- Chapter X:
-
- DECISIONS IN FAVOR OF A "SECOND FRONT"
- May 1942
-
- The four cases of prior claims versus BOLERO that arose in April 1942
all came up again in May-those of the Pacific, the Middle East, China,
and the Soviet Union. In each case the President decided in favor of
BOLERO, although with some reservations and with the significant
qualification that the basis for his decisions was not the desire to
protect the long-range project for invasion in 1943 but simply his
determination to get "action" across the Atlantic in 1942.
-
-
- In early May, during the exchange of messages initiated by Prime
Minister Curtin with reference to the defense of Australia, there
was also an exchange of views in Washington that virtually compelled the
President to decide between the views of General MacArthur and General
Marshall on the then crucial question of grand strategy. The President
himself initiated this exchange. On 29 April he spoke about the needs of
Australia to the Pacific War Council-the extraordinary body he had
recently set up to keep him in touch with the situation in the Pacific.
His naval aide furnished the JCS with the following account of what he
said
-
- The President remarked . . . that it was his desire that the total
number of plane assigned to the U . S. Army in Australia be raised to
one thousand, the distribution as to types being left to the discretion
of the joint Chiefs of Staff.
- Further, the President directed that I inform the Chiefs of Staff
that it was his desire to have in Australia 100,000 troops in addition
to the personnel of air forces required to maintain the plane program
referred to in paragraph one of this memorandum.1
-
- General Marshall was out of Washington at the time 'on a tour of
inspection. The War Department staff, studying the matter pending his
return, reapplied the familiar arguments to this new directive. The
staff estimated that the directed increase over approved allocations
(about 25,000 ground
- [217]
- troops and about 100 planes; would cut about in half ;from two pursuit
groups to one : the initial American contribution to air operations
based on the British Isles, and would take enough ships to eliminate two
Atlantic convoys, cutting back scheduled deployment to ,the British
Isles by about 50.000 men. The proposed increase in troops and aircraft
for Australia would completely unsettle BOLERO schedules, and even
more broadly, the whole basis of current Anglo-American planning. The
staff concluded
-
- If new commitments and continuous reinforcement of secondary theaters are to
interfere with the execution of these plans the faith
of the British in our firm promises will be destroyed. coordination
still be lost and the success of the plan will be doomed.2
-
- The War Department staff recognized it as altogether natural that the
Navy and the Australian and New Zealand Governments should persist in
demanding additional commitments to the Pacific and acknowledged
that it would evidently be "desirable" to meet their demands.
But having reviewed the background of the decision to plan on concentrating in the British Isles, the staff observed
-
- We are presented with a choice which is do we intend to devote
ourselves unreservedly to the idea of defeating the European Axis by
concentrating our power in the Eastern Atlantic. accepting calculated
risks in all other theaters, or arc we going to permit our resources
to be distributed equally throughout the World and give up entirely
the thought of decisive offensive action on our own part.3
-
- Marshall adopted the same approach. Returning to Washington on 3 . he
wrote another memorandum, more personal in tone, to send to the President. He began by referring to the
difficult time he had had on his trip to London in -April. having at
best so little to offer and facing the skepticism of the British staff.
He went on to restate the arguments of his staff, took note of -Admiral
King's continued dissatisfaction with the allocation of planes to the
South Pacific, and then added an argument of his own. He spoke of the
needs of Hawaii and Alaska, and declared that if anything more were
to be sent to the Pacific, lie had rather it went to those outposts,
where the United States was risking its own most immediate interests,
than to Australia. He had preferred to accept the risks at those points
in the Pacific "in order to stage an early offensive on the
Continent of Europe." He would recommend against doing so any
longer if it became a question of "reducing our planned effort
from the British Islands in favor of an increase in Australia."4
-
- Finally, three days later, Marshall brought together in a longer
paper the two main claims involved in the case of the "Pacific
Theatre versus Bolero'' those of the South Pacific, just restated on 4
May by Admiral King, and those of the Southwest Pacific, as finally
represented in the President's "directive" of 29 April. The
paper led tip to a flat recommendation that the President should choose
between giving unqualified precedence. to BOLERO and dropping it
entirely:
-
- If the "Bolero" project is not to be our primary
consideration, I would recommend its complete abandonment. We must
remember that this operation for 1942 depends primarily upon British
forces and not our own. They have far more at stake than do we and are
accepting very grave hazards
- [218]
- to which our own risks are not comparable. They have accepted the
"Bolero" project with a firm understanding that it would be
the primary objective of the United States. If such is not to be the
case, the British should be formally notified that the recent London
agreement Must be canceled.
