Читать книгу Mr. Roosevelt's Navy - Patrick Abazzia - Страница 19

6. A Blue Flag at Ivigtut

THE COLLAPSE OF FRANCE in the desperate spring of 1940 ended the American reverie of a war without sacrifice.

On 20 May the British ambassador in Washington wrote a friend:

The USA is at last profoundly moved and frightened. It had been dreaming on that it could keep out and that the Allies would keep the tiger away. And now the spectre has suddenly arisen that the British fleet may disappear and then what is to happen to itself? It has only one navy. Is it to keep it in the Atlantic or Pacific? If it keeps it in the Pacific, Germany and Italy will be able to take Brazil . . . and threaten the Canal. If it keeps it in the Atlantic the Japanese will take over the Pacific. If it divides its fleet it will be impotent in both oceans.¹

Several days later, President Roosevelt ordered the preparation of emergency plans for occupation of the Allies’ West Indian possessions and for an expeditionary force to support Brazil in the event of an Axis-inspired revolt, though the latter proved beyond the means of the U.S. Army. The planners warned that if the Germans acquired significant numbers of French ships, the United States would have but a six months’ grace period, concluding, “the date of the loss of the British or French fleets automatically sets the date of our mobilization.” And Admiral Ellis grimly warned: “The present composition of the [Atlantic] Squadron is quite inadequate to cope with the forces which the progress of events in Europe may soon release to operate against it.”²

Because of the uncertain situation in Latin America, the heavy cruiser Quincy was ordered south from her Neutrality Patrol station at Guantanamo Bay. She spent a few days in Rio without incident, except that on 15 June a liberty party was recalled to the cruiser because of a clash between police and pro-Allied demonstrators. The American officers found the leaders of the Brazilian Navy friendly, but felt the Army was pro-German. President Getulio Vargas, who understood the vulnerable geographic position of his country in relation to Vichy-dominated northwest Africa and feared a coup by Brazilian Germans, crushed political agitation with a heavy hand; but, conscious of German power, he was reluctant to form closer ties with the United States. The Quincy’s skipper reported that most of Brazil’s problems were economic, those of a colonial economy exchanging low-cost raw materials for high-priced manufactured goods; he recommended more liberal trade agreements with Latin America,³ a comment that must have warmed the heart of that vehement foe of tariffs, Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

The cruiser went on to Montevideo and was well received, thousands crowding along the waterfront in welcome. Minister Edwin C. Wilson promised Uruguay assistance “in crushing all activities which arise from non-American sources.”

The heavy cruiser Wichita visited Argentina, and the officers felt that, when the warship left, Nazi-inspired disturbances were likely as part of a plan to test U.S. reactions and “discover to what length the United States is willing to go to uphold the Monroe Doctrine.”⁴

The State Department’s Division of American Republics feared that “a successful revolution backed by the Nazis is becoming a more likely possibility” in Latin America. Laurence Duggan, a State Department Latin-American specialist, hoped that the Quincy’s visit would “put a little iron in the veins of our friends in those countries.” Undersecretary Sumner Welles pressed for a task force of cruisers and destroyers to operate off South America throughout the summer.⁵

Admiral Stark was furious when he learned of these plans. His Atlantic ships were dispersed from Boston to Puerto Rico, conducting routine patrol duties that prevented vital training; reserve forces had to be maintained for emergency operations in such remote parts as Dakar and Greenland. He could not afford another diversion of ships for political reasons; besides, it would be difficult to supply so large a force as four heavy cruisers and nine destroyers from so small and distant a base as Guantanamo.

