HL Deb 18 May 1943 vol 127 cc509-20
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

My Lords, I beg to move to resolve, That this House, at the triumphant conclusion of the operations by land, sea and air, which have secured the unconditional surrender of all the enemy remaining in the Continent of Africa, hereby places on record, with pride and thankfulness, its high appreciation of the services of all ranks of His Majesty's Forces and of the Forces of the Allies operating in that theatre of war, by whose sacrifice, persistence and devotion to duty, sustained by the labours of those at home, this bril1iant victory has been achieved.

This is a great, a historic occasion. It is an occasion for which we have waited patiently through nearly four long years of war. When our fortunes were at the lowest ebb, at the time of Dunkirk, at the time of Crete, at the time of Singapore, when the enemy were at the gates of Alexandria, the British people set their teeth and said, "Surely our time will come." And now it has come. Our faith has been justified. Inevitably, the building up of our military strength has taken time. An Army is not made in a day. The great military machine of modern war, especially, has to be compounded of flesh and blood, of steel and oil, to a degree never known to our forefathers. It has to be built up by trial and error, it has to be tempered and hardened in the furnace of war. No equipment, however formidable, can be effective without a resolute and courageous spirit in the fighting men who handle it. No fighting men, however brave, can prevail without an equipment comparable to that of the enemy. To-day, at last, we can say that we have the components of victory.

It is not for me this afternoon to tell the whole stirring story of the last six months, of the swift advance of the Eighth Army from El Alamein to the Mareth Line, of the simultaneous advance of the First Army from the west with our American and French comrades, of the reduction of the Mareth Line itself, and the gradual compression of the German and Italian Forces into the rocky hillsides and ravines of North-Eastern Tunisia. These essential preliminaries of the final drama are already fresh in your Lordships' memories. I would speak to-day only of the last decisive blow—on this occasion a blow delivered mainly by the First Army and our Allies—which transformed, within a few days, a veteran Army of seasoned German and Italian troops, over 200,000 in number, and holding formidable positions, into a helpless, hopeless mass of men without resources or power of resistance. So complete a victory, resulting not merely in the defeat but in the utter elimination of the enemy from a Continent, can hardly be paralleled in modern history.

How did it come about? To whom should the credit go? First of all we must surely offer our thanks to the supreme commander, General Eisenhower, and his Deputy, General Alexander, and to Air-Marshal Tedder and Admiral Cunningham, whose brilliant strategy made possible the integration of the Allied land, air, and sea forces, so different in their nature and yet so essential to each other, into one harmoniously working machine. Next, we must thank their lieutenants, General Anderson and General Montgomery, and the American and French leaders, who carried out with such skill and dash the instructions they had received. Finally, and perhaps most of all, we must thank the fighting men themselves—the soldiers of General Anderson's First Army and General Montgomery's Eighth Army, soldiers from the United Kingdom, from New Zealand, and from India, together with their United States and French Allies, whose indomitable courage and unfailing endurance enabled them to overcome all obstacles and drive through irresistibly to victory. We must thank the airmen and the sailors, the sappers and those concerned with the supply and maintenance of a modern Army. We must thank the heroic islanders and garrison of Malta, that constant thorn in the side of the enemy, draining his resources. We must thank, too, the merchant seamen who, through all the perils of the sea, the long voyage round the Cape, and the dangerous passage of the Mediterranean waters, carried and supplied our great Armies. And, finally, we must thank the workpeople in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States who forged and tempered their weapons. All these played their part, and to all our heartfelt gratitude is due.

With this great victory, the Battle of Africa is over. There, at least, decision has been reached and we are in a position to strike a balance sheet. Great victories are not won without loss. In Africa and in the Middle East the Forces of the British Commonwealth and Empire have suffered in this campaign some 220,000 casualties in killed, wounded, missing and prisoners. I know that the House would wish me to place on record our deep sympathy with the relatives of those who have given so much in the common cause. Their country remembers them with pride in this hour of victory. But if we have had to pay, there are far higher figures on the other side of the balance sheet. From the time that Italy threw in her lot with Germany and made her entry into the war, this African campaign had cost the Germans, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, over a quarter of a million men and the Italians over 400,000, exclusive of 200,000 native Italian troops who became casualties in the Abyssinian and Somaliland campaigns. That is the price that the enemy have had to pay for this ill-omened adventure.

