Free If Britain Had Fallen by Norman Longmate Page B

lesson to any German impertinent enough to land on British soil, the Cabinet was worried as to how far they could go without being shot as franc-tireurs, or partisans. The Minister of Home Security, Herbert Morrison, a former pacifist, comfortingly informed his colleagues that ‘there could be nothing wrong in civilians helping to block roads under the orders of the military’, but ‘there was a clear distinction between defence measures taken in advance of invasion, which were perfectly legitimate, and action taken by civilians after the enemy were in effective control of an area, which were not legitimate. He was also advised that action by civilians against individual parachutists and Fifth Columnists was legitimate.’ They could, it seemed, shoot first and ask questions afterwards.
    On 21 May, General Tug’ Ismay, Military Head of the War Cabinet Secretariat, submitted to Winston Churchill a formal warning that ‘the grave emergency is already upon us’, and that it must be assumed that the Germans had planned the invasion of the United Kingdom ‘to the last detail. We can be sure that Hitler would be prepared to sacrifice ninety per cent of the whole expedition if he could gain a firm bridgehead on British soil with the remaining ten per cent.’ Even the accepted doctrine that Hitler would need to capture a port was now questionable, for German air superiority might enable the enemy to land tanks and artillery across open beaches. Hence ‘not a moment should be lost’ in preparing demolitions to block the way inland.
    During the next few hectic weeks, the Cabinet devoted much time to the problem of Ireland which, it was feared, might be seized by the Germans as a base for an assault on the British Isles from the rear. Eamon de Valera, the Prime Minister of Eire, insisted that the Irish would defend their independence, but the Chiefs of Staff believed that his country might easily fall to an airborne assault, perhaps by no more than 2000 determined men, or to a seaborne attack from men concealed in merchant ships, as had happened in Norway. The British government offered to help defend Eire if asked but the Irish, like other small countries before them, insisted that they could remain neutral or, if necessary, defeata German attack. De Valera refused to come to London to discuss the danger in which his country and his own person stood (for the British government believed the Germans might shoot him to facilitate the takeover of Eire) and when a British emissary went to see him he refused outright all British help. Some ministers, with the whole future of the British Isles in jeopardy, favoured Britain seizing the Irish ports needed to protect her western approaches, to forestall a German landing, but wiser, or at least milder, counsels prevailed, for this, it was felt, would convert Eire from an uneasy neutral to an active ally of Germany. Plans for an All-Ireland Council came to nothing and a British division, badly needed in England, remained tied up in Northern Ireland, but it was estimated that no fewer than ten would be needed to garrison the whole of Ireland with a hostile population south of the border.
    If Eire was a disappointment to the British government, so, too, was the United States, the Americans being clearly more concerned about the long-term threat to themselves than the immediate threat to Great Britain. Half a million old rifles, 2000 sub-machine guns, even some ancient artillery, they were willing and able to provide, but Winston Churchill’s request for the loan of fifty old destroyers, first made in May, met with no success until August, when Britain offered in exchange a lease of various bases in the West Indies and Newfoundland, and was not finally settled until 5 September, far too late for them to arrive in time to affect the outcome of the daily-expected invasion. The American attitude was understandable. Their ambassador in London, Joseph Kennedy, was pouring across the Atlantic a