Accordingly, on 2 June, Admiral Stark wrote the President, stating that Nazism would thrive or decline in Latin America in proportion to German successes in Europe; all that visits of American ships might do was to encourage the military services to remain loyal to their governments. He opposed bringing ships from the Pacific Fleet for fear of weakening “the deterrent effect on Japan.” Finally, he lamented the President’s fondness for gunboat diplomacy:

The days of the old fashioned landing party and bluff such as occurred when I was a midshipman in Caribbean and South American waters are over. If a test should come and our ships should take no physical action, the ultimate effect might be unfavorable. . . . It seems to me that interference in the internal affairs of a temperamental and suspicious people may have the opposite effect to that which is desired. . . .⁶

But Undersecretary Welles was appalled at the notion that the United States “should do nothing” when governments in the hemisphere were menaced by Nazi-nurtured revolts. The President agreed with Welles, but Stark’s vehemence and fear of Japanese moves in southeast Asia restrained him. From time to time during the summer, the Quincy and the “Witch” showed the flag and watched developments in South America without incident.⁷

Attempts to reach tacit defense alliances with the Latin nations were uniformly unsuccessful, for the Latin Americans demanded in return shipments of arms, particularly artillery. The myth of Yankee opulence persuaded some that armaments were not provided because of penury or foolish preoccupation with European affairs. Some leaders were afraid of provoking the possibly victorious Germans, others feared domestic political opposition. Some were unwilling to invest the resources and energies of their nations in defense, since the United States, in the interest of its own security, would have to assist hemispheric countries in an emergency. Others felt that no direct threat to the hemisphere yet existed.⁸

The presence of French warships, particularly the carrier Béarn, in the West Indies was another source of concern in Washington. Because of pride and reluctance to antagonize their German conquerors, the French would not allow their ships to join the British. The British blockaded Martinique and Guadeloupe from their own West Indian bases. Hence, in July, the Atlantic Squadron had to furnish a cruiser and six destroyers to replace the British in watching the French islands, in order to end the British snub of the Monroe Doctrine and avoid a possible Anglo-French clash. Meanwhile, plans were prepared for the capture of the islands. In August, Rear Admiral John Greenslade was sent to Fort de France to get assurances that the French ships would not steam to Africa to join the Vichy forces. The French demurred, later arguing that they had hinted at compliance but were hardly in a position to give formal assent. The status quo continued into the fall. Intelligence reports and patrols were used to keep track of the French vessels. The American skippers assumed that, if the French warships came out, the U.S. vessels would follow and periodically broadcast position reports, allowing the British to turn back the ships, hopefully without a fight. But no one knew for certain.⁹ The President kept his intentions to himself.

The Danes, fearing either German or British occupation of Greenland, requested American assistance in defending it. The State Department rejected the idea, fearing to set a precedent for occupation of the territory of defeated European powers which Japan might follow. But it was decided to send a vessel immediately to show the flag and reassure the population.

Greenland was important because a knowledge of its weather was vital to forecasting conditions in the North Atlantic and much of Europe. Early in the war, the German Navy had fitted out a weather-ship, the Sachsen, to operate off the east coast of Greenland, but naval fears of losing the ship to the Royal Navy and Foreign Office fears of provoking the United States by operations in the Western Hemisphere deterred its sailing. However, the Germans were believed to have set up a meteorological station on the barren northeast coast, and German patrol bombers from Norway were said to overfly the area periodically, perhaps in search of weather data, perhaps to supply clandestine parties below. Another source of Greenland’s significance was the cryolite mine in the small west coast town of Ivigtut; the mineral was indispensable in the manufacture of aluminum. The Canadians seemed anxious to occupy Greenland, and the State Department feared that the Canadians were interested as much in securing exclusive use of the cryolite as in defense strategy.

It was decided to employ Coast Guard ships for the Greenland patrol operations. Coast Guardsmen were familiar with the difficult operating conditions in those waters, as a result of experience in conducting the International Ice Patrol. The presence of their cutters in northern waters was normal, and thus would attract little notice. And, finally, although the cutters mounted a 3-inch gun, several 50s, and could accommodate an SOC reconnaissance float plane, they belonged to a civilian agency, the Treasury Department, and so were technically not warships.¹⁰

On 10 May, Lieutenant Commander Frank Meals sailed in the Comanche for Greenland with civilian officials, supplies, and equipment for a radio station. At Boston, Commander Edward H. “Iceberg” Smith, an eminent oceanographer and explorer, readied other cutters for the task of prowling the east coast of Greenland for signs of German activity.

