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Articles
Great Contemporaries: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound
- By ROBIN BRODHURST
- | March 2, 2023
- Category: Explore Great Contemporaries
Robin Brodhurst: In Memoriam
In January, Professor Robin Brodhurst died unexpectedly in his sleep aged only 70. Robin was a schoolmaster and military historian who served for 22 years as Head of History at Pangbourne College, Berkshire, England. He was the distinguished author of Churchill’s Anchor: The Biography of Admiral Sir Dudley Pound. More recently he edited The Bramall Papers, a volume of documents and speeches by Field Marshal Lord Bramall, former Chief of Defence Staff and Chief of the General Staff. A memorial is published in the Pangbournian Portal.
His friends and colleagues are shocked and grieved over his loss at such an age. “He seemed so young,” writes Andrew Roberts. “He was a lovely, charming and good natured man, as well as being a very considerable scholar.” Robin was a constant encouragement to The Churchill Project, for which he wrote book reviews. We recently asked him for a “Great Contemporaries” essay on Admiral Pound, on which he was the leading scholar. It is poignant that Robin finished the job, his last article, just in time. It reminds us of Churchill’s comment that President Roosevelt had worked to the end: “He had finished his mail.” To paraphrase Churchill on Dudley Pound, I mourn him with a personal pang for all we have lost. —Richard M. Langworth
“Try and remember you are an Admiral of the Fleet”
Whenever possible as Prime Minister, Churchill spent weekends at Chequers. He duly set off for the PM’s country house on Friday 9 August 1940. With him were his wife Clementine, daughter Mary, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, Mideast Commander Archie Wavell, Chief of Staff “Pug” Ismay, and Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. All were to dine and sleep there that evening.
Private Secretary John Colville recorded an unexpected arrival for dinner: First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound. Churchill had omitted to tell anyone.1 Another place was hastily made, and after dinner the men sat around discussing the collapse of France and home defence.
Late that night, somewhere around 3am, German aircraft were heard overhead. Churchill insisted that they all adjourn to the star-lit garden to see what was afoot. Colville describes the amusing experience:
We stumbled in the darkness. The First Sea Lord, who was a little lame, fell down a flight of steps. Having picked himself up disconsolately, he then fell down another, ending in a heap on the ground, where a sentry, thinking him an intruder, threatened him with a bayonet. I ran forward to explain who he was. At that moment Churchill also arrived on the scene from the rose garden. “This is not the place for a First Sea Lord,” said Pound. Churchill replied: “Try and remember you are an Admiral of the Fleet and not a Midshipman.” They walked happily together back into the house.2
Not many prime ministers could get away with that sort of remark to a chief of staff. It shows how close Churchill and Pound were.
Early encounters
They first met in 1915. Since April 1914, Pound had been executive officer of the dreadnought HMS St. Vincent, in the First Battle Squadron. He was under the command of his oldest naval friend, W.W. Fisher. Churchill did visit the Grand Fleet in Loch Ewe in 1914, but did not meet Pound. The latter records in his diary for 17th September: “Winston Churchill has come up to confer with the C-in-C [Sir John Jellicoe] and is on board Iron Duke.3
Pound did not have to wait long. On the last day of 1914, he was promoted to captain. He was posted to the Admiralty, much to his disgust, “for Committee work.” In fact, he was appointed an additional naval assistant to the First Sea Lord, Jacky Fisher. As a result, he witnessed first-hand the disintegration of the Churchill-Fisher relationship and the resignation of both in May 1915.
Churchill’s interwar career was mixed. He ran the Exchequer, one of the four great political offices for five years, but by 1931 had cast himself into the political wilderness. However, he did remain the senior Conservative Privy Councillor.4 Pound, conversely, had had a stellar career after 1919. He alternated between sea commands and important staff jobs, culminating in Second Sea Lord (1932-35) and C-in-C Mediterranean Fleet. In the former office he restored naval morale after the Invergordon Mutiny. He took over in the Mediterranean from W.W. Fisher in 1936.
His country calls
In the late 1930s there was a shortage of senior officers, what today would be called a “flag plot.” Fisher, who would have been an outstanding First Sea Lord, died in 19375 and Reggie Henderson in 1939. James Somerville and Geoffrey Blake both retired owing to illness, though both returned with distinction in the coming war. Bertie Ramsay had resigned in a huff in 1935 and been placed on the retired list in 1938.