-
- Leaving no doubt of his meaning, Marshall ended
- I present this question to vote as Commander-in-Chief, and request
that you discuss the matter kith Admiral King, General Arnold and me,
and give us a formal directive for our future guidance.5
-
- The President at once replied
- 1. I have yours of May sixth regarding the Pacific Theatre versus
"Bolero." In regard to the first paragraph I did not issue any
directive of May first regarding the increase of combat planes to
Australia to a total of 1,000 and the ground forces to a total of
100,000. I did ask if this could properly be done. I understand now that
this is inadvisable at the present time and I wholly agree with you
and Admiral King.
- 2. In regard to additional aircraft to the South Pacific Theatre, it
is my thought that all we should send there is a sufficient number of heavy and medium bombers and
pursuit planes in order to
maintain the present objective [written in the President's hand in place
of "strength"] there at the maximum.
- 3. I do not want "Bolero" slowed down.
- 4. The success of raiding operations scents to be such that a large
scale Japanese offensive against Australia or New Zealand can be
prevented.6
-
- This note was itself a partial substitute for the personal meeting and
formal directive for which Marshall had asked. The War Department could
treat as settled, for the time being, the question of added reinforcements for the Southwest
Pacific.7
The note did not settle the
question of bombers for the South Pacific, for it did not decide the
very, question at issue between Marshall and King-what the "present
objective" in the South Pacific was. They agreed that the
objective was to "hold," but they attached different meanings
to the expression. To King it meant "make secure"; to
Marshall it meant "defend" the island bases. More
specifically, they disagreed whether the Army should ,stand read to
"send" bombers into the South Pacific to meet a particular
threat or to Station" bombers there.
-
- But it was possible to take the President's general declaration that
lie-did "not want 'Bolero' slowed down" as covering the South
Pacific as well as Australia. The Operations Staff so interpreted it,
as confirmation of the War Department's policy governing deployment
throughout the Pacific.8
On the basis of this interpretation all that
remained to be done was to make up the difference between actual and
authorized strength. The War Department staff hoped to do so, for the
most part, by the end of August and thus at last to make the final
payments on the debts that had constituted a prior claim on troops,
ships, and
- [219]
- [220]
- planes since the beginning of the emergency deployment to the
Philippines in October 1941.
-
-
- At this point the President made quite plain the reason for his
insistence that BOLERO should not be "slowed down." It was his
determination to engage American forces in action across the Atlantic in
1942. He had already stated that he wanted some such action in 1942,
first at the ARCADIA Conference and, more recently, in a message to
the Prime 'Minister, to whom he had confided early in March his
increasing interest in establishing a "new front" on the
Continent during the summer.9
In a statement on 6 May he made it quite
plain how strong. he believed in a "new front" in 1942. It
was an unusually full written statement of his view s on strategy
addressed to his principal military advisers- Hopkins, the Secretaries
of War and Navy, and the members of the JCS. Therein he reviewed the
situations in all the principal theaters. He understood that the
"general strategic plan," at least for several months to come,
called for "a continuous day to day maintenance of existing
positions and ,existing strength' everywhere except in the Atlantic
area. The ,general plans for the Atlantic area called for "very
great speed in developing actual operations." The President made
it clear that he meant just that:
- I have been disturbed by American and British naval objections to
operations in the European Theatre prior to 1943. I regard it as
essential that active operations be conducted in 1942. I fully realize
difficulties in relation to the landing of armed forces under fire. All
of us would like to have ideal materiel to work with. Materiel is never either ideal, or satisfactory,
or sufficient. We have to use "any old method of transportation
which will get us to our destination.
