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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1950.
The Churchill Story: 11th Instalment
HE NAVY WAS READY
He proposed @paval holi-
long as Britain has a By Colin Frame day from building in 1913-he
history Winston Chur- chill will be remembered for two inestimable services he rendered her.
One sad day, as Churchill has recalled, hell froze and char- coal did indeed sprout for both of them.
They are his perfect pre- paration for war at sea in Churchill received from him one conflict and his leadership something like 20,000 written to victory of a less well pre-words of advice. Here is a pared nation in another.
typical sample:
When he went at 36 to the Admiralty in 1911 his com- mission was: "To put the fleet into a state of instant and constant readiness for war in case we are attacked by Ger- many."
Fleet Was Ready' WHEN in 1916 in one of the
darkest hours of his life, he left the War Room with its flagged maps of oceans ruled by the British Navy, Kitchener (who had no great cause to love him) came to him and said: "There is pne thing they cannot take from you the fleet was ready."
an fan-
::
"The most damnable per- son for you to have any deal- ings with is a Naval expert! Sea fighting is pure common sense. The first of all necessi- ties is SPEED, so as to be able to fight. When you like, Where you like, and How you like.
. and you'll make the Germans squirm!”” As a civilian more soldierly than soldiers, as a politician more Liberal Churchill admirably his admirals.
than Liberals, became more sea-conscious than
now
No naval station in Great Britain missed a visit of in- months on end he lived aboard spection from him. For the Admiralty yacht Enchan- tress.
He threw. himself into his task with zest of a boy. He smelt danger, and danger has always been to him inspiration. He took tastic risks to combat it. The boy who hated mathe- the Mediterranean.
.He sailed the North Sea and matics at school and the
man into
He peered who boasted that he "quitted knew
every dockyard. He mathematics for ever in 1894"
by heart the guns
and became involved in the most
complement of practically deadly tables of calculation, in naval tradition,
every ship whose names, rich ratios, speeds, thicknesses
yet or the
of
sound
armour, weights of shot, tons lilt of a catchy tune.
like a roll of druins
of coal, gallons of oil.
His schoolmaster was Lord Fisher,
ruthless, eccentric patriot with the sea in his eyes and salt on his tongue.
Plane Crash
new-
ex-First Sea Lord, a TE flew
H
in those Tangled and
flying machines invented the terms "sea- plane" and "flight." He found- ed the forerunner of the Fleet! Air Arm.
His Friend Fisher THIS
was one of Churchill's strangest friends. They first met in 1907.
called it introducing "a blank
into the book page
of mis-
understanding" but there was no German acceptance.
he
In October of that year wrote to Prince Louis that next summer, instead of the usual grand manoeuvres, there should be a test mobilisation of the Third Fleet. He reckoned this would fuel.
save about £200,000 in
Never was money saved to such good purpose. And never did blind intuition work so miraculously. to safeguard an empire.
Spithead Review Feet, manned
July 18, 1914, the Third to the last cabin boy, armed to the at Spithead. shell, sailed before the King
last
if
A week later the Foreign. Secretary, Sir Edward Grey,
god-father with F, E. Smith of Churchill's three- year-old boy Randolph, told the Cabinet it looked as war was coming at last. That fortuitously gathered Third Fleet did not sail homé again until the war was over and won..
During the last. few days before war finally broke upon the still unsuspecting heads of many Britons, Churchill took more gambles.
He spent Sunday, July 26, with his family at Cromer. He played on the beach with his children, Randolph and Diana, then five.
It was a lovely day. They dammed little streams ning
run- down the sands. Mrs Churchill · sat by watching them. She was to have baby Sarah in three months. Twice
* DHUMATI BDAY SVRIČKO PLAT
EDITORS PRESS SERVICE, INC.-NUEVA YORK
Kall
-103-
"It is just my imagination, or is this brush getting stiffer?"
FOR THE BUSINESSMAN
International
Allocation Scheme For Rubber
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)
London, Dec. 28.
Plans for some form of international alloca- tion scheme for rubber are under serious consideration by British and American Govern ment officials who are examining means of
shortages.
the children's laughter alleviating raw material
to Prince Louis in Then he went to himself to take a to keep the First
He once crashed off Clacton he left and was nearly drowned; but to phone. Fisher was he continued then twice Churchill's age.
to fly and was London. But they enjoyed from
disappointed the
in the lack of London start a David and Jonathan
enthusiasm for "fips" shown decision relationship.
by Cabinet colleagues.
Fleet concentrated at Portland Spurred by Fisher he the Second at home ports. took a gambling risk which
On July 29, to safeguard it might have ham-strung the against surprise attack or being British Fleet and ended his bottled-up in the Channel, career for ever.
he sent the First Fleet through the Straits without lights to its secret base at Scapa Flow. gave
In their pugnacious, ener- getic, enterprising outlook they were very much alike. And it was a likeness, belief in their. personal infallibility, that was to split their friendship asunder later on but not before it had worked well for Britain.
at
as
of
5
It is believed here that an American Govern- ment announcement on its plans to bulk purchase natural rubber, which is expected this week, may be the forerunner to an international
scheme designed to ensure that supplies are distributed according to the defence needs of the North Atlantic Treaty countries.
He built a Fast Division five battleships and secret orders for 15-inch guns
On August 1, entirely on his The American Government is to Russia and China would not Churchill spent three days 13.5-inchers..
instead of the tried and tested own. initiative because heknown to be seriously.
could not obtain Cabinet back-cerned over
con- necessarily prevent these coun at Lord Fisher's home
recent shipments tries obtaining supplies. Reigate
("What's
Churchill the meaning Priory as soon
ordered ofing,
It is the of Malayan rubber to Russia pointed out that Malaya pro- he became First Lord.
those damned dots?"
his
complete mobilisation of the and China. It is therefore be- duces less than half of the father, then Chancellor of When he left he was tempt- Exchequer, had
lieved by some sections of the world's the Navy.
rubber. asked about This was strictly illegal. The London
Indonesia, rubber market that whose production during the ed to invite Fisher back decimal points.)
