Royal Navy
Organization
Found in 16 Collections and/or Records:
File
Literary: correspondence with consultants and others on WSC's war memoirs ("The Second World War", mainly volumes 1 to 4), A-B., Sep 1945 - Jun 1950
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHUR 4/18A-B
Scope and Contents
Correspondents include: William Deakin (9); [George Gordon] Allen (16); Sir John Slessor on information on the Coastal Command in 1943; Thomas Allen, publisher, on Canadian editions of the memoirs (5); 1st Lord Altrincham [earlier Sir Edward Grigg] on Sir Edward Spears reviewing "Their Finest Hour" (volume 2); "Max", 1st Lord Beaverbrook [earlier Sir Max Aitken]; Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall (2); Ernest Passant, Director of Research, Librarian and Keeper of the Papers, Foreign Office...
Dates:
Sep 1945 - Jun 1950
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
File
Literary: Sunday Dispatch articles by WSC: 3., Dec 1939
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 8/649
Scope and Contents
Includes cuttings from the Sunday Dispatch for: "The Most Thrilling Days I Have Ever Lived" on his experiences as First Lord of the Admiralty, on board the Enchantress, visiting the British Naval Fleet, his threat to resign, and the decision to order the Fleet to its war stations; "With the Kaiser on Parade" on his experiences as Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, viewing the manoeuvres of the German Army in 1906, WSC's impressions of its strength, and his meeting with Young Turks in...
Dates:
Dec 1939
Conditions Governing Access:
Open.
File
Public and Political: General: Defence., 08 Jan 1938 - [1940]
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 2/336
Scope and Contents
Correspondents on defence issues include: 5th Lord Munster [earlier Geoffry FitzClarence] (2); Robert Cary on developments in Japanese naval armaments and the implications for Singapore; Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister, on WSC's notes on aircraft types (2); Sir Henry Strakosch (3); F A Lindemann [later 1st Lord Cherwell] on Strakosch's figures for the air raids on Barcelona [Spain]; [Eric] John Hodsoll [Inspector-General], Home Office ARP Department, on the state of the ARP programme,...
Dates:
08 Jan 1938 - [1940]
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
File
Public and Political: General: Defence: Correspondence and papers., 09 Jan 1937 - 23 Feb 1938
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 2/302
Scope and Contents
Correspondents include: Sir Philip Gibbs on the inefficiency of the RAF; Sir Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt [former Vice-President of the Tank Board] (2); Sir William Beveridge [Director of London School of Economics and Political Science]; Oswald Frewen on working with German and Italian sailors, German fanaticism, Italian aid to Franco and how the policies of Neville Chamberlain [Prime Minister] encourage Germany and Italy; Leo Amery; Basil Liddell Hart; Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson...
Dates:
09 Jan 1937 - 23 Feb 1938
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
File
Public and Political: General: Defence: Correspondence etc., 12 Jan 1936 - 27 Nov 1936
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 2/266A-B
Scope and Contents
Correspondents include: Basil Liddell Hart [Military Correspondent to the Times] on the troop system used in India; "Harold R" [1st Lord Rothermere, earlier Sir Harold Harmsworth] on subjects including 1st Lord Weir's position in defence [as Adviser to the Air Ministry], the likely stop to any battleship programme, pilot training, the likelihood of a quick German victory against Britain and France, German contempt for the British Government, and the Government's refusal to discuss the...
Dates:
12 Jan 1936 - 27 Nov 1936
Conditions Governing Access:
Open, (folio 93 opened as a 'sanitised' photocopy, original closed on advice of Cabinet Office).
File
Public and Political: General: Defence: Correspondence etc., 09 Feb 1920 - 28 Dec 1936
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 2/267
Scope and Contents
Correspondents include: Frederick Beaumont-Nesbitt [Military Attache, Paris, France] on WSC's visit to see French military manoeuvres at Aix-en-Provence and the Maginot Line (2); "George L" [1st Lord Lloyd of Dolobran]; Alan Herbert, introducing Major-General Sir Percy Hobart [Inspector, Royal Tank Corps, and Commander, Tank Brigade] (2); Desmond Morton on subjects including meeting the representative of the Spanish Nationalists, the Marques del Moral, Communist atrocities in Spain, the...
Dates:
09 Feb 1920 - 28 Dec 1936
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
File
Public and Political: General: Defence: Memoranda etc., 14 Feb 1936 - 26 Oct 1936
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 2/268
Scope and Contents
Includes: memorandum by Desmond Morton on subjects including German propaganda on French military aviation and the Soviet army, and notes [added to file in January 1996] on a speech by the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence [Sir Thomas Inskip, later 1st Lord Caldecote], rebutting Inskip's claims for military production; memorandum by Sir Philip Gibbs on the inefficient state of the RAF, and its need for expansion; press cuttings from the Figaro, with an article on the Anglo-French crisis...
