Q. What was it Churchill said about carrying on even if the British Isles were conquered?
A. On August 20, 1940 in the midst of the Battle of Britain, Churchill said: “If we had been put in the terrible position of France, a contingency now happily impossible, although, of course, it would have been the duty of all war leaders to fight on here to the end, it would also have been their duty, as I indicated in my speech of June 4, to provide as far as possible for the Naval security of Canada and our Dominions and to make sure they had the means to carry on the struggle from beyond the oceans.”
Q. That would be fine for us if we could depend upon it, but do you think Churchill really meant it? What good would it do for the British Navy to carry on if the British Isles were conquered?
A. I am sure that Churchill himself would do exactly as he said he would. He would perish with his troops or with his Navy—who can tell how or where—but he would never surrender. Can you doubt it when you hear those words of his which are as much an inspiration for us today as they were for the British when he uttered them on the last day of the evacuation of Dunkirk? They deserve to be memorized by us all. “Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas, and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
With Churchill’s picture these words are placarded in homes and offices throughout the British Empire. Their spirit is the spirit of Britain. But having said this I am compelled to add that it would be feeble-minded for us to expect that the British Navy would continue resistance to the Germans after the British Isles had been conquered.
Let us examine what the position would be if the British Isles fell. First let us ask a British Naval Officer what would happen to the Royal Navy if the British Isles were conquered. He will tell you: “There wouldn’t be any Navy left.” I can see readily how this would be true. If the Germans try invasion, the Royal Navy is going to throw itself between the home island and the invaders with a desperation such as has never been equaled in British Naval history, and that is saying a very great deal. The Germans cannot capture the British Isles by air power alone. They can land men and machine guns by air as they did at Crete, but the heavy weapons they need to beat off and batter down the formidable British artillery and heavy tanks now massed at home, they will have to land by sea. Without these weapons they cannot win. The Royal Navy will prevent their landing or perish in the attempt. The Germans will try to clear the way for their invading craft by torpedoes, mines, speedboats, Stukas, burning oil on the water, and every conceivable means, and by some perhaps not now conceivable to us. The British defenders will discard caution and risk everything. They will hurl themselves at the invader. If they lose there will surely be little left of the Navy.
But suppose there were left a British naval force large enough when taken in combination with what we could spare from the Pacific to continue to maintain practical control of the Atlantic, enough anyway to prevent any German attempt at sending an invading army to America. Could we then expect this remnant of the British Navy to retire to Canada or the United States, and continue resistance to the Germans? I do not think so.
In the first place, what would be the purpose of the British Navy in continuing resistance to the Germans after the British Isles had been captured? Would it be for the purpose of eventually reconquering the British Isles? No, because that would be impossible. This is one of those grim facts which are too ugly for most people to look at, but there is no use turning our eyes away and refusing to see that if the Germans do invade and conquer the British Isles, the British people will have finished their life. It would be the end for them, not for the duration of this war, which would in fact be ended then, but for as far into the future as the imagination can travel. The Germans might remain in possession of the British Isles or in effective control for the thousand years Hitler so often boasts about, or until they became weak through centuries of good living. Hitler would disarm the people of Britain and allow hunger to decimate them. He could count on forty per cent of the population dying of starvation in a year or so. Does this seem an exaggeration? It is only one more of those facts about Hitler which nobody would believe. The trusting Dutch would not believe what Hitler was like until he taught the people of Rotterdam. But the British people have now learned their lesson. They have totally lost the wide-eyed faith of our Lindberghs, that Hitler is “human after all.” The British know Hitler would do just what I have said, he would deliberately destroy a great part of the population, allowing to remain alive only those sufficiently broken to become good slaves. But why, you ask, could not the British Navy reconquer the British Isles, if they had our wholehearted help? The answer is that there would be no base from which to operate.
We can now contemplate reconquering Europe from the Nazis because we have a base or several possible bases from which to operate against the Reich. We have the British Isles and Russia and the Middle East, and parts of North Africa, and may have other bases before the war is over. But if the British Isles were captured, where could the British Navy land to invade and repossess them? And with what troops would this engagement be fought? With the Canadians and Australians? Nobody would dare disparage the fighting qualities of these magnificent men, but if the 46,000,000 Britishers in the British Isles had failed to throw back the German Army is it likely that 16,000,000 Canadians and Australians could defeat it? What about the United States? If we had not entered the war before the conquest of the British Isles, is it likely we would go to war after the British had been beaten? Moreover, if we did, it is inconceivable that we should beat the Germans after they had seized the resources of the United Kingdom. They would then have added to the shipbuilding capacity of the continent all the British shipyards, at this moment the most productive in the world. It might be worth our while to glance an instant at the shipbuilding situation which would exist if Germany takes the British Isles.
The shipbuilding capacity of each of the following countries is listed as of the most productive year since 1917. This was usually 1919.