Post by Joel ShepherdAs ever ... I'm confused. I'll admit to being no expert on this subject,
but in what little reading I've done about it, there didn't seem to be
any representation on the part of the US that the ships _were_ suitable
for such operations, mid-ocean. They were well known to be old
destroyers. Surely both navies would have known their limitations. Is
there documentation that suggests otherwise: e.g., that the RN believed
it was getting destroyers suited as convoy escorts?
The USN had trouble protecting its own coast. Did the RN seriously
believe that the USN had 50 modern destroyers to hand over?
Sorry, I never wanted to imply that the RN didn't know exactly what they
were getting.
Some background:
On 15 May 1940, with German troops on the Channel, Churchill cabled
Roosevelt with an urgent plea for assistance. Top of the list was
"destroyers", meaning modern hulls, if necessary serving USN ships reflagged
to the RN. Roosevelt refused to supply any hulls on 16 May; on 17 May
Lothian, British Ambassador to the US, met Roosevelt and pressed him
further, warning that, if Britain fell, the US could not defend both the
Atlantic and Pacific against a combined German-Japanese attack. This general
line was pressed over the next few weeks; on 27 May the War Cabinet resolved
to make it clear that Britain would not sacrifice its own interests in any
peace settlement which might be forced upon it by Germany to defend those of
the US if the US did not give Britain immediate aid. This was code for
saying that the Fleet might be bargained away to Germany, against US
interests.
Notwithstanding this, by 30 May Roosevelt told Lothian that he was confident
that, if the UK fell, HMG would send the Fleet to Canada to defend North
America whatever the US did. On 5 June, Churchill warned Mackenzie King
against allowing Roosevelt to believe this. This bore some fruit, as
Roosevelt started instructing his officials to find away to supply arms and
military supplies to Britain but, on the matter of ships, Roosevelt refused
to give way.
On 16 & 17 June, Lothian pressed Roosevelt to make a statement in Congress
about the Fleet and the two-ocean dilemma; Hull advised Roosevelt that this
would be political suicide. So, Lothian exposed the issue himself in his
speech at Yale on 19 June, pointing out that even if Britain evacuated the
Fleet from the UK in the case of a successful German invasion, few ships
would come to American aid, given probable losses and the need to reinforce
Australia and India as well as Canada. This was partially
counter-productive: by painting a gloomy picture, it made Roosevelt's
political position more delicate and exposed him to the idea that there was
no point transferring ships to the RN if their likely fate was simply to be
added to the Kriegsmarine.
Roosevelt thus continued to refuse any transfer of ships to Britain, causing
Lothian - who was personally deeply depressed and far from convinced that
Britain could survive a German invasion - to start very overtly pressing
London to start evacuating support units and supplies. By 27 June, Lothian's
attitude was well known in Washington, blocking the supply of ships and
supplies even if there had been a will to do so. Marshall in particular was
firmly convinced that Britain would fall and that no aid other than obsolete
stockpiles should be sent. The attack on the French fleet also did not help
matters, by making the German threat to the US less credible. It became
clear that the US would not now aid Britain militarily unless it became
clear they were reinforcing a British success.
On 29 June, with the invasion fear receding, Cabinet finally resolved that
nothing should be given to the US by way of aid or bases unless reciprocal
aid was received from the US.
During July, the Churchill-Roosevelt debate abated. In this pause in
negotiation, Churchill and Lothian sought to make a deal possible by putting
together a package of potential British aid to the US, mainly technical and
intellectual, such as sonar, radar and nuclear physics secrets, new ship and
weapons designs, some material aid with scarce commodities like tungsten,
and of course the offer of three limited-facility US bases on British
Caribbean possessions. Lothian worked closely with Knox, Morgenthau and
Stimson about the details of what the US most wanted.
On 29 July, Cabinet approved a renewed request from Churchill to Roosevelt
for "at least 50 [modern] destroyers" and lesser numbers of other modern
weapon systems in return for the three bases; on 2 August Lothian formally
communicated details of the bases (the rest of the British package was to
negotiated separately). Prompted by Lothian, Knox pressed Roosevelt to agree
to a deal. Roosevelt, having received assurances from Congress that a deal
might be agreed, then set about improving the US position.
On 7 August, he insisted on an explicit public statement in Parliament that
the Fleet would be sent abroad in the event of an invasion of the UK (ie not
bargained away); asked Britain for seven full-scale bases in the Caribbean,
rather than the three limited-facility sites offered, and critically
downgraded the destroyers from the modern or refurbished hulls requested by
Britain to the old WW1 hulls which Marshall and Knox were prepared to
certify as no longer essential to US defence needs. This bargain was
lopsided - 50 old hulls were not worth to Britain the massive benefit gained
by the US of 7 base sites plus a guarantee of major naval aid.
Churchill therefore backed away from a bargain, as did Cabinet. They asked
on 14 August for the bases and destroyers to be offered by each side as a
gift, rather than as a transaction. Roosevelt declined, quoting Congress and
US law but in reality - as the British knew - he had the power to make the
destroyer gift by Executive Agreement, as he had with the old rifles already
dispatched. It was another example of needless US humiliation of Britain
It was at this time, late August 1940, that the Admiralty sent experts to
the US to examine the destroyers and compile their report on their
operational utility and the cost of their refurbishment. That report to
Cabinet of 29 August, clearly concluded that, in terms of the urgent needs
of the RN, the old destroyers were a Trojan horse - worse than no gift at
all.
In the end, Churchill forced his colleagues to accept the rather pathetic
compromise that Britain would publicly offer the bases freely as a gift,
although covertly regarding the matter as a deal, while Roosevelt accurately
publicly represented the deal as a transaction. As the paperwork shows, only
two base sites were offered as gifts, the other five (plus a further one in
Antigua) were formally exchanged in return for the destroyers.
Timing is also very important. In May 1940, Britain had only around 65
operational destroyers in home waters (ie for anti-invasion duties, fleet
escort, coastal convoying and Atlantic convoying); by 1 July, this fell to
48. Given the possibility of invasion, this was a gigantic shortfall. But by
15 August, transfers from the Med and Far East, plus new construction, had
raised the number back to over 75 - not ample by any means, but by no means
the critical situation of June. Alternative vessels such as armed light
craft in the Channel, converted trawlers and the corvette were either in
place or building. By the time the US was ready to deal - early August -
Britain no longer had quite such a critical need even for modern hulls, and
still less for old hulls needing extensive work before being ready for
service.
All facts have cited academic sources, available on request.
Post by Joel ShepherdPresumably freeing up other ships better suited for the more demanding
duties you mention. The opportunity cost of keeping more modern warships
tied down with menial coastal patrol duties would be pretty high I
suspect. There'd be considerable benefit to replacing those ships with
cheaper, less-capable ships, and then using them to protect high-value
convoys in open ocean.
Yes. But the Admiralty did not tie down destroyers on this duty: from 1938
onwards they converted the hundreds of thousands of coastal and oceanic
trawlers in the British fishing fleet. An ASDIC set, a couple of machine
guns and a few depth charges were enough to convert a trawler into a low
grade but nevertheless worthwhile coastal and even oceanic escort platform -
the corvette design was not much more than this. Converting a trawler (which
came complete with most crew members) was far less costly than refurbishing
the old US destroyers. In fact, a new corvette could be built in pretty much
the same time as the refit.
And, incidentally, while Atlantic convoys have the glamour, many of the same
ships once arrived at the UK ended up going around the coast to other major
ports. Their protection on that journey was just as important.
(snip)