-
- It was not entirely clear what scale of operations would satisfy the
President's demand for a second front. The first objective he set
for 1942 was to gain control of the air "over the Netherlands,
Belgium, and France." Assuming this attempt would have succeeded,
he looked forward to landings "at one or many points" in
greater or lesser force
-
- . . . (a) raids based on commando operations using a comparatively
small number of troops and withdrawing them within a few hours, or not
more than twenty-four hours (b) super commando operations using a more
larger [sic] number of troops--even up to 50,000 with the
objective of damaging the enemy as well as possible and withdrawing
this relatively large force within two days or a week; (c) establishment
of a permanent front backed by a sufficient force to give reasonable
certainty of adequate reinforcements and the avoidance of being pushed
into the sea.
-
- Although the President appeared to recognize that the means
available might not be sufficient to justify an attempt to establish a
"permanent front" on the Continent, his statement of the
objective of operations in 1942 appeared to leave little room for
choice. He put the case for an operation across the Atlantic in 1942 on
the ground that it was then "the principal objective" to help
the Soviet Union. "It must be constantly reiterated," he
said, "that Russian armies are killing more Germans and destroying more Axis materiel than all the twenty-free united nations
put together." The two essentials were to keep tip shipments to
the Soviet arctic ports and to open "a second front to compel the
withdrawal of
- [221]
- German air forces and ground forces from the Russian front." In
closing, the President reasserted his determination to launch
operations in 1942, and not merely to plan and mount a contingent
operation
-
- The necessities of the case call for action in 1942-not 1943. In a
recent memorandum of the united nations it was stated that there
was agreement on a second front-provided the equipment and materiel's were available. But they went on to say that it night have to be
created arty way, if Russia were to be seriously endangered even if the
operation on the part of the British and the United States had to be
called an operation of desperation.
-
- If we decide that the only large scale offensive operation is to be
in the European area, the element of speed becomes the first
essential.10
-
-
- The President's review of strategy confirmed the War Department's
interpretation of his declaration on the case of the Pacific theater
versos BOLERO, specifically in defining the current approach to
strategy in the Pacific (and in the other theaters that the War
Department regarded as "secondary") as the "continuous
day to day maintenance of existing positions and existing
strength." This approach did not preclude, but in fact required,
constant adjustments. The first major adjustment to be made in the
Pacific was the diversion of the 37th Division (then awaiting shipment to New Zealand) to the Fiji
Islands.11
Up to tills time the United Stares had undertaken to send
only a pursuit squadron to the Fijis.12
New Zealand, which remained responsible for the defense of the
Fijis, still had only a small
garrison there. It was obviously unsound for the United States to
leave such It Weak point between Samoa and New Caledonia.13
Early
in May General Marshall therefore suggested to the JCS the diversion
of the 37th Division from New Zealand to the Fijis, nearer "the
area of probable operations."14
It was a timely suggestion. There were enough American forces in the South Pacific:
(or en route) to give the New Zealand Government some confidence in the
intention and ability of the United States to hold in that area. It was
no longer very likely that the Army would increase its commitments to
the area. Admiral King fell in with the proposal, and the New Zealand
Government shortly ac-
- [222]
- ceded. After a few days of hurried changes in orders, the main
contingent of the 37th Division sailed from San Francisco in the:
latter part of May 15
It arrived safely at Viti Levu in the Fijis on
10 June 1942.16
-
- Besides making this change in plans for deploying ground forces in the
South Pacific, the War Department was compelled in to make emergency
changes in plans for deploying air forces. The operations staff set out
simply to accelerate scheduled deployment of air forces to the area.
