Note 2: Khalifian troops are Moors, owing allegiance to the Khalif, and constitute a valuable reserve. In addition, some 40,000 of the army are Moorish troops and Foreign Legionaries – Spain’s best fighting material.
APPENDIX “F”
GERMAN LAND FORCES AVAILABLE TO OPPOSE THE OPERATION
1. German troops could be brought from:–
(i) Libya
(ii) The Aegean area
(iii) Germany
(iv) Occupied France
(v) Russia.
The speed of movement will depend on a number of factors, such as the degree of readiness of the troops, the availability of rolling stock, the collection of shipping, and communications generally. The estimates of the timings given below have taken these factors into account so far as it is possible.
In all the above places the troops already there are likely to be a minimum for requirements with little or nothing to spare.
2. Germany might, however, make any of the following areas:–
(a) From France , using French or Italian ports.
1 Armoured Division, which may only be partially re-equipped and rested (from Russia).
1 Infantry Division.
The first elements could arrive in Tunisia about two weeks after our assault had taken place. A complete division would not arrive and be operationally effective before about four to seven weeks after the assault. The second division could be operationally effective some 10–12 weeks after the assault.
(b) From Libya (and Aegean area.) – unless Rommel has met with unexpected success, there will be no German troops available with which to reinforce Tunisia. Units in Italy en route to Libya might be diverted to Tunisia.
(c) From Germany – At a pinch, German could form the equivalent of one weak composite mobile division from the various depot and training formations in Germany. There is also the possibility that one newly raised S.S. Division destined for either the Balkans or Russia might be diverted to North Africa.
These formations could reach North Africa on the same timing basis as those from France.
(d) From Russia – In October, Germany is unlikely to be able to spare more than 2–3 Infantry Divisions for operations in North Africa or Spain. These would probably require some rest and re-equipment, especially for African conditions. They could not be operationally effective, even without rest and re-equipment until two to four months after our assault.
There exists the possibility, however, that by October Russia will be in a sufficiently weakened state for Germany to have pulled out up to, say, 10 divisions for operations in other theatres. The formation of such a strategic reserve must be the aim of the High Command, and its fulfilment is entirely dependent in the way the Russian campaign develops in the next two months.
Notes
1 . Hankey to Hoare, 24 April 1940. TNA: CAB 127/375.
2 . COS(40)352, ‘Urgent Intelligence Reports’, 13 May 1940. TNA: CAB 80/11.
3 . JIC(40) 29th Meeting, 15 May 1940, TNA: CAB 81/87. Details of the additional yet separate services’ intelligence summaries are given in JIC(40)60, ‘The Production of Intelligence Summaries by the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee and Service Departments’, 15 May 1940, TNA: CAB 81/96.
4 . JIC(41)470, ‘Intelligence Section (Operations)’, 24 December 1941, TNA: CAB 81/105.
5 . JIC(41)462(0), ‘Operation Gymnast – Cover’, 8 December 1941, TNA: CAB 81/105.
6 . JIC(42)34(Final), ‘Germany’s Intentions’, 25 January 1942, TNA: CAB 81/106.
7 . For instance, see ‘Operation Gymnast – Scale of Air Attack’, 10 March 1942, TNA: CAB 119/74.
8 . JIC(42) 11th Meeting, 31 March 1942, TNA: CAB 81/90.
9 . JIC(42)113(Final), ‘Axis Strength and Policy, 1942’, 10 April 1942, TNA: CAB 81/107.
10 . Michael Howard, Grand Strategy: History of the Second World War, Vol. IV: August 1942–September 1943 (London: HMSO, 1972).
11 . JIC(42)265(Final), ‘German strategy in 1942/3’, 16 July 1942, TNA: CAB 81/109.
12 . JIC(42)299(0)(Final), ‘Operations in a Certain Country’, 3 August 1942, TNA: CAB 81/109.
13 . JIC(42)304(0)(Final), ‘Operation “TORCH” – Intelligence Appreciation’, 7 August 1942, TNA: CAB 81/109.
