The Burma Campaign

by Frank McLynn

  9

  Although he acknowledged him as a great war leader, Alanbrooke was frequently exasperated by Churchill’s impetuous, irrational and unthinking irruption into military affairs of which he knew little or nothing. One of the best examples of this was the Prime Minister’s decision to appoint a 43-year-old career naval officer as supreme commander in South-East Asia. Yet this was no ordinary naval officer. The future Lord Louis Mountbatten had been born as His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Battenberg, a great-grandson of Queen Victoria and uncle of the present Duke of Edinburgh, and became Mountbatten when the royal family, of which he was a scion, dropped all German styles and titles in 1917 and became the House of Windsor. Although it may not necessarily be saying very much, Mountbatten was the most talented member of this house, and was always chillingly ambitious. He was almost impossibly charming, ferociously energetic, a power-seeker with a talent for intrigue, and he was intelligent – though not nearly as intelligent as he imagined himself to be. Against this he was egocentric, vain, reckless, eccentric and unreliable, with a marked talent for blame-shifting. In love with the sea and matters naval, from an early age he aspired to become First Sea Lord – an ambition he would eventually fulfil. He contracted a glittering marriage in 1922 to Edwina Ashley, heiress to the huge Cassel fortune, and moved in all the highest circles, one moment in Buckingham Palace, the next in Hollywood with Charlie Chaplin and Mary Astor. Edwina was a promiscuous woman who flitted from one affair to another; her husband followed suit, though less enthusiastically, for there is compelling evidence that he was bisexual; in certain circles he was known as ‘Mountbottom’.1 The marriage was consequently an unhappy one, and Mountbatten was thus the odd man out among Burma’s ‘Four Musketeers’. Wingate, Slim and Stilwell, though very different personalities, were all deeply uxorious.

  Although his official biographers and hagiographers strenuously deny it, there is no question but that Mountbatten owed his meteoric rise in the Royal Navy to his royal connections. He worked hard at becoming a naval signals expert but even harder at being a playboy and socialite. At the outbreak of war he became commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla, with his flagship HMS Kelly, and almost immediately displayed his flaky side. On the way home through the North Sea after an operation on the Norwegian coast, the Kelly was struck by a giant wave, which caused the ship to heel over 50 degrees to starboard. The Norwegian coast is one of the most dangerous locations in the world for the dreaded 100-foot wave, and Mountbatten can be considered unlucky to have encountered one of these monsters. But his captaincy was just plain incompetent, since he was pushing a destroyer through high seas at a rate of 28 knots when a speed of at most half that would have been appropriate for the conditions. By a miracle the ship survived that terrifying roll and did not capsize. Even his official biographer, always sympathetic to his foibles, remarks: ‘If Mountbatten had a purpose in pushing on at such a reckless speed, it is not apparent. It seems more likely that, as was his wont, he was ordering full steam ahead out of sheer impatience to reach wherever he was heading to start on something else.’2 Seemingly having learned nothing about the risks of being a bull at a gate, in the next 18 months he collided with another destroyer, was mined once and torpedoed twice. His cavalier way with the physical universe also contributed to the loss of the Kelly in May 1941 during the Battle of Crete, when German bombers sent it to the bottom within minutes. The Royal Navy commander-in-chief Andrew Cunningham blamed Mountbatten for the loss, and posterity has largely concurred. His biographer remarks: ‘Mountbatten was not a good flotilla leader, or wartime commander of destroyers. It is perhaps not too fanciful to equate his performance on the bridge with his prowess behind the wheel of a car. He was a fast and dangerous driver. His maxim was that, if you were shaping up to pass and saw another car approaching, it was always better to accelerate and press on.’3