Eisenhower announced this policy on 8 May, two days after the
President had closed the case of the Pacific theater versus BOLERO. He
wrote to Arnold:
-
- Since we have won our point in resisting unwarranted reinforcement by Air
Forces of the Islands between Hawaii and Australia, it is my opinion that
we should reach and Maintain the amounts indicated . . as
quickly as possible.17
-
- But Admiral King soon lard occasion to reopen the question whether War Department plan, even though accelerated, actually user operational needs
in the youth Pacific. On 11 May he carne forward with the proposal that
the Army should quickly dive a practical demonstration of the
"mobility" of the Hawaiian and Australian bomber
forces.18
On the following day he stated at length his reasons for
making this proposal. He first summarized the known and presumed
results of the recent engagements (4-8 May) in the Coral Sea, of which
the most important were the loss of the carrier Lexington and the severe
damage inflicted on the Yorktown, which was due to be out of action at
least three months, leaving only two American carriers in the Pacific (the
Hornet and Enterprise) until the end of June. The Japanese,
on the
other hand, were thought to have one and perhaps two carriers in the
South Pacific, is addition to six- (possibly eight) carriers in
Japanese home waters. Naval intelligence had concluded (on the basis of
intercepted radio traffic in the broken Japanese code) that a
formidable enemy task force was being gathered there, and that it was
due to leave Japanese waters about 20 May and so could arrive
between 1 and 5 June at one or another point on the line Alaska-Hawaii-Australia. In case the enemy force, with its overwhelming
superiority in carriers, should stay together for one mission, it
would certainly be "foolhardy" to engage it, except on the
condition of being "thoroughly supported and covered by shore-bales
aircraft. Admiral King himself then rather
expected that the Japanese would carry on their earlier projected
attack on Port Moresby, but thought it also possible that they
"might shift to an attack on Caledonia or the Fijis.- Against
- [223]
- this background Admiral King proposed that the Army prepare to give a
practical test of the AAF theory that the bombers in Australia and
Hawaii should be relied on as a mobile force available for the defense
of the South Pacific. He pointed out that so far as he could learn,
"few if any bombers" could then operate from the South
Pacific islands, for lack of "ground crews, ammunition, spare
parts, and fuel." He proposed that the Army should Supply these
deficiencies in time, to shift bombers to the South Pacific, if only on
a "trial run," by 25 May.19
-
- General Marshall at once heeded the very specific warning and agreed
to the equally specific proposal of Admiral King. They worked out the
plan with their two air chiefs-- General Arnold and Admiral Towers-on
the same afternoon. What they decided to do was to use in the South
Pacific two squadrons of heavy bomber that were then in Hawaii and ,due
to be flown to Australia. These were to be stationed on a temporary
basis in the Fijis, New Caledonia, Tongatabu, and (possibly) Efate.
and organized into provisional squadrons led by officers from Hawaii.
Most of the service elements were to be furnished by troops already in Australia awaiting the arrival of the planes. The "whole
procedure," Marshall explained to the operations staff, was
"to be on the basis of a temporary measure until the Japanese have shown their hand.20
-
- The effort to meet Admiral King's deadline in the South Pacific was
only just under way when further study indicated that the Japanese were
going to attack, instead, in the Central and North Pacific. On 16 May the War Department learned from General Emmons, who had had the
information from Admiral Chester W. Nimitz f Commander in Chief, L-.
