1958-01-18 — Page 6

T

by Major-General SIR JOHN

KENNEDY

Directer

MABILETY Oprsjans

1740-43, Arsistent Colet + Tmpestal General Staff (Oparatives and Extelitpunca) 1548-49,

in.

THE CHINA MAIL, – SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1958.

THE

BUSINESS OF

OF WAR

THE GENERALS SAY NO

message from the Prime Minister king Dill to go and see him.

HE first troops were due to disembark in Greece in the first week of April, 1941 and they began to land in accordance with the schedule. The effect of the Greek commitment had by this time begun to be felt in Libya. Our forces there had been so weakened, to provide for Greece, that they were unable to maintain their positions in face of German attacks.

As our troops began remained of the campaign- to arrive in Greece the ing season before winter set Desert Army was in full retreat from Benghazi to the Egyptian frontier, The period from Decem- ber 1940 to March 1941 had marked the height of Wavell's greatness as a com- mander in the field. The destruction of the Italian Army In the desert in

On April 10 Eden and Dillant hang on until We were December and January had been a brilliant feat of arms. returned to London. The stronger, when things wouki be Scarcely less remarkable had situation in Greece on that our favour. been

campaign in day was that the German the

had advanced Abyssinia, which reached armies its culminating point with through the southern end of the occupation of Addis Yugoslavia, and they had

also occupied Saloniku. Ababa on April 5, simul-

can

At about 6.30 pm. Dill re- turned to War Office, and came He It is clear from German to see me in my room. documents that Hitler con- asked me again what I thought firmed June 22 as the date of the situation, and repeated, "I think it is desperato I am for the offensive as early as terribly tired." He spoke of Grecce, and April 30, and that our opera- the difficulties In tions in Greece caused no sald he feared that a bad mit- I tried to The most take bad been made. postponement. that can be claimed is that console him by saying that, even It things went wrong, it would only be an some forces were diverted.

Incident-we munt vegard this as a defensive phose,

is arguable, too, that it This was not a pretty to send our forces to Greece picture.

would have been wise policy

ON

Invasion

To

N April 12, Dill was sum- moned to Chequers for the

night, and, after luncheon,

spent

TO

Drawing by

WHITEAR

1 W shortage of shipping.

CHURCHILL

-WHEN HE ASKS FOR

100 TANKS FOR EGYPT

My suggestion was received in dead stience...

about Wavell and his proverbial

Slowing down

"

"palatable" to him. But I said,

“We must say frankly and clear ly whether his proposition is, in our opinion, quite unsound.

• On December 9, 1940, General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander-in- Chief, Middlo East, opened his offensive against the Italians in the Western Desert. By the

of middle

February Tobruk and Benghazi had fallen. By the end of March British and Italian Somaliland had been cap- tured.

All through these first three months of 1941 the German threat to Greece was apparent.

On January 9 a tele- gram was sent to Wavell to say that the support of Greece was to take precedence of all operations in the Middle East, This filled Wavali the with dismay. On

16th he reported that the Greeks did not want our units for fear that their arrival might provoke the Cermans to attack them." The Chief of the Im- perial General Staff, General Sir John Dill, and Kennedy both opposed

the Greek enterprise, Kennedy reports Difas saying on his return from a War Cabinet meeting on February 11: "I gave it as my view that all the troops in the Middle East are fully employed, and that none are available for Greaca. The Prime Minister lost his tempor with me. I could see the blood coming up his great neck and his eyes began to flash. He said: "What you need out there is a court martial and a firing squad. I should have said, 'Whom do you want to shoot exactly?' but { did not think of it till afterwards."

The next day Dlil left with the Foreign Secretary, Mr Anthony Eden, on a mission to the

Balkan capitals. During this visit opinion swung In favour of the Creek

Even enterprise..

Dill came to favour it. So did- Wavell. And on February 24 the Cabinet approved it unanimously.