By 20 May, the Comanche was off Ivigtut, the crew scanning rippled, gray sea and a silent, craggy shore. The sailors watched as people came out of the mine and clustered in cheerless groups on the beach. The cutter was the first ship the Greenlanders had seen since their country had been overwhelmed by the Nazis; they were afraid to believe that it was not German. The Comanche anchored and broke out the blue flag of Denmark at her foremast. Soon the houses ashore were similarly arrayed, and one displayed the only American flag in town. When the Danish mine manager greeted the Americans, he did not have to explain that he was crying because he was happy. An inspection of the mine revealed it to be vulnerable; barely a half-mile inland, it was so close to tidewater that a few shells landing nearby would have flooded it.

The Comanche went on to Godthaab to put ashore the first foreign consul ever to serve in Greenland. Two days later, the Hudson Bay Company vessel Nascopie put in at Ivigtut with a party of mining engineers. It was rumored that the craft carried a small landing force of Canadian troops, so the Comanche hastened back to watch over the mine. However, the Canadians merely proffered some supplies and docilely departed.

The cutters Northland, Duane, Campbell, and Cayuga joined the Comanche and spent the summer and fall evaluating air-base sites, charting the Baffin Bay and Davis Strait areas, lugging freight and supplies to isolated coastal villages, protecting Ivigtut, and exploring the east coast for German stations. Greenland officials felt that the little ships had a salutary influence on popular morale.

In early September, Northland’s men heard that a party of “Norwegian” seal hunters at King Oscar’s Fjord on the remote, ice-clogged northeast coast had set up a radio weather station. But the cutter could not pick up signals from the clandestine transmitter.

There were at least three German stations along the coast, manned by Norwegians working for the Abwehr’s Arctic Bureau, headed by the famous German meteorologist-explorer, Dr. Paul Burckhardt. When Burckhardt tried to reinforce his enclaves, the British sent the ostensibly Norwegian gunboat Fridtjof Nansen to intercept the “hunters and trappers” and eliminate the stations. The British captured the German craft off Ella Island and destroyed the stations at Eskimonaes, Ella Island, and Torgilsbu. High-handedly, they also confiscated stores of gasoline and oil from natives and took several Greenlanders into custody. The State Department protested, but the President undercut Secretary of State Hull by telling Lord Lothian, the British ambassador, that the British strike was in the common interest.

Since winter icing conditions would force the American ships to leave, the Greenlanders wanted to have an American military detachment present. Instead, a 3-inch gun, 8 machine guns, and 50 rifles were provided. However, the Greenlanders proved unable to operate the cannon, so 14 of the Campbell’s men shed their uniforms and stayed behind to protect the mine from random shelling by U-boats.

In December, the Northland was the last cutter to leave Iceland. The Coast Guardsmen would be back in the spring.¹¹

With the defeat of France, the President had to decide whether to supply material assistance to Great Britain or husband the nation’s small stock of weaponry for defense of the hemisphere; immediately, he chose the first course. He was also contemplating a shift of more warships from the Pacific to the Atlantic. But future strategy depended upon a correct estimate of Britain’s chances of survival.

In June, service planners prepared a paper, “The Basis for Immediate Decisions concerning the National Defense.” The staff officers stated that while “it appears reasonable to assume that the British Empire will exist in the Fall and Winter of 1940,—it appears to be doubtful that Great Britain itself will continue to be an actual combatant”; even should the Germans fail in an attempt to invade England, their bombing raids would destroy much of the British industrial potential for waging war. The entry of the United States into the conflict would not substantially influence events, for the American Army would not be capable of offensive action beyond the hemisphere for some time; and intervention in Europe might tempt Japan to strike in the Pacific. The planners, therefore, recommended a strategy of hemispheric defense, with material aid to Britain as long as her resistance seemed to bar the Axis from crossing the Atlantic.¹²

Therefore, the Army advocated that a revised Rainbow IV plan should become the basis of American strategy. Rainbow IV stressed hemispheric defense, that is, defense of the Hawaii-Alaska-Panama triangle and the South Atlantic approaches to the United States. General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, said, “Are we not forced into a question of reframing our national policy, that is, purely defensive action in the Pacific, with a main effort on the Atlantic side?”¹³ But to Army planners and to Marshall himself this meant defense of the Atlantic approaches to the hemisphere, not an offensive in the Atlantic.

