Editorial: Naval Review 112/3
Did the Second World War begin on 18 September 1931, when the Japanese staged a false flag event known as the Mukden Incident, a fabricated pretext to justify their invasion of Manchuria? From 1931 to 1937, they engaged in skirmishes in mainland China, indeed, Japan achieved major victories capturing Beijing and Shanghai by 1937. Or did it begin with the advent of what is now known as the Second Sino-Japanese War after the first battle of the war – the Marco Polo Bridge incident on 7 July 1937? The Japanese and Chinese opened fire upon each other after a Japanese soldier went missing. This prompted a full-scale Japanese invasion of the rest of China. Or, as we in Europe prefer, with the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939?
One day historians may well reflect that the Third World War may have already started, especially if you look through an holistic lens rather than our usual Euro-centric one. Perhaps with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022? Perhaps it started in this quarter? But as an another eventful three months disappears into the wake, we should reflect on displays of deterrence with large NATO exercises and at last a decent and hopefully a future proofed package for Ukraine. We have also witnessed 1,000 airborne explosive devices simultaneously target a sovereign state, not far away merchant ships are heading to the bottom in the Red Sea, yet still another regional war remains just below cook-off temperature in part due to Western military technology. Let’s scale out from the map a little further and consider how many African states are at imminent risk of failing and how bad behaviours in the South China Sea are also simmering. There remains something reassuringly British that this doesn’t even register on the UK electorate’s very long lists of worries as we go to the polls. For the present, global economics rule the day and that is probably why the lid is still on top of the pot, but it is boiling rapidly and rattling loudly!
Followers of the Forum will know we have invited all members to have their say on the hopefully imminent Integrated Review of Security and Defence. Please join the debate in whatever way you feel comfortable. We intend to devote a chunk of the next edition to that topic.
30 June 1944, D+24 marked the completion of Operation NEPTUNE. At this point, 570 Liberty ships, 180 troop transports, 788 coasters and 905 LSTs, as well as 1,814 LCTs and LCI(L)s had delivered their cargoes ashore, landing 861,838 men, 157,633 vehicles and 501,834 tons of stores. The NEPTUNE and OVERLORD Operations have been duly commemorated, and we salute those who gave their lives, those that are no longer with us along with the few remaining living participants in one of the most important events in the history of the Second World War and the 20th century. As the sun sets beyond the living horizon, what of the lessons we should ensure we have learned? Reading around the events and the timeline I was struck that it is our duty to promote and project the Naval History of the Nation more effectively. D-Day should not and did not start on the beaches! (Rear Admiral John Roberts’ interview on the website is a gem!)
What lessons will the great and the good, the media and the public at large take away? Here are three big ones to aid our understanding of war today. Ordinary People, Logistics and Sea Control – win wars. Ordinary People. The Second World War was a total war, a global event such that it was won by the everyday men and women of the country, indeed of the world, doing extraordinary things – not professional armies. Look to Ukraine and Russia – it is everyday people who are now fighting that conflict. So maybe, some form of UK National Service in whatever guise was not such a bad idea? To give our youth an understanding of service and duty in some form or other in today’s very dangerous world maybe a useful investment. To borrow a 1940s phrase, ‘if the balloon goes up’ – our professional Armed Forces of just 150,000 is not going to cut it. Ordinary people with minimal training fight world wars.
Logistics. ‘D-Day’. This was the opening of a third front of the War in Europe, the others being the Eastern Front and the often forgotten Southern Front in Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean. Not to mention the four theatres of war against the Japanese in the Indo Pacific on the other side of the world. The Western Front which had been stationary since 1941, fixed after the Battle of Britain and the ongoing Battle of the Atlantic for over three years. So how were we able to achieve movement on the front? Three things, firstly the US entering the Second World War initially to fight Japan and then Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. American industrial might, and a war economy beyond the range of enemy bombing provided the equipment, support and fuel necessary to sustain huge scales of military hardware and trained people to operate it along with providing the fuel to move it. The Allies on both the Eastern Front and the Southern Front were sustained by vital seaborne convoys to facilitate war fighting whereas the buildup of equipment, logistic support and people in the UK took over two years before D-Day became a possibility. So, Logistics win wars, again, if we look to Ukraine, without logistic support on a grand uninterrupted scale achieved at a rate considerably greater than the opposition, we cannot expect Ukraine to achieve its aim. The wider Russian leadership, not just Putin, are entirely comfortable to play a very long game and are moving the Russian economy onto a ‘war footing’, we need to decide whether we provide the logistics necessary to win or continue with a just enough just in time approach where eventually, we will run out of Ukrainians. It took three years to pull off D-Day – where is the three-year plan for Ukraine? (The Russians have one, in fact I bet they’ve got a 15 year one!)
Sea Control. Without hard-won control of the sea it is impossible to win wars. The ultimate turning of the tide of both the surface and importantly the sub-surface actions in the Battle of the Atlantic in favour of the Allies in 1943 enabled the continuous and then prodigious logistic support necessary to hold and resupply the Eastern Front, enable steady progress on the much narrower Southern Front and ultimately get the Western Front moving. There is a catchy phrase used today to explain the Red Sea scrap with the Houthis – ‘no ships, no shopping’, in the 1940s it was no ships, no support! This oft forgotten lesson – sea control was the key to winning the War both in Europe and in the Pacific. Sea control in 2024 is a more complex and a more nuanced subject being waged in more subtle and disturbing methods. Classically, it is enabling Ukrainian exports of grain through the Black Sea and, in a different conflict, keeping ‘the coalitions of the willing’ busy in maintaining freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. However, disturbingly, through ineffective bureaucracy and chicanery around the International Rules-Based Order of Maritime Trade, fuelled by the unsatiable demand for energy it is also facilitating a ghost fleet enabling Russian oil to be laundered across the world.
I was fortunate to meet our late Chairman when we were both Lieutenants embarking on the PWO course, Clive was intelligent, self-assured and gifted, but most of all he was a bloody good bloke, who loved his family and friends and had time for everyone. We all recognise the Zig Zag plans of intertwining naval careers, so it was great to cross paths again when he drove HMS Bulwark and again when he was ACNS. When I interviewed for the role of Editor, Sir Mark also let me know Sir Clive was relieving him – it was the clincher for me. Over the last 18 months we rekindled both a very close working relationship and our wonderful friendship which now stretched back over 30 years.
The sky has been a little darker since the 12th of May. As is my wont I am lucky enough to have the space to plant a tree in honour of important people in my life. The Goldrick Squiggly Gum is soon to be joined by the Johnstone Indian Bean! Sir Clive was known and admired by many, and a memorial service is to follow. I have taken the unusual step of including the wonderful tribute Lady Ali gave at his funeral, at end of May, along with Peter Hore’s fulsome obituary.