This suggestion was received But next day Mr Churchill Ismay then returned to London and after a

NEXT WEEK

'That's Defeatism'

Says

The Premier

taneously with the opening In Egypt the Germany

a couple of hours with of the operations in Greece. had driven forward 10 him to discuss points which

But Greece, in my opinion, Tobruk, where the 9th Aus- mht be raised by the Prime the number of tanks we could shrewd and able man, with a ceed direct through the Mediter

Minister. He was still

very tired,

I said to the First Sea Lord in lend silence. hardly be regarded Trulian Division was concen- Churchill had expressed n wish despatch was limited anyway by caustic wit. He told us a story rancan. otherwise than as an error trated. Wavell had lost h's te rend more, tanks to Wavell,

At this time it seemed quit silences. He had dined with and the Vice-Chicl of the Air telephoned to the Prime Minister talk with the tank experts, gavo of military judgment. It was Armoured. Brigado and mort Lut we had advised that no more of his Motor Brigade. Gen- Tank Brigades should leave the

im in Cairo on his way home, Stuff that I felt we and had asked hin what he the issue whether we could puned our meeting until 10 pm. loaded in the convoy, Events the first of the series of

inore tanka

from the and he replied that he would proved that he was utterly and major mistakes that finally erala Neame, O'Connor and United Kingdom for the moment. Jest in Whitehall. The Chiefs thought of possibilities in the spare

lie had brushed this advice aside of Staff were being over-driven;

desert, "That is a complicated United Kingdom; I reminded

send up Mr Eden to take the completely right. Je to Wavell's removal from Gambler-Parry and three and Dill intended to return to and they were having to com- matter," Wavell had replied, them that the Chiefs of Staff choir.

brigadiers had been taken the charge.

pete for the Prime Minister's and, said Menzies, I sat back had quite recently given their his command,

prisoner. Practically all of

attention with a group of private expecting to hear an interesting opinion, that

When we assembled ogalu we could not. It seems odd now that we "soothsayers."

uiter exposition - bul,

10 General Ismay, the Military Eden, with great vigour, ad- It can, of course, be Wavell's tanks, except for

were still regarding a German argued that we gained a a few at Tobruk and those invasion of England as possible. On April 17 Dill told me that minutes' silence, I realised that Secretary to die War Cabinet. yocated the despatch of the suggested a way of presenting hundred tanks to Egypt. This decision In this sense to the I did not repord as a very big great moral advantage in with the Armoured Brigade Our view at that time was that he had been dining with Mr the conversation was over."

Frime Minister so as to make it issue, but were in work- it was a real, although diminish- Menzies, the Prime Minister of the eyes of America and of in Greece,

opposed the muggest tion because I thought it wrong the world when we went to shops for repair and out of tg, danger. It must be remem- Australia, and that Menzies was bered that the Germans had not worried over the situation of

and because I knew that Dili the rescue of the Greeks. It action.

yet attacked Russia; compara- two of the three Australian

was against it. We reached no conclusion, lively few of their troops were divisions in the Middle East- engaged in active operations, the one shut up in Tobruk, the TN Crece, plans were being mude to withdraw to Thermo- and they had some 200 divisions other in Greece. He had told pylae. In the desert the Ger- available for new enterprises, Dll that he would hardly date muns continued to drive us back. go home, and that he might shut there were signs that their Sir Alan-Brooke, Commander well go for a trip to the North Jengthening -Chief of the, Home Forces, Fole. Stoutly resisted cay, further de- Fletion of his command. Some Di sald to me that he, too,

Tthis point of General of His Divisions on the const was anxious abent the Middle

A Kennedy's story we are were, hiding a front of over 40 East, and particularly because The military opinion ten- He was very tired and said miles apiece, and a fairly strong so many Dominion troops were

able to see the end of that dered to the Cabinet by the d not slept for three rights, tank reserve was essential for involved. He felt he had made

expedition to Greece of the Iden of the Greek expedi- of the Intransigeance of his he was in Chiefs of Stuff and by told him how operations were counter-attack. Brooke had said mistake,

developing. He said, "I win to me that he hoped we would Egypt, in not realising the full April 20, a Sunday, and April 1941, and the dire tion, Waveli allowed his Judg- military advisers, and nothing Wavell was proved wrong in frightfully anxious about Egypt not "rald his orchard any more extent of the danger in the

therefore attended a meeting of consequences which flowed ment to be switched in favour else, which procured for Wavell

of it. incidentally, This

was the hundred tanks which he des- There is no the Chiefs of Stuff in his place.

from it. every respect. Nor is there it is desperate situation. I to reinforce the Middle East. Western Desert.

done, not by That Civilian, perately needed to hold the road now that

This meeting had been sur Wavell's any time widely held, that said I did not agree; the German Churchill, in the meantime, was doubt

In the

(who Western Desert, the Winston Churchill

Canal was to Cairo and the Suez moned, at the Prime Minister's our intervention delayed the ellort in the desert seemed to constantly urging the despatch Intelligence had underestimate request, to consider a note e frults of General Wavell's bri. always strongly backing it), but from the pounding blows of

be expended for the moment: o more tanks to Wavell.