14 . JIC(42)320(0), ‘A Certain Operation – Information for the Force-Commander’, 20 August 1942, TNA: CAB 81/109.
15 . JIC(42)432(0), ‘Recent Intelligence Affecting Operation “TORCH” ’, 3 November 1942, TNA: CAB 81/111.
16 . JIC(42)431(0), ‘Letter by Brigadier Mockler-Ferryman on a Certain Operation’, 30 October 1942, TNA: CAB 81/111.
4
A POST-WAR INTELLIGENCE
MACHINERY
B Y 1943 THE JIC had become an integral part of the war effort, having demonstrated its worth in the planning for Operation Torch. Indicating its new-found prestige, the committee had spawned regional offshoots around the world and had provided the model for foreign JICs. In London, too, it had generated a number of subordinate bodies, encompassing everything from support for operations to a special sub-committee on carrier pigeons. Its most important body was the Joint Intelligence Staff – the two teams of drafters that produced the JIC assessments. Presiding over this intelligence empire was a committee of seven full-time members: a Foreign Office chairman, the chief of MI6, senior representatives from MI5 and the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and the directors of intelligence in the War Office, Admiralty and Air Ministry. Throughout the second half of the war the JIC met at least weekly, and held frequent meetings with the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Joint Planning Staff.
Following the successes of Torch, the JIC was instrumental in providing the intelligence background to the planning for subsequent invasions, including the invasions of Sicily (Husky) and north west France (Overlord). From 1943 onwards it also fulfilled a further role: beginning to plan for the post-war world. One of the problems that had beset pre-war intelligence, despite the JIC’s creation, was the intermittent connectedness of the intelligence ‘community’ and the slowness with which Germany, Italy and Japan had become intelligence priorities. By 1943, however, the increased reputation of the JIC allowed it to proffer its own opinions in such a way that those in Whitehall took note. Furthermore, in his exalted role as Chairman, the diplomat Victor Cavendish-Bentinck proved an indispensable figure at the heart of the intelligence and policy worlds. Perhaps the greatest measure of the wartime JIC’s esteem was that it survived.
The committee itself began to look towards the post-war world as early as 1943, a point that predates higher-level conversations within Whitehall on the same subject. The initial discussion was started by Cavendish-Bentinck. He presented his vision for a post-war JIC to committee members in October 1943. A core question centred on whether the JIC should remain a subordinate body to the COS or, as Cavendish-Bentinck suggested, move outside that reporting chain and assume a broader range of subject matter, not just that of a military concern. This idea, as it transpired, would be too revolutionary for his colleagues: in fact it was not implemented until almost fifteen years later when, in 1957, the JIC moved into the Cabinet Office. Despite Cavendish-Bentinck’s best efforts back in 1943, it was extremely difficult, and understandably so, to anticipate a world in which the COS were not the fulcrum.
What did the JIC actually do? A 1944 definition of the JIC’s work, endorsed by the committee itself, offers a glimpse:
The Joint Intelligence Committee in addition to its responsibility for coordinating the product of the various collectors of intelligence into the form of agreed advice on enemy intentions, has the additional responsibility of watching, directing and to some extent controlling the British Intelligence organisation throughout the world, so as to ensure that intelligence is received at the most economical cost in time, effort and manpower, and so as to prevent overlapping. 1
Cavendish-Bentinck, now assisted by Denis Capel-Dunn, the very able wartime JIC Secretary, drafted further documents on the JIC’s post-war struct
ure. Their vision encompassed not just the committee itself, but how it should become the centrepiece of Britain’s post-war intelligence machinery. This was no self-appointed task. Indeed, the instruction had come from the top, having been signed off by Sir Edward Bridges, the Cabinet Secretary.