  Any other man would probably have seen his career effectively finished after his incumbency on the Kelly, but Mountbatten was the kind of person who always bounced back. The loss of his ship was transmogrified by his friend Noel Coward into an epic of inspirational courage in the film In Which We Serve, in which Coward played a barely disguised Mountbatten and even used verbatim some of his pep talks to the crew. Mountbatten’s vanity may perhaps be most easily conveyed by the simple statistic that he watched the movie at least a dozen times.4 Moreover, he always had the powerful support of Churchill and other figures in the Establishment, even if his brother officers and superiors in the navy resented him for his wealth, his glamorous connections, his queue-jumping career advancement, his instant access to the highest elite circles and the quite manifest fact that he was over-promoted because of his royal connections. A sober estimate of his naval abilities concludes thus:

  If a destroyer could leave skid-marks, Kelly would have disfigured the sea in which she sailed. Mountbatten was impetuous. He pushed the ship fast for little reason except his love of speed and imposed unnecessary strain on his own officers and the other ships in the flotilla. He allowed himself to be distracted from his main purpose by the lure of attractive adventures. Above all he lacked that mysterious quality of ‘sea sense’, the ability to ensure that one’s ship is in the right place at the right time. Mountbatten was as good a captain as most and better than many of his contemporaries but among all his peers who have expressed an opinion the unanimous feeling is that, by the highest standards, he was no better than second-rate.5

  An even more serious stain on Mountbatten’s reputation came when he was promoted to the role of Chief of Combined Operations in 1942 and personally pushed through and oversaw the disastrous Dieppe raid on 19 August that year, in which 4,000 Allied casualties (mainly Canadians) were sustained in a single day. His reputation in Canada never recovered from this fiasco,6 and even his admirers find it hard to argue round the palpable truth that his direction was deficient at a number of levels simultaneously: the substitution of commandos for paratroops; the cancellation of a preliminary air bombardment; his faulty intelligence, especially about the scale of German fortifications; and his promise of naval support artillery that never came. Inevitably, his defenders claim that lessons were learned at Dieppe that proved invaluable two years later at the D-Day landings, but it would be amazing if a raid on such a scale did not reveal something. The key issue is whether vital lessons about cross-Channel operations could be learned only with such a colossal loss of life. The overwhelming consensus is that such an end did not justify such bloody means.7 Against such vague bromides used as a ‘defence’ of Mountbatten, his harshest critics add two more barbed criticisms. One is that he exceeded his authority in conducting the entire raid, but this is palliated by the consideration that his superiors knew all about his plans but did nothing to stop them.8 The other is that he deliberately gave the operation the nod when he already knew that the vital prerequisite – amphibious artillery support from destroyers – would not be forthcoming. The presence of the Luftwaffe in the skies above Dieppe, the insufficient broadside of British naval guns and the strength of the German coastal batteries together presented an almost unanswerable case for calling off the operation, yet Mountbatten went ahead. It is this that has led some critics to say that the Canadians were sacrificed to his megalomania. Nigel Hamilton, the biographer of Field Marshal Montgomery, has this to say: ‘a master of intrigue, jealousy and ineptitude, like a spoilt child he toyed with men’s lives with an indifference to casualties that can only be explained by his insatiable, even psychopathic ambition’.9

  By all normal rules the tragedy of Dieppe should have finished off Mountbatten for good, yet because of Churchill’s support he was irrepressible and was soon once again in conclave in the highest military circles. ‘The difficulties in which he found himself were caused by his own errors and impetuosity’ is a recent, very charitable assessment.10 Even the professional soldiers who liked him personally found him a trial as a planner and thinker. Alanbrooke, who was fond of him, frequently expressed exasperation in his d
iary. ‘Dickie’s visits were always dangerous moments and there was no knowing what discussions he might be led into and what he might let us in for!’ (28 March 1942). ‘One of those awful COS meetings where Mountbatten and Dudley Pound drive me completely to desperation. The former is quite irresponsible, suffers from the most desperate illogical brain, always producing red herrings’ (8 January 1943). ‘Very heated argument at COS with Mountbatten who was again putting up wild proposals disconnected with his direct duties. He will insist on doing work of Force Commanders and does it infernally badly! Both Portal and I were driven to distraction by him’ (10 March 1943).11 Mountbatten was one of the party Churchill took with him to the Quebec conference on the Queen Mary, and on this occasion his eccentricity was to the forefront. Alanbrooke related a bizarre incident when Mountbatten was trying to persuade the Anglo-American combined chiefs of staff that aircraft carriers could be built of ice.12

