Table Of Content'World War II
IN
BRITISH NAVAL AVIATION
WORLD WAR I1
BRITISH NAVAL
AVIATION IN WORLD
WAR I1
The US Navy and Anglo-American
Rela tion s
Tauris Academic Studies
LONDON* NEW YORK
Published in 2007 by Tauris Academic Studies,
an imprint of I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
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Copyright © 2007 Gilbert S. Guinn and G.H. Bennett
The right of Gilbert S. Guinn and G.H. Bennett to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted by the authors in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
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written permission of the publisher.
International Library of Twentieth Century History 11
ISBN: 978 1 84511 371 1
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress catalog card: available
Printed and bound by Thomson Press India Limited
camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the authors
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vi
Preface vii
1. Aircraft and aircrew required urgently 1
2. British aircrew training in the USA 14
3. Aircrew induction in the United Kingdom 31
4. Living and training in the USA 49
5. Primary and intermediate flight training 69
6. Washouts and other aircrew 88
7. Advanced, conversion and operational training 104
8. War service and post-war life 134
9. Conclusions 148
Notes 167
Sources 177
Glossar ofAbbreviations 197
Index 203
As authors we are indebted to the many other people who have made
contributions to the writing of this book. In particular, we would like to
thank the British Academy, who generously funded some of the research,
and also the British Association of American Studies, whose travel grant
for another purpose incidentally yielded additional material for this
project. We would like to thank our colleagues at Lander and Plymouth
Universities for their support while the book was being written. Others to
whom we owe a debt of thanks are the staffs of the Roosevelt Library,
Washington Navy Yard and the National Archives of both the United
States and Great Britain.
A special thank you is merited by Susan Guinn, who has been
supportive and helpful throughout, and Roy Bennett, who provided
considerable editorial and secretarial help.
Lastly, and most importantly, we must thank the large number of
people whom we have interviewed and with whom we have corresponded
over the years. Their names are found in the list of sources, as they have
provided the essential first-hand material for our research. Many of them
are no longer with us, and it is to their memory that we dedicate this book.
Gilbert S. Guinn
G. H. Bennett
PREFACE
The usual gravitas born of personality, family history and high office were
gone. The big man simply sobbed with the emotion of the moment. For
Winston Churchill, dining in room 21 of the North British Hotel in
Glasgow on 17 January 1941, it had been a long day in a long war. As First
Lord of the Admiralty in 1939 he had overseen the early phases of the war
at sea. In May 1940 he had become Prime Minister as Germany launched
her assault against the Low Countries. The following month, as Germany
completed her conquest of Western Europe, he had prepared his country
for the possibility of invasion. From that moment on, beleaguered
Britain's future depended on the sea. In the late summer of 1940 that had
meant maintaining the Royal Navy's ability to intervene in the English
Channel, which any German invasion fleet would have to cross. In the
winter of 1940-1 and beyond, it would involve maintaining Britain's sea
lines of communication to North America and the rest of the world. On
the merchant ships plying their trade across the Atlantic depended
Britain's ability to feed her people and maintain her economy.
Those sea communications were impeded by the German
Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. They were charged with the task of starving
the British into submission while Hitler prepared to unleash the German
Army against the Soviet Union. The principal weapons in this war on
commerce would be the submarine, the surface raider and the land-based
bomber. Britain was lucky that Germany did not have any operational
aircraft carrier at the start of the Second World War, and misfortune was
to dog her attempts to develop one.
The resources of the Royal Navy were over-stretched in trying to
protect the North Atlantic convoy routes, and air power could not yet
contribute much to their defence. The result, in the second half of 1940,
viii BRITISH NAVAL AVIATION IN WORLD WAR 11
had been the loss of over 2,400,000 gross tons of merchant shipping and a
steady throttling of the British war economy.
