The Gathering Storm. Geirr Haarr
and from Scandinavia, A/S patrols in the Fair Isle Channel and searching for German ships attempting to pass through the Bergen–Shetland Narrows or the Faeroes–Iceland–Greenland Passage. The Rosyth Escort Force, consisting largely of V&W-class destroyers and sloops, took convoys up and down the coast. The Humber Force, based at Immingham, near Grimsby, covered the east coast of England, including invasion defence.
The destroyers of the Home Fleet, when not in direct support of the capital ships, were used as much as possible in the A/S role and convoy escort. They soon proved alarmingly vulnerable to aircraft attack and poorly equipped to fight back against anything but surface vessels. Even taking on the U-boats turned out to be a bigger challenge than anticipated.
During the autumn of 1939, atrocious weather followed by severe frost with heavy ice conditions slowed the naval war. At times, smaller ships had to concentrate just on surviving; some of the British destroyers with captains reluctant to slow down in the face of the weather suffered structural damage. Impulsive was one, Kelly another, resulting in time in the yard and cautions from the Admiralty. The rudders of Rodney and Nelson as well as the cruisers Glasgow and Southampton were damaged, apparently from a weak design that rendered them incapable of withstanding the strain of continuous zigzagging in rough seas. Several ships suffered from leaks, especially the destroyers, and time spent in the yards increased.20
Control of the French military was in the hands of the Council of Ministers. In September 1939, Édouard Daladier was president of the council (prime minister) as well as minister of national defence and minister for war. His chief military advisers were General Maurice Gamelin, C-in-C of the Army and Chief of Staff for National Defence, General Vuillemin, the air force Chief of Staff, and Admiral Darlan of the navy.
As a precaution, all French ports were closed in the morning of 1 September. When it became clear the next day that Italy would not join the war at this stage, the Mediterranean ports were reopened and coastal traffic permitted. The western ports and thus all transatlantic traffic remained suspended until the 5th, when war had been declared and the whereabouts of the German fleet had been ascertained. Merchant ships in the Mediterranean were allowed to sail independently along approved routes, while in the North Sea and the Atlantic, French ships would be subordinated to the British convoy system. Most of the French naval resources in 1939 and early 1940 were deployed protecting their own troop convoys from Africa to Marseille.
The first casualties of the Marine Nationale occurred on 13 September. The mine-laying cruiser Pluton had been sent to Casablanca to lay a defensive minefield off the West African coast. The order was cancelled and Pluton ordered back to disembark the mines, which had already been armed. One of them exploded, destroying the ship and killing 215 officers and men. A further 120 were injured, of whom forty-seven were harbour personnel.21
To ensure a more flexible use of the French ships, Churchill and Pound visited Maintenon in September to meet with Admiral Darlan. It was agreed that, in addition to helping protect the steady stream of British troops transported across the Channel, the Marine Nationale would participate in the escort of certain Atlantic and Gibraltar convoys as agreed from case to case.22 In return, Asdic-equipped trawlers would be provided as well as general A/S and mine-sweeping competence. The mistrust between the two allies ran deep, though, and it would be well into 1940 before any direct cooperation between the navies started to develop.
Also in September, Chamberlain and Daladier agreed to establish an Anglo-French Supreme War Council (SWC), to oversee the joint military strategy on which France and Britain should base the war against Germany. Each country should be represented by its prime minister and such counsellors as they decided to bring. The council would have no executive authority, and final decisions remained with the two governments. At the two first meetings of the SWC, in Abbeville on 12 September and Hove near Brighton on 22 September, France persistently argued for action elsewhere. The British delegation, on the other hand, shrank from measures that might mean an escalation of the conflict, especially into the Mediterranean. Soon, other differences emerged too, in particular as the influence of the military leaders started to grow beyond that of merely advisers to the politicians. Above all, the issue of Scandinavian neutrality in general and assistance to Finland in particular was to sour the Anglo-French relationship profoundly.23
In September 1939, the Royal Navy could muster a little over 130,000 officers and men, including 12,400 Royal Marines who, in addition to delivering police duties and landing parties, handled every fourth turret on the larger ships. To man the ships of the Reserve Fleet – some 130 vessels of all sizes – an additional 80,000 men of the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) had to be mobilised. The RNR were largely professional seamen from the British merchant navy and fishing fleets or retired naval officers and ratings who had completed their first twelve-year engagement but not re-enlisted.24 The RNVR were amateurs who had volunteered for basic training.
In mid-June 1939, the first officers and men of the RNR were called up and in late August a general mobilisation of the navy was ordered including the RNVR and ‘hostilities only’ ratings. In addition, a restart of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS, affectionately known as Wrens), which had been abandoned after the previous war, was initiated, freeing up a significant number of men for active service. By midsummer 1939, a slow but steady re-manning of the ships of the Reserve Fleet was in progress. Few of the ‘hostilities only’ ratings had any connections with the navy at all and needed an extensive period of training before they could even be considered for war. In some of the new ships the majority of the men and officers had not served, far less served together, in a setting of war. This put a huge strain on the officers and NCOs, not least those of the RNR, who in increasing numbers were given command of the smaller vessels, sloops, corvettes, minesweepers, trawlers and auxiliaries.25 Commander Jack Broome of Veteran wrote:
I commissioned the vintage destroyer Veteran from Reserve at Chatham and a veteran she surely was, built shortly after World War I. [. . .] My raw crew and their raw skipper were going through that harsh, vicious change-over from peace to war; adapting ourselves to the current technique of defending our vital merchant navy which, except for the advent of air power, was back to where the last war ended. [. . .] The magic of radar, for example, was entering our lives, complete with teething troubles. Seamen – who had never been to sea – were trained to operate it. The buzz got around that crossing the beam with the instrument switched on would make them impotent. Came rough weather, less superstitious operators promptly put paid to their precious instruments by being sick into them. Emergency signals went forth both to refute the impotence scare and telling the Medical Research to drop the pill they were working on to keep Wrens out of trouble and get cracking on one to stop radar operators being seasick. And so on. A different war with different problems, but the same old tussle with human imperfections.26
Destroyer Veteran of the Reserve Fleet. (World Ship Photo Library)
Gunnery practice and torpedo-firing was lacking, in particular for the destroyers, and tactical operations such as U-boat hunting had to be learned the hard way. Soon, however, the well-oiled machinery started to work. Admiral William James, C-in-C Portsmouth, wrote in a letter to a friend on 9 September:
I take my hat off to those who planned for this war. Everything seems to have fallen into place. The boom, an immense structure, is in place with its gate vessels, the examination service is functioning and the inner patrol, a kind of water police service, is in being. The safe passage of the Army to France is my main commitment. I’ve got some destroyers for escorting the troopships which load at Southampton. The accurate ‘buttoning up’ of the troopships and escorts is a daily task for the staff, who so far have done remarkably well. I was at the barracks during the mobilisation. I wish you could have seen that perfect example of good organisation. Everything has been thought out.27
There were several stark reminders that the sea was as dangerous as ever. In December, the battleship Barham was called back from the Mediterranean to the Home Fleet and at 04:00 on 12 December she and her escorting destroyers were 9 miles off