Since the outbreak of war, the British had made information relating to their combat experience known to the Americans; in mid-June, a committee was established under Sir Sydney Bailey to facilitate the exchange of information. While some British officers felt that the arrangement was too one-sided and resisted American requests to place observers aboard British ships, the Bailey Committee, the Admiralty, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill realized that a policy of frankness would help in obtaining American material assistance. Churchill and the Bailey Committee recommended that informal staff conversations be held between American and British planning officers, and the Committee set to work to establish general plans for Anglo-American naval cooperation in the event of American entry into the war. The Bailey Committee planners soon decided that the American Navy’s role was to deter the Japanese fleet in the Pacific and, in the Atlantic, to provide destroyers for the escort of convoys and task forces of heavy ships to defend the sea lanes against German surface raiders. Meanwhile, President Roosevelt was similarly inclined toward mutual naval planning and cooperation. Both he and Admiral Stark recalled bitterly that President Woodrow Wilson had strictly forbidden such meetings in 1917, with the result that when America entered the war, months were wasted because there were no detailed plans for joint naval operations.

Yet coherent formulation of American strategy depended upon a correct estimate of Britain’s moot chances of survival. Hence, the President decided to send several service representatives to London to secure reliable information. The delegation was to be headed by the Assistant CNO, Rear Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, a reserved, urbane, intelligent Virginian; Ghormley was cool and able, and his long experience as a staff officer, while causing him to lack combative drive and fire, seemed to fit him well for such a mission. He was to go to England as Special Naval Observer along with an Army and Air Corps representative.

In late July, Franklin Roosevelt met with Ghormley to brief him on his mission. Roosevelt said that he needed reliable information as a basis for planning future American defense strategy. He believed that there were three future possibilities. First, that of a German invasion of Britain, followed by a British defeat and an armistice, which might mean that the Royal Navy would be lost to the Germans. This would lead to direct or indirect German intervention in Latin America and permit the Japanese to expand in the Pacific. Secondly, there was the chance that Britain would be badly weakened by air attack or invasion, but would still be able to wage a defensive war, perhaps from the dominions. Finally, there was the chance that Britain could be successfully defended and used as an advanced base to support sufficient land and air power to make a return to the continent ultimately feasible with the help of massive material aid from the United States. Ghormley sensed that Mr. Roosevelt “was not convinced that the United States would be forced to intervene as a belligerent in the war. . . .” The President concluded by reminding Ghormley that his mission was to be presented to the British as “personal and unofficial,” implying no binding commitments on the part of the United States.¹⁴

Admiral Ghormley and his two companions traveled incognito in the SS Britannic, savoring the feeling of being embarked on a secret mission of state until they were disillusioned by hearing the news of their departure routinely announced on a radio news program. The no-longer-clandestine envoys arrived in Liverpool on 15 August.

In London, Ghormley, like the naval attaché, Captain Alan Kirk, found the British determined and optimistic; morale was high, and there was an unspoken sense that America would enter the war sooner or later. The British and Americans agreed to a full exchange of information, including almost all technical secrets. Ghormley’s mission became permanent, and the attaché’s staff increased sixfold. Technical meetings were held on antisubmarine warfare, gunnery, naval aviation, intelligence, mine warfare, communications, tactics, liaison, and engineering.¹⁵ As a surfeited Stark wrote Ghormley, “Get in on any and all staff conversations you can—go as far as you like in discussions—with the full understanding you are expressing only your own views on what best to do—‘if and when’—but such must not be understood to commit your government in any manner or to any degree whatsoever.”