S. Pacific Fleet , , that naval intelligence had identified the Immediate
Japanese objectives as Midway and Unalaska (Dutch
Harbor).21
Naval authorities in Washington confirmed this
information, and Admiral King advised Marshall that he had recommended
strong naval concentrations near Hawaii and, to the north, in the
Kodiak- Cold Bay region,
- [224]
- to counter the expected Japanese blows. 22
At that point, the War
Department redirected its attention to Hawaii and Alaska and, once
again, to the west coast. By 20 May arrangements were complete for
holding in Hawaii three bomber squadrons- -two medium and one heavy--
-en route to the South Pacific.23
Upon the assurance of Lt. Gen. John
L. DeWitt, commander general of the Western Defense Command and of
the Fourth Army, that it would be feasible to operate aircraft from
the most exposed fields at Umnak and in the Cold Bay region, the War
Department also ordered limited air reinforcements, including a few
B--17's, to the Eleventh Air Force in Alaska.24
By 21 May the Army and
Navy had worked out plans for setting up a joint naval and air defense
force in the North Pacific with Rear Adm. Robert A. Theobald,
Commander, U. S. Naval Task Force, exercising control of the, joint
force tinder the principle of unity of command, and Brig. Gen. William
O. Butler, Eleventh Air Force leader, in command of air elements.25
-
- Despite the strong indications that the Japanese thrust would strike
Midway and the Aleutians, General Marshall remained concerned over a
possible threat of raids on the west coast, which Army intelligence,
believing that the Japanese would feel obligated to retaliate for
the Doolittle raid on Tokyo, still considered to be a "first
priority."26
Marshall himself went to the west coast to supervise
dispositions, accompanied by Brig. Gen. James H. Doolittle
and a member of the operations staff.27
The War Department, in addition
to reorganizing west coast air defenses, arranged to make: ground
forces in training (and thus under the jurisdiction of Army Ground
Forces), available to General DeWitt if he should need them.28
-
- The hurried activity to meet the expected Japanese attacks in the
Central and North Pacific did not divert King from his effort to
persuade Mar-shall to increase the allotment of Army bombers to the
South Pacific. General Marshall, on his return from the west coast,
found waiting for him a memorandum in which Admiral King once again
urged the-adoption of the Navy view on the long controverted question. This time
- [225]
- King cast his views in the form of a memorandum for transmission from the. JCS to the CCS. Once again he called attention to the fact
that the "superiority of Japanese Force:, plus freedom to act ore
interior lines," gave them the initiative. The Navy had lately been
able to hold its own since it had "timely information" of Japanese fleet movements (gleaned from Japanese
messages intercepted
and decoded). But King warned:
-
- Even if this availability of timely information continue, the
continued successful opposition of powerful Japanese offensives appear improbable with the means now in hand.
if the tinw1
information should become unavailable in tier future and the present
disparity in forces is alloyed to continue disaster in the PACIFIC
AREA is probable.
-
- Admiral King proposed a concentration of air and sea power in the zone
Fijis Australia by 1 July, the Army's part in which be to increase air
strength in the area "as rapidly as possible giving this objective first priority
even over BOLERO.'' He proposed,
specifically, that by this date the Array should reach the strength recommended
through April and May by the Navy planners- a total
of 175 heavy bombers, 280 medium bombers, 26 light bombers, and
795 pursuit planes.29
-
- The warning that the Japanese aright stop using tile broken code a
very high card. but General Marshall continued to act ore the basis
that the requirements of BOLERO were trumps. He replied that he was
"prepared to support" Admiral King's proposal to concentrate
Naval surface vessels its the South and Southwest Pacific by 1 July,
but that he was "not in complete accord" on the proposed
concentration of air power so far as it pertained to Army aircraft. He resummarized
what the Army was doing to meet the more immediate crisis in the Central
Pacific and concluded that to do more was then out of the question:
"more heavy bombers can be sent out of the United States at this
time causing a Very serious check or stoppage in the development of
heavy bomber squadrons for BOLERO or anywhere else."30
Thus, in
spite of General Marshall's appealing the question to the: President
three before. and ire spite of his readiness to co-operate in
effecting a specific threat of imminent attack, the disagreement ore
Pacific strategy remained unresolved at the end of May.