  Dickie now having been let loose gave a signal, whereupon a string of attendants brought in large cubes of ice which were established at the end of the room. Dickie then proceeded to explain that the cube on the left was ordinary pure ice, whereas that on the right contained many ingredients which made it far more resilient, less liable to splinter, and consequently a far more suitable material for the construction of aircraft carriers. He then informed us that in order to prove his statements he had brought a revolver with him and intended to fire shots at the cubes to prove their properties! As he now pulled a revolver out of his pocket we all rose and discreetly followed behind him. He then warned us that he would fire at the ordinary block of ice to show how it splintered and warned us to watch the splinters. He proceeded to fire and we were subjected to a hail of ice splinters! ‘There,’ said Dickie, ‘that is just what I told you; now I shall fire at the block on the right to show you the difference.’ He fired, and there certainly was a difference; the bullet rebounded out of the block and buzzed round our legs like an angry bee!13

  By May 1943 Churchill was angry and disillusioned about the course of the war at the CBI front. His tactless, booming open criticism nearly led a thin-skinned Wavell to resign and thus miss the chance of being kicked upstairs to the viceroyalty. Alanbrooke got Wavell to withdraw his letter of resignation by pointing out that if he took offence at Winston’s charmlessness he would be resigning on a daily basis.14 Yet Churchill somehow got it into his head that the key to success in Burma would be a revival of the old ABDACOM idea, in which Wavell had so signally failed. Churchill secretly agreed with the Americans that as a quid pro quo, the command of OVERLORD, the cross-Channel invasion, would go to an American and that a new supreme command in South-East Asia would go to a Briton. Next he had to find an appropriate person to fill the spot. There was no shortage of candidates with strong claims, but all were eventually discarded because of either opposition from Washington or a veto from General ‘Pug’ Ismay, Churchill’s chief of staff. Leo Amery, the Secretary of State for India, was an ardent champion of the South-East Asia command idea, possibly to get Churchill off his back. Although he admired the Prime Minister and thought him a great man, Amery had no illusions about Churchill, especially when it came to India. His judgement was as follows: ‘Churchill knew as much of the Indian problem as George III did of the American colonies.’15 While Churchill and Amery waited for the formal approval of the chiefs of staff, not given until June, they made a long list and then a short list. On paper, Wavell had claims to be considered, especially as he had virtually occupied the post once before, but both Churchill and Amery concurred in finding him inert, lacklustre and defeatist; additionally he quite manifestly did not get on with Stilwell.16 An even wilder idea was that the hero of the hour, Wingate, should be given the appointment. Churchill, a mindlessly gung-ho Wingate enthusiast, was initially keen on the idea until it was pointed out that it would cause consternation and possibly mass resignations in the army. According to Oliver Harvey, Anthony Eden’s secretary, Wingate was at one time a serious candidate, but Amery and Pug Ismay persuaded Churchill that Wingate was needed as a fighter at the front. This was when the idea of a Mountbatten–Wingate ‘dream ticket’ first took root.17

