CAB80-25 — Page 116

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Oil.

23. The Fifth Report of the Lloyd Committee brings out the following points :---

(i) On the assumption that our present scale of attack on the enemy's oil is maintained, the enemy's oil position will be causing him grave anxiety by the Spring of 1941. Their greatest anxiety will be in respect of gas (Diesel) oil.

(ii) After the end of March, if our scale of attack remains as at present,

the enemy's oil position will gradually improve.

(iii) If, however, we are able to increase our scale of attack by bombing, sabotage, and other means, between now and the Spring of 1941, we may be able to place the enemy in a most critical position.

(iv) Although the stoppage of Roumanian supplies would be the biggest single blow to the German oil position the destruction of his synthetic oil plants in Germany alone would bring about a crisis.

24. If these deductions are agreed, it appears that the destruction of Germany's synthetic oil plants will reduce Germany to such a shortage of oil within the next six mouths that there will be widespread effects on German industry and communications. It is even probable that within this time an appreciable effect may be felt in the scale of effort of her armed forces. This is particularly so, since a high proportion of the loss of oil we could inflict would fall on certain grades of oil which might then be almost unobtainable. Even if no interruption occurs to her Roumanian supplies this degree of shortage will be aggravated during the year since supplies other than from synthetic plants will not entirely keep pace with German consumption. The interruption of Roumanian supplies, in addition to the destruction of the synthetic plants might render Germany impotent before the end of 1941.

We wish to stress that we have based these conclusions on the assumption that the figures in the Lloyd Report are approximately correct.

25. Of all types of targets in the German war machine the oil supply is the most vulnerable and practical for air attack. The synthetic oil plants are comparatively large targets, few in number, to some extent self-destructive and mostly in areas which are at present less heavily defended than others. The main targets are only nine in number, namely, the major synthetic plants. The complete destruction of these nine plants alone would reduce Germany's internal production of oil by 83 per cent. The remainder of the synthetic production is at present derived from a further eight plants.

26. From our experience we estimate that if the destruction of these nine major and eight minor synthetic oil plants is made the primary aim, this could be achieved within a period of four months.

27. It can be argued that, if we do not succeed in destroying the nine major targets, or if we are unsuccessful in impeding the supplies of oil from Roumania, the enemy may escape a crisis in oil, and that, in this event, the effort which we have expended will not have contributed so much to his defeat as would a similar scale of attack directed against other primary targets.

We do not think this argument is justified. The limited number of targets to be attacked under this primary aim persuade us that there are good prospects of destroying them, provided that our plans are framed so as to produce the maximum concentration upon them whenever possible.

29. The attack on oil targets would not be incompatible with the attack on morale since certain of these targets are situated in industrial areas.

30. Our conclusion therefore is that synthetic oil plants should be our primary aim; if this is accepted operations should begin at the earliest possible date in order to take full advantage of the longer nights.

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