Any dispute about interpreting the BofB?

[Ruy Horta]

iirc

Didn't high octane fuel and new props (from the USA) have a direct impact for fighter command in the summer of 1940?

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

iirc

Didn't high octane fuel and new props (from the USA) have a direct impact for fighter command in the summer of 1940?

Surely the point is that even if they had come from the USA, they would have been paid for in dollars/gold on the barrel-head (like the German machine tools, if there were any, used in Spitfire and Hurricane production).

Ponting categorises August 22, 1940 as "one of the most significant yet least famous in British history", because on that date the War Cabinet was given the Most Secret 7-page Treasury Paper 'Gold and Exchange Resources' (CAB 66/11, WP (40) 324). This paper predicted that in 3 to 4 months Britain would run out of foreign exchange and gold, leaving two options; become a dependency of the USA, or make peace with Hitler. Of course we chose the first.

I am trying to work out whether Britain's appalling choice (not appalling but rather interesting to Churchill) was inevitable. It would seem not necessarily to have been so.

If, as we appear to agree, the BofB was not a close run thing, then Britain could have avoided invasion without incurring all of the bankrupting costs associated with making FC a world-leader. With the money saved, Britain would have had enough time to make itself secure in North Africa and Singapore. It would have done this by going on to Tunis instead of to Greece after the victory of Wavell and O'Connor in Operation Compass. The elimination of an Italian presence in North Africa would have removed the possibility of Rommel's arrival, and infinitely simplified and cheapened Britain's strategic task.

Hitler would then have invaded Russia, and Japan would have attacked the USA, leaving Britain to negotiate from strength with the USA and/or with whichever side won the Russo-German war (hopefully neither). If Germany had succeeded in taking Moscow, Leningrad and the Baku oilfields before winter 1941 (a development that would have been more likely given the time and resources saved by avoiding the Balkan and North African diversions), and if Germany had threatened the Persian oilfields in 1942, then the USA would probably have decided to engage in the Middle East to save itself.

In this scenario Britain would have retained its independence, and still been on the winning side. That is my line of thinking.

Tony

[Bill Walker]

We may think the BoB was a "slam dunk" today, but British leaders at the time had to consider the possibility of Germany prevailing in the air and then launching an invasion. American money and goods were needed for more than Fighter Command - you needed convoy escorts in order to feed Britain and to re-equip the British Army brought back from the continent, and there was a war in the Middle East to consider, plus probably other concerns. Read any of Churchill's correspondence to Roosevelt during this time, and you will see he was much more worried about convoys than he was about the Luftwaffe.

I think one of your statements may be a gross over-simplification: "With the money saved, Britain would have had enough time to make itself secure in North Africa and Singapore." How much would have been saved? How much was needed to secure North Africa and Singapore? How much of the saved money would be spent in the US to secure North Africa and Singapore? Do we have numbers?

[Kutscha]

Incurring all of the bankrupting costs associated with making FC a world-leader assured the defeat of the Luftwaffe and thus no chance of a German invasion of GB.

- 7 February: Italian Tenth Army surrenders
- 9 February: Churchill orders halt to British and Australian advance at El Agheila to allow withdrawal of troops to Greece
- 14 February: First units of the under Erwin Rommel start to arrive in during Operation Sonnenblume

Do you really think the British forces could have traveled the ~800 miles from El Agheila to Tunis in time to stop Rommel unloading his troops?

[Kutscha]

Of coarse, all that money could have been spent on American dive bombers instead of fighters and level bombers. But then, there would have been no fighters to protect the dive bombers and and German industry would be able to produce war material unimpeded from RAF BC. Then there is the resources Germany could have used elsewhere that were drawn off to combat BC.

Building up the RCN would have saved the convoys

How would that have been done. British shipyards were full of construction and Canada didn't have the shipyards. Maybe American shipyards could have helped with building up the RCN, at least before Dec 7 1941.