It will, His Majesty's Government have felt, be the desire of Parliament to record by a formal Resolution its thanks to those who have contributed to this notable success. This is not the first occasion when Parliament has voted a Resolution of thanks to His Majesty's Fighting Forces. There are other famous precedents; after the Battle of the Nile, after the Battle of Trafalgar, after the Battle of Waterloo, after the Indian Mutiny. Those are glorious names in our history. They will be remembered so long as Britain remains a nation. They will be passed down from father to son long after we are dead, buried and forgotten. And so I believe will it be with this battle. This great struggle in which we are engaged is not yet over. Germany, Italy and Japan are not yet beaten. The road that we have yet to travel may be long and stony. But whatever trials and sacrifices lie before us we are, I hope and believe, through the mists of war beginning to see the end, and when Hitler and Hitlerism is an evil memory of the past, the tale of this great victory that has been won in Africa by free men for the cause of freedom will be handed down as an example and an inspiration to our children and our children's children. I beg to move.

Moved to resolve, That this House, at the triumphant conclusion of the operations by land, sea and air, which have secured the unconditional surrender of all the enemy remaining in the Continent of Africa, hereby places on record, with pride and thankfulness, its high appreciation of the services of all ranks of His Majesty's Forces and of the Forces of the Allies operating in that theatre of war, by whose sacrifice, persistence and devotion to duty, sustained by the labours of those at home, this brilliant victory has been achieved.—(Viscount Cranborne.)

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, as the noble Viscount has reminded us, this Motion of thanks marks the culmination of years of ceaseless labour, of many vicissitudes and of heroic endeavour. With him I would like to recall to our minds not only those who are named but those whom we cannot name, those who helped to fashion the tools, often labouring at their tasks through raids, those who loaded and transported what was made, the men who trained and directed units both great and small, the men who often fought alone in the air, the members of our medical and nursing services, the chaplains, the Post Office services, all, indeed, who have in any way contributed, and, perhaps more than any one else, those whose graves are in the sea or in the sands. Our thanks are measured, I think, by the sense of national relief, by an appreciation of what has been achieved and by the promise that it gives for the future. The noble Viscount has reminded us that during the long anxious years that preceded this day we always knew in our hearts that if our soldiers and sailors and airmen came to have the arms, the experience, the leadership and the opportunity they deserved, they would be worthy of them. Our confidence as a nation never failed. This victory, for which we render thanks, marks more even than the conquest of North Africa and the defeat of the enemy's arms: it marks the vindication of our national confidence. It is national hope realized in triumphant achievement.

Not many of us even three weeks ago expected that to-day we should be celebrating the confusion and utter destruction of the German Army and witnessing, owing to their demoralization, thousands of the enemy's choicest troops gladly driving themselves into captivity. We know something of what has been gained in opening the Mediterranean; we appreciate the immense saving of shipping and tonnage thereby secured, and also, the diversion of supplies from our enemies to ourselves that has resulted. I think it is right to recall to-day the years of struggle endured by our naval forces when they were divided by the Narrows. We know of their skill and discipline and we have seen how, by a process of attrition, they have compelled the Italian Navy to do little more than hide in its own harbours. We remember, also, the men of the Merchant Navy, and, as the noble Viscount has reminded us, heroic Malta, an unconquerable bastion of defence and now in the forefront of attack. We should not, and I think do not, forget to-day those who helped to liberate Abyssinia and conquer Eritrea. Those events now seem far off perhaps, but they led to the building up of the Eighth Army, and I think is probably not too much to say that history will find it difficult to parallel the Eighth Army in training, in individual efficiency and in skilled cooperation in the field by day and by night. I would join with the noble Viscount in what he said in appreciation of what we owe to General Alexander and General Montgomery.

There is another element of immense importance for which we should express our gratitude and that is the disciplined co-operation between the Army, the Navy and the Air services which has been built up by their leaders during this time. Thanks are finally due to the leaders of the three Services who have designed and operated this splendid operation. It is a dramatic end to the operation of the Eighth Army in Africa that they should receive the Commanders-in-Chief of the German and of the Italian Armies as prisoners. In particular it is a rankling and desolating reflection upon the bombast of the Herrenvolk that the German Commander-in-Chief should surrender to an Indian division. It is true as the noble Viscount said, that our enemies were driven into the Tunisian corner, but it would not have been a corner had it not been for the North African expedition. We ought also to bear in mind—though I have no inside knowledge—what we must owe to the Prime Minister and to President Roosevelt in this connexion and to the Staffs who worked out the campaign.