Although this threat was severe, by January 1941 ChurchiU was aware
of an even more pressing danger to the British war economy and to her
ability to import the materials required to sustain the war effort. Britain
was running out of money. In September 1939 the Roosevelt
administration had departed from the policy of strict neutrality, which had
been forced on it by an isolationist Congress reacting to the danger to
peace posed by Germany, Italy and Japan in the 1930s. Instead, a policy of
'cash and carry' had been adopted for any belligerent nation making
purchases in the United States. The British could have access to US
markets, but they would have to pay for their purchases in cash and
transport them to Britain in non-American vessels. That policy provided
the basis for a rapid expansion of trans-Atlantic trade which, while
essential to the British, also gave a boost to the American economy, still
struggling to escape from the great depression. American industry could
provide aircraft and other war material, which the British war economy
was unable to produce in sufficient quantity and range. The only problem
was that by early 1941 Britain was running out of the money and liquid
assets to fund purchases on a 'cash and carry' basis. Britain faced effective
bankruptcy and the collapse of her war effort. Churchill knew it and, less
than a year into his premiership, the outlook seemed bleak. His and
Britain's hopes now depended on the President of the United States.
There was no secret as to the American president's sympathies in the
on-going conflict, but his desire to aid Great Britain was curbed by
American public opinion, which opposed entry into the war. Nevertheless,
after the fall of France in June 1940, he had given increasing support to
Britain, against the advice of Joseph Kennedy, the American Ambassador
in London, who considered that British power was broken. After the
Royal Air Force's victory in the Battle of Britain, regarded by many as the
first key step in denying Germany control of the English Channel, and
following his re-election as president in November 1940, Roosevelt
signalled his increasing support for the British. The most startling example
came through the 'destroyers for bases' deal, by which the United States
exchanged 50 surplus destroyers of World War I vintage for long leases on
British bases in the Caribbean and Newfoundland. It could be defended as
a good deal for the American nation, in line with the Monroe Doctrine,
the construction of the Panama Canal and Theodore Roosevelt's earlier
policies in the Caribbean, but few could have been under any illusions that
the United States was not being drawn further into the war.
In January 1941 Roosevelt sent Harry Hopkins across the Atlantic to
Britain. One of the president's closest associates and chief 'fixer' of the
New Deal, Harry Hopkins was a dynamo of a man who had been
undaunted by the task of putting America back to work. Now the
president had a new job for him. He was to meet Churchill and form his
own assessment of the British prime minister, the state of British power
and her ability to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion. On the
evening of 17 January 1941, in the North British Hotel, Hopkins was
ChurchiU's dinner guest. They had spent the day at the British fleet
anchorage at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. It was a symbolic as well as a
practical visit. Churchill and Roosevelt knew that the outcome of the war
hinged on the North Atlantic supply lines. Both leaders were obsessed by
the sea - in romantic and geopolitical terms - and by the navies which
dominated it. If the flow of trade to Britain were cut, Britain would lose
the war and America would find herself alone. On the outcome of the
German campaign against British commerce would hinge the future of
humanity.
Hopkins was evidently impressed by what he saw at Scapa Flow.
Turning to Churchill, he voiced the question in everyone's mind: 'I
suppose you want to know what I am going to say to President Roosevelt
on my return. Well, I'm going to quote you one verse from that Book of
Books . . . "Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God" . . .
Even to the end.'' That declaration of American support for the British
cause was as significant as it was theatrical. Churchill could see a turning
point in Britain's military fortunes.
From this point on, the flow of war material across the Atlantic would
increase dramatically. Aided by the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in
March 1941, under which the American taxpayer would bankroll the
British war effort for the duration of the war, and by America's own entry
into the conflict in December 1941, the war at sea would form a pivot on
which the outcome of the World War would hinge. Lend-Lease and the
productivity of American industry had the potential to tip the balance
against the Axis. The German, Italian and Japanese Navies had the job of
preventing that from happening by disrupting the flow of trade and
reinforcements to the battlefronts in Europe, the Mediterranean and the
Far East. American industry would be expected to turn out the escort
vessels, patrol aircraft, aircraft carriers and replacement merchant ships to
combat the Axis threat.
The importance of American industry to the outcome of World War 11
has been well recognised by historians since 1945. What they have usually