-
-
- During May the scale of American commitments to tile Middle East
remained uncertain, but there did not remain much doubt that the Army
would finally have to contribute substantially to the defense of that
area. The President, in his review of strategy on 6 - May, did not
anticipate any early change in the status quo in the "Near East and
East Africa Theatre," except the provision of service troops to
handle the growing lend-lease traffic:
-
- The responsibility in this theatre is British with tile exception that
tile United States must furnish all possible materiel to the British in
Libya. Palestine. Syria and must especially bolster up unloading and
assembly operations in Egypt and in the Persian Gulf and in pushing
transportation from the Persian Gulf to Russia.31
- [226]
- But in the latter part of the month he was compelled to act on the
deadlocked question of plane allocations for the British. On 19 May he
finally sent General Arnold and Admiral Towers to London to negotiate
directly with Air Marshal Portal, on the basis of a compromise whereby
American units would have a prior claim on American planes, but would be
committed to action as soon as possible. He described the situation to
the Prime Minister in the following words
-
- Today it is evident that under current arrangements the U. S. is
going to have increasing trained air personnel in excess of combat
planes in sight for them to use. We are therefore anxious that every
appropriate American-Made aircraft be manned and fought by our own
crews. Existing schedules of aircraft allocations do not permit us to do
this.
-
- He then announced his view on the policy to be adopted:
- I think the maximum number of planes possible should be maintained in
combat and the minimum number consistent with security be held in
reserve and in operational training units, and that American pilots and
crews be assigned to man American-made planes far more greatly than at
present on the combat fronts.32
-
- On the basis of this principle, the British reintroduced the project
that the JCS had earlier brought up, then abandoned, of setting up an
American air force in the Middle East. At the end of May General Arnold
and Admiral Towers finally accepted this project as one of the
elements in a compromise on plane allocations, in spite of the fact that it was a major diversion from BOLERO.
They brought
the compromise back to Washington early in June for review and
ratification by the CCS.33
-
-
- During May, as the deadline in the Pacific drew near and while the
negotiations on British plane allocations approached agreement, the
problem of supporting China became increasingly critical. The Chinese
plea for a voice in the determination of strategy and the allocation
of munitions, made in April after the diversion of the Tenth Air
Force, was still unanswered.34
The Japanese had driven the British and
Chinese forces out of north Burma and were threatening to launch a
general offensive with the apparent objective of capturing air bases in
southeastern China. Toward the end of May the chief of the recently
arrived Chinese Military Mission to the United States, Lt. Gen. Hsiung
Shih-fei, presented two messages from Chiang Kai-shek dealing with the
existing military situation, concluding with the warning: ". . .
if Chinese do not see any help from their Allies, Chinese confidence in
their Allies will be completely shaken. This may presage total
collapse of Chinese resistance. Never has the situation looked more
critical than today." 35
- [227]
- In sharp contrast, Brig. Gen. Clayton L. Bissell, who had been
representing General Stilwell in Chungking during the campaign in
northern Burma, had recommended only a few days before that the United
States should bring pressure to bear on China to rise available troops
to eject the Japanese from parts of southeastern China. The War
Department had riot acted on this recommendation for. as General
Marshall had pointed out, the United States was in no position to urge
the Chinese to act when the United States was doing so little to
support China. On receiving Chiang Kai-sheks warning, the War
Department operations staff recommended that General Stilwell should
be left alone to deal with the situation as best he could and that in
order to improve Iris position the Tenth Air Force should be returned
to him. This recommendation General Marshall approved.36
-
- General Stilwell, who had emerged on 20 May at Imphal at the end of
the long retreat through northern Burma, was far from satisfied with
this concession. In reporting his plans for the deployment of the Tenth
Air Force in direct support of China, he at last made the almost
inevitable recommendation that American ground combat forces- one or
more divisions-should be sent at once to the Far East:
-
- My belief in decisive strategic importance of China is so strong that
I feel certain a serious mistake is being made in not sending American Combat Units into this Theater to regain Burma, clear
Thailand, and then from China force entry into the triangle Hanoi Hainan
Canton from which control can be disputed of Major Enemy Air Lanes from Japan and ?Manchuria and enemy sea lanes in the South China Sea.37
-
- The movement of an American division to southeastern Asia was the one
step that would really bind the United States to the development of that
area as a major theater of war, for then---and then only----the
successful prosecution of operations in the theater would become an
essential condition of American national policy. Even if the move were
not followed by the commitment of additional American ground forces, it
would be followed by the development of large service and air commands
in the theater and by whatever other concessions might be necessary to
secure the effective collaboration of British and Chinese ground forces.