Cabinet -confirmed and the America will demand an end to past few months has exceeded officially to help him. But-he wrote
These
King added his necessary sig-this trade. in "The World Crisis" straight to the ships from the
guns went practically nature only the next day when The American Government stay neutral in the East-West that of Malaya, is anxious to (published by Odhams Press, drawing-board. A Ltd) "I was appréhensive
mistake of would have meant five useless
dispute, and her co-operation in his age, I could
any international not feel hulks on the eve of battle.
állocation complete confidence in the
scheme would be difficult to But when the challenge
obtain.
Discussing the future of the at the
free market in rubber, Francis Whitmore, financial editor of the Daily Telegraph, US might seek to enlist the says the
support of the British Govern- ment for its stockpile pro- grammet
the machinery turning fast.
would also like to see ship- ments of rubber to Hongkong banned-to prevent them being
1
ex-
was already
On August 2 he signalled plans for the shadowing, of the poise of his mind at 71." Three came they were ready to bark German battleship Goeben, then re-exported to China, years later, he did invite. him.defiance
the in
Mediterranean. By The view most often: Once again, as First Sea Lord, their ton-heavy
enemy, and
in Britain was pressed
London Fisher, pounding
bite reached August 4, when
rubber with ideas twelve
miles, outgunning the at war with Germany, he and trade circles is that the ban on his advisers had only to sit shipments of Malayan rubber back and handle the Fleets as other experts handle chessen, Britannia indeed ruled the waves. Churchill whose leader-
was still in his
and completely confident of Germans victory, electrified the Navy.
Meanwhile between Reigate
Prince Louis
and Whitehall poured a steady THIS life-or-death gamble
stream of
advice, warnings,
which Churchill took
were
at
Happy Face'
angry protests, oaths, Biblical 37 came off brilliantly, fore- ship and drive had made sure tests and snatches of poetry runner of others then and she did, which were Fisher's quaint ideas years of memoranda.
These notes usually began "My Beloved Winston" and ended "Yours till hell freezes (or charcoal sprouts)."
JEST A MINUTE ! By GEOFFREY EVANS
ahead which
to thirties. fray the nerves of strong men at home and topple tyrants from their perches abroad.
Bearded,
Prince
of
wise, dignified Louis of Battenberg (later the Marquis
of Mil... ford Haven, father of Lord Mountbatten) was another Churchill's closest ad- visers in those busy days. "When I joined the British Navy in 1868 the German Empire did not exist," he told a German who suggested he was betraying his blood.
HE
TE wrote of the First Fleet graphically in "The World
Crisis1*:
squadron by squadron, scores of giant castles
of
the misty, shining sea, across like giants bowed in anxious thought.. . bearing with them into the broad waters of the north the safeguard
of con- siderable affairs."
steel wending "their way
reported
Margot Asquith that as the ultimatum to Ger- many expired Churchill wore
happy face" Well he might, if duty well done is a cause for happiness.
But the Prince's German "a kinship was to bring him down at. length at the hands of a witch-hunting public opinion, and Churchill himself did not escape blame for his appoint- ment.
But (wrote biographer Ephesian) the next day while Asquith told the Commons they were at war, Kept Ahead
tears rolled down Churchill's HURCHILL's private secre-
face. tary
For was the young man
had not he, who had who had watched from - the prepared so thoroughly for Nile the battle of Omdur- what Fisher insisted on call- nran-Beatty Sof the
ing Armageddon, jaunty
warned the hat, future hero of North Sea House in his first important battles.
speech fourteen years earlier For three years, building, that the new wars between reftting - introducing oil for peoples would be more terrible coal, Churchill kept the Bri- than the cd wars between tish Navy well ahead in the kings? ',,
MORE ON TUESDAY
it.... practically.
bing goes up 1”
raee with Germany.
STANDARD BRIDGE By M. Harrison-Gray
W.
Focke
400x
Dealer: West East-West game.
N.
J 10 5
742
AK #Q 8 7 5 4
3
10 9
S.
E.
K 8 642 Q 10 8 3 J 2
4K 6
A 973
❤ 6 5
Q 9 6 5 4 $32
At most tables in a duplt- cate pairs' contest, East's natural raise of West's One Heart opening to Three encouraged West to bid Four, but several declarers, went wrong In the play after North had bid Clubs on the first round.
After drawing trumps, they ran J from their own hand. forgetting that this line of play could only produce 10 tricks if North obliged by covering with Q. A better plan is to set up dummy by ruffing two Spades.
At one table East played the jump raise as forcing, 60 he bid Two Spades over North's Two Clubs West hid Two No-Trumps BERBL now bid Three Hearts, but this did not necessarily show four trumps West therefore
this. hopeless.
"The market envisages that might involve both buying by the British Government and acceptance by British industry of a small amount of Ameri- synthetic in place of natural rubber in the latter part of 1951," he writes. "The trade does not expect so wide a spread of Government buy- ing as to destroy the market."
can
U.S. IMPRESSIONS
mor
Washington, Dec. 28. Although United States offt- cials will neither confirm deny it, the general impression of informed circles here is that the General Services Ad ministration will start overall buying of natural rubber be fore the end of the year.
A non-Government rubber executive said today that the organisation, which replaced the Federal Supply Bureau, will probably buy direct from New York importers and use agents of big United States rubber com- panies in Malaya and elsewhere to make natural rubber purchases for the United States Governmerek
pected at anouncem