Their subsequent report – reproduced below – offered a rare semi-official definition of intelligence. As it stated, ‘intelligence is, however, of high importance as a servant of those conducting military operations. It is no more. It cannot win battles, but if it is absent or faulty, battles may easily be lost.’ Here was the centrepiece of their argument: not only was the JIC vital but intelligence, as a whole, would be just as crucial after the war as it was currently. In order to make the intelligence machine as effective as possible, the authors argued, ‘inter-departmental co-operation’ was crucial. The reasoning was straightforward:
The machine … should ensure that the agency best fitted for the collection of a particular type of intelligence continues to collect it. It should ensure that, as far as possible, no other agency should collect the same material from the same source. It should ensure that the material collected is collated with other material bearing on the same subject, so that the best possible evaluation may be made. It should ensure that the information, when received and collated, is made available to all those with a legitimate interest in it and whose work will profit from its receipt. It should be controlled at the top by a strong inter-service and inter-departmental body, representing the needs of producers and consumers of intelligence.
The JIC, perhaps inevitability, was the means to achieve this. Thus, ‘we believe that no Department, however experienced and well staffed, has anything to lose by bringing the intelligence directly available to it to the anvil of discussion and appreciation among other workers in the same field’. 2
Members of the JIC continued to revisit these ideas. A revised draft was issued in September 1945, now based on the knowledge that the war was successfully over. By this point neither of the original authors were involved: Cavendish-Bentinck had departed to become ambassador in Warsaw; Capel-Dunn had died in a plane crash on the way back from Montreal. It was accepted that pre-war failings of the intelligence machine had ‘led to the need for rapid and largely improvised expansion under the imminent threat’. Furthermore, having now ‘set our house in order’, the JIC made five recommendations as to the future of British intelligence:
1. An intelligence organisation must be centrally directed and fitted to the system of command.
2. Its collecting agencies must cover the world.
3. Its collating staffs must work as far as possible on an interservice basis.
4. All commanders must be provided with intelligence staffs able to give them the intelligence picture which they require for their tasks.
5. London has been the focal point of British intelligence during the war and should remain the hub of the intelligence organisation. 3
The report received widespread support: the COS, and Bridges in particular, were effusive in their praise. The report was important in the subsequent creation of the Joint Intelligence Bureau (reformed into the Defence Intelligence Staff in 1964) and it helped install the JIC at the apex of British intelligence. A subsequent report in 1947, written by retired Air Chief Marshal Sir Douglas Evill, labelled the JIC as ‘indispensable’. 4 The following year, largely as a consequence, the JIC was elevated to full committee status, the chairman’s rank was raised and, for the first time, a proper charter was issued which outlined the central role that the JIC was designed to play:
The Joint Intelligence Committee is given the following responsibilities:-
(i) Under the Chiefs of Staff to plan, and to give higher direction to, operations of defence intelligence and security, to keep them under review in all fields and to report progress.
(ii) To assemble and appreciate available intelligence for presentation as required to the Chiefs of Staff and to initiate other reports as the Committee may deem necessary.
(iii) To keep under review the organisation of intelligence as a whole and in particular the relations of its component parts so as to ensure efficiency, economy and a rapid adaptation to changing requirements, and to advise the Chiefs of Staff of what changes are deemed necessary.
(iv) To co-ordinate the general policy of Joint Intelligence Committees under United Kingdom Commands overseas and to maintain an exchange of intelligence with them, and to maintain liaison with appropriate Commonwealth intelligence agencies. 5
Thus, by 1948, the JIC was equipped to deal with the post-war world.
The circulation of this paper has been strictly
limited. It is issued for the personal use of
TOP SECRET
Copy No. 10
10 January 1945
THE INTELLIGENCE MACHINE
Report to the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee
Page
I.—Introduction 2
II.—The Existing Organisation 5
III.—Organisations whose Policy is now under the Direction of the J.I.C.—
The Inter-Service Topographical Department 6
The Intelligence Section (Operations) 8
The Inter-Service Security Board 8
The Combined Service Detailed Interrogation Centre 9
The Central Interpretation Unit 10
IV.—Departments and Organisations not Directed by the J.I.C. which deal with Intelligence—
The Political Warfare Executive 11
Postal and Telegraph Censorship 13
The Secret Services 13
The “Y” Services 15
The Special Operations Executive 15
Secret Communications 15
R.S.S. 16
V.—The Post-War Intelligence Organisation 16
ANNEX A.—Survey of Activities of the Information and Records Branch of Imperial Censorship 20
ANNEX B.—Chart of proposed Central Intelligence Organisation.