For this very reason the recommendation was, of course, entirely out
of keeping with the plans that had emerged for the concentration of
forces in the British Isles.
-
- Interestingly enough, the War Department's reply to General Stilwell
did not allude to the strategic plans that had been developing in
Washington and London since his departure in February for the Far East.
The War Department responded gravely, much as it responded to
proposals from General MacArthur dealing with questions of grand
strategy, that his analysis was "fully appreciated" in
Washington,
but that to ship one or more American divisions to the theater would
"involve an undertaking which we are simply not in a position to
make." The War Department made, instead, the counterproposal that
American lend-lease materiel in India, which could riot then be used by
the Chinese, should be offered to the British, in return for their
agreement to launch an offensive in Burma
- [228]
- with the objective of reopening the Burma Road. The decision, of
course, was up to Chiang Kai-shek, and, added the War Department, it
would be "important that Chinese hopes for reopening of the road
should not be prematurely raised." This message, like messages to
General MacArthur in similar circumstances, was first submitted
to the President and met with his approval. The President's approval
made it reasonably certain that the support of China would remain
subordinate to the development of current British and American plans.38
-
-
- Of all those problems raised or aggravated by the development of the
BOLERO plan, there was one on which the President had yet to declare
himself-that of the relation between the Soviet lend-lease program and
the BOLERO plan. On 7 May the White House circulated a draft of a second
protocol, containing schedules to be proposed by the American and
British Governments to the Soviet Government for the fiscal year July
1942-June 1943.39
The schedule satisfied the President's directive
that shipments should either be maintained or increased during that
period. 'Under the Second Protocol, the United States would offer about
7,000.0()0 and Great Britain about 1,000,000 short tons of munitions and
other finished goods, machinery, raw materials, and food, of which Soviet
representatives would select for shipment about 5,000,000 short tons.
Except for 500,000-600,000 tons included for movement in Soviet bottoms across the North Pacific (subject to negotiations between the
Soviet and Japanese Governments), the United States and Great Britain
would be prepared to export these goods in their own ships---an
estimated 3,300,000 tons in convoys around the North Cape to Murmansk
and Archangel, an estimated 1,100,000 tons by way of the Persian Gulf.
Allowance being made for a 10 percent loss en route, about 3,000,000
tons was expected to arrive at the Soviet arctic ports, and about
1,000,000 tons at the Persian Gulf ports. These amounts corresponded
to the estimated capacity of these ports and of the overland
transportation systems serving them.40
-
- Most of the military supplies and equipment itemized in the draft
protocol were expected to become available as fast as they could be
shipped. These included tanks and vehicles, which accounted for by far
the greater part of the tonnage of military items.41
But there was reason
to doubt
- [229]
- whether the United States, as assumed in the draft protocol, could
keep up the rate of shipments reached in 'March and April tinder the
President's drastic directive of mid-March. The weight of the German
U-boat campaign in the western Atlantic began to be severely felt during
these early months of 1942, and from 'larch through May one fourth of
all the ships the United States sent to Russia around the North Cape
were lost.42
The Combined Military Transportation Committee (CMTC) estimated that shipping losses in excess of replacements would
leave the United States and Great Britain till the end of 1943 with
tonnage far less than their anticipated needs.43
-
- On 1 May, before the draft protocol was circulated, Admiral King had
proposed that the joint planners should prepare a report on the
feasibility of meeting the President's directive. He pointed to the
shortage of ships, the heavy cost of running convoys to Murmansk and
Archangel-upon which the program still so largely depended-and "the
requirements incident to the manning of a front in continental Europe as
to munitions of all kinds and as to shipping for transporting
them." It seemed to him that the last consideration in particular
should be "a compelling argument toward a Russian agreement with
reduction of their current munitions protocol."44
A
subcommittee met on 19
May to consider the question, and found good reason to doubt the
feasibility of the program outlined by the Munitions Assignments
Board.45
-
- The Munitions Assignments Board gave the assurance "that all
requirements incident to manning a European front plus the other needs