Hant winter advance

to by The Soldier, General German attuck on Russin, Wavell had plenty of room to

had sent up from the country, Benghaz! were thrown

Sir Rommel's Afrik Korps. away: John Dill, the Chief of Imperial and helped to save the Red manoeuvre, with four or ve We know now that he wes I had met Menzies on April in which he suggested that a with them went the lart chance General Staff (who had himself Army by shortening what hundred miles of desert behind right. But the argument be-

10, when he came to the War hundred more tanks should be of mopping up the defeated and begun by opposing the idea and , and he had everything to tween rim and the General Office to get information about sent to Egypt. They were to go utterly dlarupted remnants of only subsequently accepted It),

Italian army and of The Budness of War is to be put in by drawing Homme on. Staff proved, in the end, to have our future plans. He seemed in a convoy which was due to the

Even largely academic, because th me to be an Our talk was interrupted by a

exceptionally leave on April 24, and to pro- effectively occupying. North „Africa before the German rein- Joreements, and especially General Rommel's formidable So the responsibility for the Afrika Korps, could arrive, Greek Expedit on disaster must

even on a forlorn hope against military advice, But these were not the grounds

which

the enterprise went forward..

on

shed by Hatchinsons, price 251,

FERDINAND

Very tired

SAW. DHI

when he arrived in the War Offer In the afternoon,

when

This danger, 100.

By. Mik...

communications. were slowing' down their ad- vatice, It now became neces- whether WC: ary to consider should evacuate our forces from

Greece in order to save Egypt.

Dill as

out of London

to MADRID...

on

COMMENTARY

BY FRANK OWEN

General Kennedy lays part of Forces on Wavell himself. alone. the blame

must go to Churchill As General Kennedy's tells, it was the Prime

his is fair enough, In the sense Mury that having originally opposed Minister's insistence in the faco

Shared

The Chiefs of Staff in White all during mid-April 1941, and most rigidly of all, General Sir Alan Brooke the Commander- in-Chief Home Forers

were holding on to the idea that Hitler's threatened invasion of England was still at hand, and

night materfallse.

In Greece, an afterwards in be shared between the Service Crete, we almply naded some, Chiefs and The Clvillan.

Churchill's vlow prevailed in моге disastrous retreats to The credit for rebuilding the the end. And Wavell got his those of Norway and France, wasted strength of our Desert tanks--jus; In Ume,

MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN

CALM DOWN, NO, 17 DON'T THINK YOU'RE WHACKY. MY DIVISION KANDLES-ER-- CASED LIKE THIS.

| GOON,PLEASE.

-THIS THIEFJUST APPEARED AT OUR PENTHOUSE--MASKED ** WITH A GUN, HE TOOK MY, JEWELS-MONEY--

TIED US UP-

"AND THEN--YOU MAY FIND

THIS HARD TO BELIEVE-

จิกน

By Lee Falk and Phil Davis

-FAIRLY HARD, SO HE TOOKDFF.. JUST LIKE THAT"" WITH YOUR JEWELST

AND MONEY.

YES!

SWISSAIR

There's More than Magic

about CADBURY'S

HONG KONGS Favourite Chocolates

"And remember, when I give

pep-Talks I don't want howls of "MUSH”

MACMILLAN EXPEDITION

To the

somewhat frigid COMMONU

FALTH

JOHNNY HAZARD

HOW THAT OUR WRECKED

WHICH IS WHY

WE'LL CHEEK IN

A FLANE HAS BEEN TROUTKEP } WITH THE GENERAL

OUT OF HERE, JOHNNY, IT

LOOKS LIKE WE'RE TWO

TEST PILOTS SEARCHING,

„FOR A PLANG TO HAPPEN!

AND SEE WHAT

WORD HE'S GOTTEN "FROM OUR BOSS,

FALCON "ARCRAFTĮ.

LATER...

YU? JUST BEEN TALKING WITH YOUR BOY SCOTTY, AT FALCON, STATESIPE! WE'RE SHIPPING YOUR KNOCKER- DOWN FLAKE BACK TO THE PLANT FOR REBUILDING! ANI? MRANYMILE,/

Frank Robbins

**YOU KIPS ARE ON EXTENDED LEAVE WITH A BIG BONUS!SCRITTY]

· MAS KENTER YOU OUT TO A MOVIE' COMPANY ON LOCATION IN, TE

SOUTH KOREAL

AUSTIN

A WIDE RANGE COFİCARS

for

HOME LEAVE

METRO CARS (H.K.) LTD)

OFF TO ADVENTURE

I wish the Maschmier (Pokr