to avoid large towns and villages....with tens of thousands of men, armoured cars, even aircraft for spotting....

Giving Percival extra men and resources wasn't going to give him a third hand to find his arse with...

 

In case others are not aware...

http://www.cairogang.com/soldiers-killed/percival-ambush/percival-ambush.html

But a bit harsh mate...Collins in the civil war had his own problems finding IRA ambushers. His own state troops spent many an idle time searching for the few in the wrong places and then getting their butt kicked...Including Collins.

As to Percival himself...I'm no great fan...I've had a go at him many times on here over the years...But and for another thread...who was going to do better...? Would any other General of the time in his place have saved Singapore, Malaya? Or would they have gone spiralling downwards but showing more fight I suppose and more casualties...But the end result?

I'd say the end result was through strategy not personality. The promised numbers of RAF support, the strategy set out earlier to protect that support with troops that were never destined...because of other priorities true...never destined to arrive to carry out that planned political and military strategem. Percival was a bum general but he was also dealt a bum hand.