of the United States Army and Navy had been considered prior to arriving
at the figures shown."46
Although the figures themselves did
not entirely bear out that assurance, the draft protocol did contain
reservations that partly answered War Department objections. It
contained a general reservation which read:
-
- It is understood that any program of this sort must be tentative in
character and must be subject to unforeseen changes which the progress
of the Near may require from the standpoint of stores as well as from
the standpoint of shipping.47
-
- This qualification was much more sweeping than the one included in the
First (Moscow) Protocol in October 1941, which had provided for
consultation and readjustments in the event drat the "burden of
defense
- [230]
- should be "transferred to other theatres of war."48
Besides the general reservation, the draft protocol included a
reservation applying only to planes. They were to be made available at
the same rate, as before, but only "for the first few months of
the next protocol period." During that time the United States
and Great Britain would be studying their resources and requirements
"in the light of new plans which are under consideration," and when the study
was completed, would make commitments "for
the balance of the year."49
-
- General Marshall suggested changes in both these reservations. He
proposed to the JCS that the general reservation should be simplified to
read: "You will of course realize that any program of this sort
must be Subject to changes due to unforeseen developments in the
progress of the war." He proposed to modify the reservation with
regard to planes by providing that deliveries tinder the Second
Protocol would not begin till 15 August-by which date deliveries
tinder the First Protocol should have been completed- --and that the
United States would then undertake to furnish each month 12 medium
bombers and at least 50 fighter planes and 50 light bombers, the numbers
to be greater-up to 100 fighter planes and 100 light bombers, as
before-- provided the rate of attrition suffered in the
British-American air offensive over the European continent
permits." 50
The revisions suggested by Marshall, having been approved by the JCS, went to the President.51
-
- The question of the relation between the Second Protocol and the
"second front" came to a head at the end of May, during
conversations between President Roosevelt and Foreign Commissar Molotov.52
Molotov came to Washington from London, where he had
found the British Government prepared to meet the British schedules
in the Second Protocol and noncommittal about opening a second front.53
In Washington he found quite a different view. The President
declared that the American Government "hoped" and
"expected" to open a second front in 1942, and presented as
the "suggestion" of General Marshall and Admiral King the
proposal that the Soviet Government, in order to help, should accept a
reduction in tonnage during the period of the Second Protocol, from
4,100,000 to 2,100,000 tons, by cutting shipments of general
supplies, not munitions.
-
- The President's assurance did not divert Mr. Molotov from trying to
increase the scale of lend-lease commitments. He asked specifically for
a monthly American convoy to Archangel and for deliveries, via the
Persian Gulf and Iran, of 50 B-25's, 150 Boston bombers (A-20's) ,
and 3,000 trucks monthly. The President would not promise to send
convoys to Archangel or to increase
- [231]
- allocations of critical items for the Persian Gulf route over the
current commitments, which had been renewed in the draft protocol. Mr.
Hopkins authorized his military executive, General Burns, to confirm
those commitments-12 B-25's, 100 A-20's (through October), and 3,000 trucks a month-and to announce the
President's views on convoys. Burns' oral statement on these points was
the only tangible result of the negotiations on the Second Protocol.54
-
- The President's policy went a long way to meet Admiral King's
objections to the large shipping commitments contained in the draft protocol. It did not meet
Marshall's requests for
reduction in plane allocations, and, what was a great deal more
serious from the point of view of the War Department, it contained a
strong commitment to open a "second front" in 1942. The
President went so far as to issue a communiqué drafted by Molotov that
included the statement: "In the course of the conversations full
understanding was reached with regard to the urgent tasks of creating a
Second Front in Europe in 1942." General Marshall objected that the
statement was "too strong." It was indeed too strong to
apply to the negotiations just concluded. It was also much too strong
to bode well for the BOLERO plan-with its emphasis on 1943-in coming
negotiations with the British.
- [232]
- Page created 10 January 2002
Endnotes
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter
Return to the Table of Contents