Thus, when Ernle Chatfield stood down as First Sea Lord in 1938 the only realistic choices were the C-in-Cs of the two main fleets: Pound in the Mediterranean and Roger Backhouse, commanding the Home Fleet. Backhouse was chosen. Pound was told he could have an extra year in the Mediterranean and retire as an Admiral of the Fleet. Pound was delighted, and celebrated by purchasing a new shotgun. Game shooting was his passion, and his only real form of relaxation.6
But all was not well at the Admiralty. Backhouse was dying of a brain tumour and his Deputy, Andrew Cunningham, was struggling with the flow of paper. A new First Sea Lord was needed. Pound bid farewell to his Fleet and travelled in haste to London to take up the totally unexpected position. He had no secretary, his previous one having died in 1937. He took on Backhouse’s assistant secretary, Lt. Commander Ronald Brockman.7
At the Admiralty
There has been debate about the suitability of Pound’s appointment as First Sea Lord, notably in Captain Stephen Roskill’s acerbic book Churchill and the Admirals.8 The principal concern was Pound’s health. He suffered from osteoarthritis of the left hip, which made both sleep and movement difficult. Other junior admirals were considered, notably Home Fleet commander Charles Forbes and Cunningham. There was also the option of bringing back Chatfield, but that had echoes of “bringing back Jacky Fisher” in 1916. One of Roskill’s critics quipped: “I wonder what Captain Roskill would have made of a one-eyed, one-armed Admiral of unstable temperament [Nelson]. Unfit for command at Trafalgar?”9
It’s a fairly unanswerable question. Anyway, Pound took office in June 1939. He was immediately thrown into controversy when the submarine HMS Thetis sank during sea trials in Liverpool Bay.
There has been much argument over the working relationship between Pound and Churchill as both First Lord and Prime Minister. Certainly, once Churchill was at Downing Street Pound considered him to be his “boss.” That excluded Churchill’s own First Lord, the Labour politician A.V. Alexander.10 The latter was rarely if ever involved in naval strategy. Nor, it is clear, was he ever briefed on the Ultra secret, or allowed into the Admiralty War Room.
Pound and Churchill
Senior naval promotions were always discussed with the Prime Minister. And Pound directly reported key events—like the sinking of both HMS Hood and the Bismarck. Naval planning, such as the famous Tiger convoy through the Mediterranean in 1940, or the despatch of Force Z to Singapore in 1941, were discussed and argued over with Churchill, both at the Chiefs of Staff Committee and Defence Committee levels.
One of the key questions about the relationship between Churchill and Pound is whether Churchill interfered too much in naval matters. Or to put it the other way, did Pound allow Churchill to interfere too much? Here we have to look back to the 1915 relationship between Churchill and Fisher, which Pound closely observed over four months.
Churchill the young politician was unquestionably actively involved in naval minutiae. Fisher allowed this, probably against his own better judgement. Eventually their relationship blew up and both titans departed.11 Was the lesson learned? Unquestionably it was, by both the politician and the sailor.
Churchill returned to the Admiralty and met the First Sea Lord on the evening of 2 September 1939. “We eyed each other amicably if doubtfully,” Churchill recalled. “When, four years later, he died at the moment of the general victory over Italy, I mourned with a personal pang for all the Navy and the nation had lost.”12
Getting along
What Churchill had learned by 1939 was not to try to override his naval advisers. What Pound had learned was never to say a direct “no” to the politician. Thus many signals written by Churchill were sent to Cs-in-C over the signature “First Lord and First Sea Lord.” This was to be seen most frequently in the Norwegian campaign of early 1940.
Here too, we see Pound at his most diplomatic. He made Naval Staff investigate every Churchill proposal for action, however unlikely, and put forward papers showing how impossible they were—or what disastrous effect they might have. Take Operation Catherine, the proposal to send a fleet into the Baltic during the winter of 1939-40. Paper after paper was sent to Churchill, including one “to make his flesh creep.13 The PM was reduced to saying (almost): “Who thought up this damn fool idea?” This system was effective in avoiding both unnecessary actions and political bloodshed. But it also cost vast amounts of wasted time in the Admiralty.
Pound was certain that the effort was worthwhile. He knew the value of having a politician of the first water back at the Admiralty. He understood how critical this prime minister was to Britain’s survival. As he wrote to Admiral Forbes: “I have the greatest admiration for Churchill, and his good qualities are such, and his desire to hit the enemy so overwhelming, that I feel one must hesitate in turning down any of his proposals.”14
By day and night
Pound, like most naval officers, liked to be rise early and be early in bed. He slept in a room close to his Admiralty office, and was at his desk by 8am at latest. Until the appointment of a deputy in late 1942, he was the only person able to sign for files from his office. The paperwork was considerable. His only relaxation was access to a “shoot” in Hertfordshire arranged by a visiting American naval reserve officer, Paul Hammond.