I.—Introduction .
THE Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee invited us to prepare a report on the post-war organisation of intelligence. “Intelligence,” in the military sense, covers all kinds of information required for the conduct of war. By natural extension, it has come to cover also security — preventing an enemy or a potential enemy from obtaining information which might help him or harm us. With the coming of total war, the meaning of warfare has been extended to cover a wide area, embracing such fields as those of economic warfare, political and psychological warfare and deception. Those responsible for these latter forms of warfare, no less than those directing our main operations at sea, on land and in the air, require intelligence. Intelligence covers also the means by which information is conveyed, i.e ., communications.
2. Before the present war, the Intelligence Branches were not much favoured parts of the Staff in any of the three fighting Services. Indeed, it would be foolish to pretend that even now, in the sixth year of the war, intelligence has not many critics. Intelligence is, however, of high importance as a servant of those conducting military operations. It is no more. It cannot win battles, but if it is absent or faulty, battles may easily be lost. It is important, therefore, that the Intelligence Branch, no less than the branches responsible for the supply of ammunition, fuel and food, and the branches responsible for reinforcement of the forces in the field, should be as efficient as we can make it. Yet no one would be so bold as to contend that our Service Intelligence Staffs entered this war adequately equipped for the task confronting them. There existed no sufficient trained cadre of intelligence officers. Our topographical information was woefully lacking. Fortunately, there existed in the product of the Government Code and Cypher School one certain channel of first-class information, but its full value could not be got unless the machine at the centre was properly equipped to collate and assess it against cognate intelligence from other sources. In the War Office in peace time there was no separate Directorate of Intelligence, and in the Air Min
istry the peace-time intelligence organisation was, frankly, not impressive. In the Admiralty, the position was rather better. There existed a system of naval reporting centres in ports all over the world. Moreover, the Naval Intelligence Division, even in peace, was a senior division of the Naval Staff under the direction of a senior officer and, accordingly, carried more weight within the Navy than did the parallel organisations in the other two services. In no Service was there a school of intelligence. There was a tendency to employ officers in intelligence, not because they were particularly suited to the work, but because they possessed a language qualification. In the Army, at any rate, intelligence was a dangerous branch of the Staff for an ambitious officer to join.
3. It is sometimes forgotten that the Directors of Intelligence in the Service Departments are in a different position from that of any of the other heads of divisions. The Directors of Intelligence are responsible to their Chiefs of Staff and, as members of the J.I.C., to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, for advice in war as to the probable intentions of the enemy, and in peace as to the development of warlike actions or policies on the part of foreign countries. In addition to this responsibility the Directors of Intelligence are the heads of great organisations with world-wide ramifications. This combination of advisory and administrative function places upon them a heavy burden.
4. While we believe that it is right to record the situation described above, so that it may not be reflected in the conditions obtaining in the future, we recognise that the decision to allow the Intelligence Branches, which had achieved much in the last war, to wither in the period between the wars, was a natural decision. The fighting Services had terribly scanty financial provision out of which to ensure the security of the country and the Empire. Those in control could not be blamed if they decided that as there was not enough to go round, ships, aircraft, guns and warlike stores must be brought before intelligence. We all hope the country will have learned its lesson and that, in future, it will be publicly recognised that it is poor economy to save on the armed forces to such an extent as to encourage potential enemies to become actual enemies, and then to pay at shortage rates in life and treasure for our unreadiness. It would, however, be rash to assume that the lesson will be remembered. Therefore, “taking the worst case” as we are taught to do in our appreciations for the Chiefs of Staff, it is clear that we should strive not merely to ensure that our Intelligence Service after the war is the most efficient possible, but to ensure that it is as economical as can be without sacrifice of efficiency.
Spying on the World Page 8