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7.
(g) Certain orders are being negotiated in the
United States of America, but the contracts cannot be completed until the fate of
the American Lease-Lend Bill is decided, and this may take some time.
(h) In any event, manufacture and shipment from
the United States of America to Greece, must take a long time. It will be late in the year, or even next year, before regular supplies can be relied on from this, the only possible source.
The general conclusion which we draw from the above, is that the haphazard, makeshift methods on which we have hitherto relied for Greek supplies of gun ammunition, will not meet their needs. The guns will gradually wear out and cannot be replaced by the Greeks, Supplies
ordered in America could be of no value to the Greeks for meeting the imminent danger of a German attack through Bulgaria or Jugo-Slavia. Nor would ammunition of these types, if ordered in America on behalf of the Greeks, be of any value to us later on in the event of the Greeks
On the other hand, if having been forced to make peace. gun equipments and ammunition were of British pattern, they would always be an asset to us if they could not reach the Greeks in time.
8.
The Committee feel that, from the point of view of what would serve Greek interests best, the only solution of the present problem would be to re-arm the Greeks with British guns and ammunition.
For such a course to be effective, it would mean either re-arming the Greeks from our present holdings as their supplies, of ammunition for the various types of gun become exhausted, or devoting gun production for some time entirely to the Greeks, and supplying them also with a large part of our present stocks of ammunition. undertake to re-arm the Greeks at a later date, though this might be possible in 1942 without detriment to our own interests, would not help Greece in her present situation.
or
То
To re-arm Greece from our present holdings production in the immediate future, would have a most serious effect on our own armament problem, and would defer considerably the date at which our present grave deficiencies would be met.
9.
The decision. involves issues of the highest policy affecting the grand strategy of the war, and the Committee therefore feel that they can do no more than state the case and leave it to the War Cabinet to decide whether our aid in munitions to Greece must remain on the very limited scale which has hitherto been found possible, or whether the needs of Greece are such that they must take priority over all other needs including
our own.
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