The Anglo-American discussions remained on the purely technical level because the Americans as yet had no long-range strategic plans to discuss with the British; in Washington, planning had not evolved beyond three generalizations: defense of the hemisphere, discreet containment of Japan, and material aid to Britain.¹⁶

The fall of France thoroughly frightened the nation, for it had hoped to remain out of the war and yet safe from the Nazi frenzy by relying on the British Navy, the French Army, and American industry. Now, one of the pillars of American security had been toppled and another seemed fated soon to fall. In July, Congress passed without major opposition the 70 percent Naval Expansion Act, which provided for 257 additional ships. The skill of the German conquests led to an exaggerated awe of German arms and to a kind of jocular cynicism about the state of U.S. defenses until the two-ocean Navy should some distant day become reality. As Mayor Fiorello La Guardia lamented, it seemed that the Republic could not even guarantee the successful defense of Coney Island!¹⁷

And as the President had told Congress in May:

So called impregnable fortifications no longer exist. A defense which allows an enemy to consolidate his approach without hindrance will lose. A defense which makes no effective effort to destroy the lines of supplies and communications of the enemy will lose.

An effective defense . . . requires the equipment to attack an aggressor on his route before he can establish strong bases within the territory of American vital interests.¹⁸

Meanwhile, the first request from abroad for the Navy’s “surplus” World War I destroyers had come from Norway as early as January. The President had told the Norwegians that the Navy had “none to spare” because of the requirements of the Neutrality Patrol, adding that such a sale would be illegal and he preferred the American Republics to “have first call” on any U.S. ships that became available.¹⁹ In the spring, Latin American nations sought the old ships, but there were none readily available, and in some cases the need seemed dubious; in the Uruguayan Navy, three admirals and assorted lesser brass presided over but one venerable gunboat and several tugs and dispatch boats, and were thought to pine for more imposing commands.²⁰

Up until April the British Admiralty had ordered only about $2½ million worth of naval equipment—mostly torpedo boat engines and degaussing wire. In May, Prime Minister Churchill requested forty or fifty of the old destroyers, but the President replied that a transfer of warships would require an act of Congress, which did not appear politically possible. In June, despite objections in the Navy, the President did try to switch a number of motor torpedo boats and sub chasers under construction for the Navy to the British, under the dubious sanction of the general laws regarding modification of contracts. However, Congress intervened, condemned the illegality of the project and, while the President bandaged his burned fingers, added a section to a naval bill prohibiting the transfer of naval equipment unless the CNO certified it not essential to the defense of the United States.²¹

The President was reluctant to part with the destroyers until he was more sure of British survival. He told Ickes on 5 June that the four-stackers would not “be of any use” to the British because they were old and lacked firepower, especially antiaircraft weapons. He explained that he was reluctant “to enrage Hitler” to so little purpose, noting cogently: “We cannot tell the turn that the war will take, and there is no use endangering ourselves unless we can achieve some results for the Allies.”²²

However, British destroyer losses in the Dunkirk evacuation and the entry of Italy into the war, opening a Mediterranean theater, increased British need. Churchill reasoned that fright was the mother of generosity, observing to Lothian that he had “no intention of relieving the United States from any well-grounded anxieties” concerning its peril should a defeated Britain be forced to surrender its fleet into Nazi hands. But to sound too strident a note of pessimism would discourage American aid. The Prime Minister was able to adopt the appropriate tone of stern determination to carry on and pointed reminders that it might not be possible to do so without help.²³

When the President ascertained from Admiral Ghormley and Captain Kirk in London that the British, still in possession of command of the seas and building up their air power, were hale and determined,²⁴ he became more amenable to the British entreaties. His only worry was the prospect of domestic opposition. As he dryly told the Cabinet, it would be difficult for Admiral Stark to certify the ships useless when over a hundred of them were either serving with the Atlantic Squadron or being reconditioned for service! Ben Cohen, an assistant to the President, argued that a transfer of destroyers would not contravene the congressional prohibition because, by helping to sustain England, it would in the long run strengthen, not weaken, American defenses. The President was unimpressed with this line of reasoning, maintaining that Congress was “in no mood . . . to allow any form of sale.” He asked Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to consider the feasibility of selling destroyers to Canada for exclusive use in the Western Hemisphere, thus releasing other warships for duty elsewhere, but no one was enamored of this obvious subterfuge.²⁵