  Churchill was not at first particularly keen on the idea of Mountbatten as Supreme Commander in South-East Asia. He considered him not ‘big’ enough as a military or political figure and was concerned about his poor health. For a while the front-runner was Air Chief Marshal Sholto Douglas, Commander-in-Chief, RAF, Middle East (having been Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, 1940–42), but he was detested by the Americans and personally vetoed by FDR. Another distinguished airman at one time in the running was Marshal of the RAF Arthur Tedder, Sholto Douglas’s predecessor as commander of the RAF in the Middle East, but the Americans considered him irreplaceable as a Middle East expert. Then the idea gained ground that the post was not appropriate for an airman.18 Accordingly, naval candidates were sought, of whom by far the strongest was Admiral Andrew Cunningham, aka ‘ABC’, the hero of the naval battles of Taranto in 1940 and Cape Matapan in 1941 and unquestionably the most talented admiral in the Royal Navy. Cunningham, who had many American admirers, including the rising star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, declined the offer of the job as he had his sights set on becoming First Sea Lord – a position he attained later in the year.19 When Alanbrooke persisted in pressing the claims of ABC, Churchill cut through the argument by declaring that the post was not suitable for a sailor. For this reason, and because of opposition from Washington, Admiral Sir James Somerville was also rejected. There were many more names submitted to the chiefs of staff: General Henry ‘Jumbo’ Wilson, Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, 1943–44;20 Marshal of the RAF John Slessor (Commander-in-Chief, RAF, Middle East, 1943–44); and three men who had already or soon would swim into Slim’s ken in Burma: Generals Oliver Leese, George Giffard and Henry Pownall, of whom Pownall was tainted in Churchill’s eyes for having been chief of staff to Wavell until the fall of Singapore. The last five candidates were all rejected because ‘Pug’ Ismay regarded them as mediocrities. Churchill seldom went against Ismay’s advice, for it was on him, even more than on Alanbrooke and Eden, that the Prime Minister truly relied.21

  It was on the way across the Atlantic to the Quebec conference that Churchill finally decided he was going to appoint Mountbatten as Supreme Commander in South-East Asia, doubtless forgetting his earlier stricture that the post was not suitable for a sailor. Second thoughts had supervened, and he now concluded that all Mountbatten’s supposed disadvantages (his poor health, playboy image, youth, lack of gravitas) were not after all major problems. He summoned General Ian Jacob, Ismay’s deputy, and General Leslie Hollis and asked them who they thought should be the new supreme commander. When Jacob mentioned Giffard, Churchill grimaced, then, ‘with a face like a naughty schoolboy’, produced Mountbatten’s name.22 All the chiefs of staff were unenthusiastic but acquiesced reluctantly. Alanbrooke remarked tartly that he would need a very efficient chief of staff to pull him through but did not oppose him strongly, allowing himself to be argued round to the proposition that Mountbatten might make up for what he lacked in experience by sheer energy, drive and arrogant self-confidence.23 Admiral of the Fleet Dudley Pound was much more vociferously opposed to the appointment, arguing that it was just another example of Churchill’s making a mockery of the traditions of the Royal Navy. Pound had always beeen concerned about the blatant favouritism accorded to Mountbatten in his accelerated rise through the navy. When Churchill made him Chief of Combined Operations in 1942 against the unanimous advice of the Admiralty, Pound complained bitterly that he had been put in a false position: on the one hand it was thought that he had approved the leapfrog promotion, and he had to support it publicly; whereas the truth was that no one but a royal would have been promoted three grades at the premier’s whim. Pound made his negative feelings plain with a de haut en bas comment that doubtless Mountbatten was ‘as likely to make a success of the job as any other junior officer’.24 If the reaction in military circles w
as lukewarm to put it mildly, that in the political arena was closer to stupefaction. In London Eden and Attlee, thoroughly alarmed, put in an eleventh-hour bid for Cunningham once more. P.J. Grigg, the Secretary of State for War, denounced to all comers the ‘ludicrous’ promotion of a mere aristocratic playboy. But once Churchill had one of his ‘bright ideas’ there was no stopping him. Few arguments though could be weaker than Churchill’s fatuous ‘apologia’ that Mountbatten’s youthfulness would make the appointment go down well with public opinion. Churchill, a movie-lover, was confusing fact with fiction, illusion with reality.