Perhaps in the long run it is as well—indeed perhaps it has been an advantage—that the first rush to Bizerta and Tunis was not successful. It has helped to model and guide and train in the war the troops of the First Army and of our United States Allies, and brilliantly they have benefited by their experiences. The American capture of Bizerta, and the taking of many thousands of German prisoners by the troops under General Alexander's skilful guidance, supported the strategy in decimating and breaking up the German forces. During these events all of us, I am sure, have watched with growing admiration the masterly handling of the Air Force. It is not easy for a layman to follow the disposition of the Air Force according to its function, but we know that Air Chief Marshal Tedder and Air Vice-Marshal Coningham deserve our unstinted gratitude for what they have accomplished, both in support of our Armies and in breaking up the enormous supply line of the enemy and also in driving the Luftwaffe out of the Tunisian skies. One cannot but think that their operations must have contributed immensely to the demoralization which clearly spread through the whole German Army. The Germany Army must have felt that their Luftwaffe had left them in the lurch. These men to whom we owe so much will, I think, appreciate our thanks the more if we are resolute in seeing that the lessons they have so laboriously learnt and applied in the unified direction of air, land and sea forces are made the fullest use of in the training of those great forces that have not yet been engaged. What is possible in North Africa is possible elsewhere. Their example is an inspiration and, if it is applied, a sure ground for confidence in the days to come.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

My Lords, my noble friends on these Benches and I desire to offer our most cordial assent to the Resolution which has been moved and supported from the two Front Benches in such stirring and moving terms. It is indeed a very great occasion, and in more than one respect an occasion without precedent. So far as this war is concerned there have been frequent occasions when we have wished to record our deep gratitude to the members of the three Services for the part they have played, but that has been gratitude for saving us in situations of deep anxiety and peril which, but for them, might have ended in disaster. To-day we express our gratitude for a resounding victory, but in no spirit of arrogance for, as the noble Viscount opposite has reminded us, the culmination of the war is not yet and we cannot say when it will come. The country has never known despondency even in the worst moments, but we can look forward now with a new feeling of confidence and with renewed assurance of ultimate victory.

To-day is also unprecedented in another and wider respect. During the three hundred years or so in which organized national armies have existed we have never claimed to be a great military nation in the sense of having a land force promptly ready to strike mortal blows when hostilities were proclaimed. We have always been a seafaring people and our Bluejackets as a service have always been senior to our Redcoats. Therefore in every war during that period we have been fighting in Europe by the side of Allies. In Marlborough's campaigns in Flanders, in Wellington's long struggle in the Napoleonic wars, and in the Crimean war we were fighting with Allied forces. Anybody who looks back on history cannot but recall that those alliances, often cordial in the general sense, were disfigured by frequent misunderstandings and even recriminations. Even in the last great war, though we know that many of the leaders on both sides were on terms of pleasant friendship and there was also sufficient cordiality in the rank and file, yet nobody who recalls the incidents of the war in France can fail to remember that there were frequent occasions when misunderstandings existed between the representatives of the two nations; and as regards the other participants in that war against Germany, the Russians, the Italians and, finally, the Americans, nobody can claim that a co-ordinated strategy existed between those different forces. Now what a different picture it is to-day. The Allied Armies in North Africa have moved together like a magnificently constructed machine under the superb direction of the most skilful managers. It has been a gratification to us to know that the intensive training to which the men of the American Army have been subjected has enabled them to show the finest fighting qualities. To some of us, like myself, it is a special pleasure to recollect that the Tricolour, which was trampled in the dust three years ago, has once more flown at the head of victorious French forces.

I have really nothing to add to what fell from the lips of the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne, with regard to individual Services and their leaders, beyond saying this: that it is quite evident that in addition to bearing so efficiently the burden of a great responsibility, General Eisenhower has shown special qualities of tact and wisdom as well as of professional knowledge. We all, I think, agree that the name of General Alexander will be written high in the list of great British Generals, and we certainly do not forget that his two Army Commanders in very different circumstances, in the wide stretches of the desert and in the rocky defiles of Tunisia, seem to have always done their work without a moment's waste of time, and, so far as one can see, without the faintest suspicion of a tactical error. We all join, too, I am sure, in the tribute which both noble Lords have paid to the Commanders of the Air Force, which did such astounding work out there, and of the Fleet; the Fleet without which, surely, the victory never could have been won in the way in which it was won. So, with the pride and the humility which are not contradictory but complementary elements in the gratitude which fills all our hearts, we are able to look forward with fresh confidence to what the future may bring us in the next few weeks.

LORD MOTTISTONE

My Lords, it has been suggested to me that it would be proper that some special tribute should be paid on this occasion not only to that branch of our Forces, the Territorial Army, in which your Lordships take so deep an interest, but also to our Dominion troops, without whose great services this campaign could not have been won. In a few brief sentences, then, may I be permitted to do this? The War Office have been good enough to give me a statement concerning the services rendered by the Territorial Army units throughout this campaign, from its inception until the glorious victory, but, of course, we do not know much of the names of these units. I can only mention one, which we have seen in the newspapers, and that is the Derbyshire Yeomanry, whose race for Tunis with the 11th Hussars is surely the most delightful race that we have ever heard of in our lifetime. That is one Territorial unit.