On 1 August, Knox met with Lothian and found the Englishman “almost tearful in his pleas for help and help quickly.” The American Navy had long been interested in obtaining bases in the Caribbean, and during the thirties the question had become linked with that of the Allied World War I debts, so there were suggestions now that the needed bases should be seized in payment for the debts. Indeed, in late May, Lothian had recommended that his government lease base sites in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and Trinidad to the United States. The Royal Navy, wishing to reduce still further the number of its warships in the western Atlantic, was favorably inclined, but the British Cabinet rejected the suggestion because of the paucity of American aid up until then. Now, Knox raised the possibility of trading the destroyers for the bases.²⁶

On 2 August, Knox broached his idea to the Cabinet. The President seemed enthusiastic, although he and Secretary of State Hull were worried about Congress. Roosevelt then sounded the British out on the proposal; he also requested “positive assurances” that the British fleet would be sent to North America and not surrendered or scuttled in the event Great Britain were to be overrun by a Nazi invasion. But the British response was discouraging. While willing to let American ships and planes use facilities at their New World bases, they did not wish to lease British territory outright. They requested 96 destroyers, 20 motor torpedo boats, and ample Navy dive bombers; also, Churchill was unwilling to give the assurances asked for by the President for fear of lowering morale by suggesting Britain’s defeat and, perhaps, from a desire not to permit the Americans to feel too secure.

The President deemed the British response “entirely unsatisfactory.” He pointed out the limited quantity of American ships and planes and argued that Churchill’s remarks concerning the Royal Navy would merely involve a repetition of prior public statements. He said that he was willing to use the bases as the British thought best, but insisted on an understanding that the United States had the right to lease or purchase the territory in event of sudden necessity, such as an Axis attack on the Western Hemisphere.

The Prime Minister resented having to pawn portions of the Empire, so he decided that appearances would best be served by leasing the base sites as gifts, independent of the destroyer transfer, to avoid the sordid idea of a “deal.” However, the President’s needs were the reverse. How could Admiral Stark certify the ships as surplus unless they were bartered for something of greater value? On a scratchy transatlantic telephone, Churchill complained, “Empires just don’t bargain.” And Attorney General Robert H. Jackson responded, “Well, Republics do.”

Hull thought the British were “crawfishing”; but they legitimately feared future bickering over the size of the bases if the Americans were allowed a “blank cheque.” The Americans, impressed with the need for speed, could not understand the slowness of the British in coming to agreement; every moment of delay augmented the peril to both nations. The British Cabinet, save for the Colonial Secretary, favored the transaction, and a compromise was swiftly reached whereby two of the sites were given as gifts and the others handed over in exchange for the American warships. The President, fearful of entrusting the transfer to congressional debate, and impressed by the time factor, authorized the transaction by executive decree.²⁷

The U.S. Navy, which felt that it could not spare so much as a “row-boat” for the British in light of its own myriad deficiencies, was presented with a fait accompli. But the bad news about the loss of the destroyers was mitigated by the acquisition of the long cherished and vitally needed Atlantic and Caribbean bases. Admiral Stark eagerly approved the transaction, and reaction in the service was generally favorable, although restrained.²⁸ One enthusiastic officer said, “. . . we have made a fine deal but the British Government will probably go bankrupt trying to keep those boats in oil.”²⁹

Critics joked that the President had the constitutional prerogative to “dispose” the fleet, not “dispose of” it, and to many people the Attorney General’s legal brief on behalf of the transfer seemed strained, yet the transaction was so patently in the national interest that opposition was mild. Most Americans seemed to share Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s view that the nation’s safety was a more pressing consideration than the mandate of an international law that the Germans were fighting to destroy and that had failed to preserve truly neutral peoples from the Nazi menace. The Germans were not to be stopped by legal briefs, and if the President’s law was bad, most Americans believed that there was nothing wrong with his head—or his heart; it had taken not a little courage to make the deal so near election time.

The President was jubilant when he announced the transfer to reporters on his campaign train, the chipper mood produced by the release of tension that follows a hard decision finally made. He compared the transfer to the Louisiana Purchase in preserving the nation’s security; and, as he told one reporter, “That goes back before you and me.” When he read out the list of island names, a newspaperman asked him to spell one of them, and he complied, quipping, “Now, I am not fooling on these. These are real places.”³⁰

And as a result of the President’s efforts, a singular duty fell to the destroyermen of the Atlantic Squadron.