Churchill’s working routine was vastly different. His day began with perusing the newspapers and the night’s messages while in still abed. The PM took an hour’s nap in the afternoon and resumed serious work until after dinner. He often continued until well after 2am, or even much later. Politicians and senior officers were summoned at such hours to Churchill’s presence. They left their bed (and their sleep) to be there, never quite knowing what was likely to be thrust at them. It never occurred to Churchill that he was inconveniencing them. Truly it can be said that Pound sometimes had to fight Hitler by day and Churchill by night.
It is interesting to compare Churchill’s methods with Pound’s appointment of a new Mediterranean Fleet chief of staff in 1939. Admiral Algernon Willis wrote:
Pound kept very late hours and when embarked on HMS Warspite seldom went to bed before 2 am, and was often up at 6 am to go ashore for some activity, such as shooting. When I became Chief of Staff I said to him, “I like to get to bed about 11 pm. I hope you won’t send for me after that unless it’s urgent.” He was very considerate and did not.15
“History with its flickering lamp”16
Two great naval historians, Arthur Marder and Stephen Roskill, argued the Pound-Churchill relationship back and forth. It is probably best summarised by Marder’s comment that Pound feared neither God nor Churchill.17 Of course there were moments of exacerbation, yet somehow they were resolved in the interests of the nation.
Churchill and Pound were vividly contrasting types, but in the emergency of a world war they fitted together. Each recognised the strengths and weaknesses of the other. It was true, as Churchill famously wrote, that “I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and this trial.”18 It was equally true to say of Pound: “He is not a Roosevelt figure; rather he is like Truman, and like Truman, he stayed in the kitchen and he took the heat.”19
Endnotes
1 John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939-1955 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985), 213.
2 John Colville, The Churchillians (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), 139.
3 Paul Halpern, ed., “Dudley Pound in the Grand Fleet, 1914-15,” in The Naval Miscellany, vol. VI (Navy Records Society, 2003), 410.
4 Churchill was created PC in 1907. There were senior PCs, but they were not Conservatives, such as David Lloyd George in 1905.
5 See William James, Admiral Sir William Fisher (London: Macmillan, 1943).
6 For a discussion of these manoeuvrings see Robin Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound (Barnsley, Yorks.: Pen & Sword, 2000), 106-12.
7 Ronald Brockman (1909-1990) was to become Vice Admiral Sir Ronald. He stayed at the Admiralty with Pound until the latter’s death in October 1943, when he was “picked up” by Mountbatten on his appointment as Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia. He served as Admiral’s Secretary, Private Secretary and Senior Staff Officer to Mountbatten from 1943 to 1965 in the latter’s various posts.
8 See Stephen W. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals (London: Collins, 1977).
9 Letter to The Daily Telegraph, 11 March 1970.
10 Albert V. Alexander (1885-1965), First Lord of the Admiralty in the Labour government 1929-31, First Lord of the Admiralty in the Churchill coalition 1940-45, Labour First Lord, 1945-46, Minister of Defence, 1946-50. See John Tilley, Churchill’s Favourite Socialist: A Life of A.V. Alexander (London: Holyoake Books, 1995.)
***
11 The best account of their relationship is Barry Gough, Churchill and Fisher; Titans at the Admiralty (Barnsley: Seaforth, 2017).
12 Winston S. Churchill (hereinafter WSC), The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), 321.
13 A.J. Marder, From the Dardanelles to Oran, Studies of the Royal Navy in Peace and War, 1915-1940 (Oxford University Press, 1974), 146.
14 Signal is to be found in the Cunningham Papers, British Museum, Add Mss 52565.
15 The best survey of the fractious relationship between Marder and Roskill is Barry Gough, Historical Dreadnoughts: Arthur Marder, Stephen Roskill and the Battle for Naval History (Barnsley: Seaforth, 2010).
16 WSC, House of Commons, 12 November 1942: “History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.”
17 Admiral of the Fleet Sir Algernon Willis Papers, Imperial War Museum, Box 186.
18 WSC, Gathering Storm, 526-27.
19 Brodhurst, Churchill’s Anchor, 286.