Winston Churchill's War Leadership by Sir Martin Gilbert Read Free Book Online Page B

Churchill sought the best possible leaders at every level of this national endeavour and supported them in their efforts. On one occasion, answering parliamentary criticisms that he was sluggish, he replied: “I am certainly not one of those who needs to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am a prod.”
    There was no more visible aspect of Churchill’s war leadership than his daily scrutiny of what was being done across the whole range of execution of war policy. While relying with confidence on those to whom he had delegated the business of war, Churchill followed everything that was being done with a meticulous eye. This rigorous scrutiny had several purposes. First, to ensure that those in whom he had put his trust were carrying out their duties to the highest standard possible. Second, to give praise where it was merited. Praise and encouragement, while not so exciting to the historian as conflict and disagreement, were an essential part of Churchill’s “prod.” Third, to discover, and rectify, anything he thought was not going well or to suggest a more effective way forward.
    Churchill’s daily Minutes constituted a stream of questions and questioning about what was being done and how. As he told a member of his Defence Secretariat: “It was all very well to say that everything had been thought of. The crux of the matter was—had anything been done?” To get things done, to ensure that policies that had been decided upon were not only being implemented but carried out expeditiously and effectively, was at the centre of Churchill’s daily work. As another member of his Defence Secretariat wrote, “His pugnacious spirit demanded constant action; the enemy must be assailed continuously.”
    Churchill also had a mastery of detail that enhanced his war leadership over a wide range of complex issues. He had always been interested in the details of policies, however intricate, during his long political career. As First Lord of the Admiralty on the eve of the First World War, he had absorbed himself in the art of flying, had learned to fly (coming within a few hours of his pilot’s wings), and had made numerous suggestions for the improvement of flight and the development of aerial warfare. When war came in 1914, he put the resources of the Admiralty behind the evolution of the tank and made many technical suggestions for its development. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, before establishing pensions for widows and orphans and lowering the age for old age pensions, he studied the actuarial tables to the point where he could converse about them with his most knowledgeable officials.
    While at the Admiralty between September 1939 and May 1940, Churchill had made many helpful suggestions about using dummy ships to deceive the Germans, about employing the convoy system to protect British vessels from German submarines, and about many other aspects of naval warfare. When needs became apparent, he made suggestions that often led to substantive and constructive change—as with finding alternate sources of labour to meet the labour shortage in the dockyards, or advancing plans for the placing of radar on ships (before the war he had helped the inventor of radar, Robert Watson-Watt, to obtain a higher priority for his invention). Those closest to Churchill saw his strength in matters of detail. Eric Seal, Churchill’s Principal Private Secretary at the Admiralty and later at Downing Street, wrote in a private letter after a stormy meeting in April 1940 about the course of the Norwegian campaign: “Winston is marvellous at picking up all the threads and giving them coherent shape and form.”
    As Prime Minister, Churchill generated a stream of ideas for weapons, devices, enterprises and initiatives. He was a pioneer in the creation of amphibious tanks (the DD tanks—“Donald Ducks”—that were to come ashore at Normandy). He put forward effective proposals for the urgent repair of bombed airfields during the Battle of