I was reading last night an account, from an eye-witness, of work done by another Yeomanry Regiment which was concerned in the tragic moments when we were being driven back—for this great Battle of Africa has had its ups and downs. One by one all the guns of this unit were silenced except one. And they were not silenced only because their crews and their officers were hit: they were silenced because the guns themselves received direct hits, which, as your Lordships who know much of war will realize, indicates that there was close fighting. There was this one gun left, but the officers had been wounded or killed, as had most of the N.C.O's and men. Now in this undoubtedly authentic account it is recorded that an officer who was bleeding to death shouted: "I have got one round left, but there is no one to fire it." At this a Corporal got up from out of a small slit trench. His left arm had been shot off, but with his right he aimed and fired the gun. Incredible to relate, he scored a direct hit on an oncoming enemy tank. He hit it at such close range that it burst into flames and all the crew were undoubtedly burnt to death. Indeed, so close was the range that this German tank rolled on, and overwhelmed the last surviving gun and man of that wonderful unit which would not surrender.

That is the kind of story which illumines the record of this fighting. I should like to ask the noble Lord, as I told him that I would, whether it would be possible, in giving further accounts of this great battle, to give this House the names of some of the units, not of the Territorial Army alone but of the whole of the British Army, which took part in this campaign. If he could give us more information of that kind, it would gladden the hearts of many people who have lost relatives in this fighting, and rejoice the hearts of all those who are proud of our Army. The Territorial Army did, of course, become part of the Regular Army when the war broke out, and I am sure that all those who had a part in forming it will rejoice that the idea which governed its formation—Lord Haldane said that it was a soldiers' plan, and that he was only carrying out a soldiers' method—did enable us in this war to make one great Army of the Regular and the Territorial Forces, an Army which has acquitted itself so valiantly as has been recorded to-day.

With regard to the Dominion Forces, I have been privileged by the War Office to see a very short list of what those Dominion Forces have done. It is a wonderful list. I begin with South Africa. It is well to remember that the South African troops played a leading, and indeed a decisive, part in the great victory over the Army of the Duke of Aosta in Abyssinia; and it was General Wavell who said that until the Duke of Aosta and his quarter of a million Italian troops and supporters were overcome it would be impossible to continue the African campaign. We may properly pay tribute to the South African Army, which made so great a contribution to the conquest of Abyssinia and of the Italian Army there. Their services later are present to the minds of us all. Of the Australian Forces, we can record that they took part in all the earlier battles. We proudly remember that the New Zealand Forces took part in victory and defeat all the way through. They were the first, as some may remember, to make the brilliant outflanking movement when the Mareth Line was taken, which, as we were told by General Montgomery, was vital to the success of the first movement forward. They followed the enemy all through Cyrenaica and all through Tripolitania, and finally into Tunisia. We salute the New Zealand Army.

Of India, what cannot be said? India played a leading part in the Abyssinian campaign, and in Persia and in Iraq. Wherever our arms have been threatened, there have Indian soldiers been found to support the British Raj in the desperate fight for freedom. In Tunisia, I am told that the brilliant forced march of the 4th Indian Division from the Eighth Army front, with which it was serving, to the First Army front, and its attack thereafter, was a decisive point in the glorious break-through which ended in the complete collapse of the German and Italian Forces. I have ventured to recall to your minds the services of these particular parts of our great Army, in addition to the services of the Navy and the Air Force. I apologize for having detained your Lordships, but I thought it was proper that I should do so. When history records the brilliant victories which we have won, people will be glad to know that we paid our tribute here to-day to those who are responsible. I understand that the noble Lord opposite has received some information which he will be glad to give to the House.

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD CROFT)

My Lords, in answer to my noble friend, I should like to say that a very short time ago I received a notice of units which have taken part in the Tunisian campaign. This does not include the units which took part in all the campaigns which my noble friend has just mentioned; this is a list of names of infantry battalions and units which took part in the campaign, and is not associated with divisional numbers. The units are the Lancashire Fusiliers, the Hampshire Regiment, the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Black Watch, the London Irish Rifles, the Buffs, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, the Seaforth Highlanders, the Lincolnshire Regiment, the East Surrey Regiment, the York and Lancaster Regiment, the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Gordon Highlanders, the Northamptonshire Regiment, the Cameron Highlanders, and the Royal West Kent Regiment.

Many of these units are old Territorial battalions, but both Regular and Territorial battalions have been in the fighting, and this list includes those drawn both from old Regular and from old Territorial units. I do not think that it would be proper for me to give that list without reminding your Lordships that the Brigade of Guards has taken a great part in this campaign, as have also the Royal Regiment of Artillery in all its branches, the Royal Engineers, and the Royal Armoured Corps; and I have heard from Tunisia that in this Corps the Derbyshire Yeomanry, the Staffordshire Yeomanry and the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry are included. I should mention also the Royal Corps of Signals, the Royal Army Service Corps, the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, and the Royal Army Medical Corps.

On Question, Motion agreed to, nemine dissentiente.