Dates:
14 Feb 1936 - 26 Oct 1936
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
File
Public and Political: General: Minister for Co-ordination of Defence: Correspondence with., 14 May 1936 - 23 Nov 1936
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 2/269
Scope and Contents
Correspondence between Sir Thomas Inskip [later 1st Lord Caldecote], Minister for Co-ordination of Defence and WSC on subjects including: the Fleet Air Arm; progress in the 1922 Committee on realizing the inadequacy of air defences and general delays in the committee; the possibility of an airborne invasion; the usefulness of WSC's advice; the role of a Minister of Supply; the visit and report of Allen Clark, Joint Managing Director of Plessey Company Limited, to German munitions works;...
Dates:
14 May 1936 - 23 Nov 1936
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
File
Public and Political: General: Political: Defence: miscellaneous correspondence and papers., Feb 1947 - Sep 1951
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHUR 2/36
Scope and Contents
Correspondents include: A V Alexander [later Lord Alexander of Hillsborough], Minister of Defence [until February 1950] (3); George Ward; Antony Head (3); Arthur Henderson [later Lord Rowley, Secretary of State for Air]; 1st Lord Cherwell [earlier F A Lindemann] (2); Anthony Eden [later 1st Lord Avon]; David Hunt [Private Secretary to Prime Minister Clement Attlee] (2); Captain Alan Hillgarth [earlier Alan Evans] on Soviet forces in Europe and Soviet affairs (7); James Thomas [later 1st Lord...
Dates:
Feb 1947 - Sep 1951
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
File
Public and Political: General: Royal Navy and Fleet Air Arm., 11 Feb 1936 - 21 Dec 1936
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 2/272
Scope and Contents
Correspondents include: 1st Lord Lloyd [of Dolobran, President of the Navy League] on WSC speaking to the League (2); Sir John Thornycroft [President and Director, J I Thornycroft and Company Limited] on his firm's designs for an aircraft carrier and anti-submarine craft and cuts in the shipbuilding industry (with a description of the anti-submarine craft); Maitland Boucher [former member of the Naval Air Division] on meeting WSC about the Fleet Air Arm (3); Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald...
Dates:
11 Feb 1936 - 21 Dec 1936
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
Item
(Untitled), 01 Apr 1944 - 30 Apr 1944
Item
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 20/152/4
Scope and Contents
Prime Minister's printed personal minutes, April 1944.Includes texts of minutes from WSC (annotated with additional printed information) to: members of the Cabinet and other government ministers, particularly Foreign Secretary [Anthony Eden, later 1st Lord Avon]; the Chiefs of Staff; General Sir Hastings Ismay [Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence]; General Sir Bernard Montgomery [General Officer Commanding the Eighth Army]; Director of Military Intelligence [Major-General Francis...
Dates:
01 Apr 1944 - 30 Apr 1944
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
Item
(Untitled), 28 Nov [1912]
Item
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 13/13/135-143
Scope and Contents
Minute from Rear-Admiral Alexander Bethell, Director of Naval Intelligence, to WSC, on the naval construction programme, 1912-1919, necessary to maintain Britain's 60 per cent superiority over the German navy. [Carbon].
Dates:
28 Nov [1912]
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
Item
(Untitled), 10 Jan 1912
Item
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 13/14/9-12
Scope and Contents
Letter from Admiral of the Fleet 1st Lord Fisher to WSC [First Lord of the Admiralty] offering congratulations on his "splendid memorandum", which was "Napoleonic in its audacity and Cromwellian in its thoroughness". Fisher advises WSC not to spend money on major repairs to ships, as they went out of date so quickly, but to build new; he states that he once told the German Naval Attache that he could arrange for him to steal plans for ships more than a year old, and alleges that the Attache...
Dates:
10 Jan 1912
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
Item
(Untitled), 10 Jan 1912
Item
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 13/16/5-6
Scope and Contents
Letter from Admiral of the Fleet 1st Lord Fisher to WSC [First Lord of the Admiralty] offering congratulations on his "splendid memorandum", which was "Napoleonic in its audacity and Cromwellian in its thoroughness". Fisher advises WSC not to spend money on major repairs to ships, as they went out of date so quickly, but to build new; he states that he once told the German Naval Attache that he could arrange for him to steal plans for ships more than a year old, and alleges that the Attache...
Dates:
10 Jan 1912
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
Item
(Untitled), 01 Apr 1942 - 30 Apr 1942
Item
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 20/67/3
Scope and Contents
Prime Minister's printed personal minutes, April 1942.Includes texts of minutes from WSC (annotated with additional printed information) to: General Sir Hastings Ismay [Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence]; members of the Cabinet and other government ministers; the Chiefs of Staff.Subjects covered by the minutes include: the Japanese threat to the Falkland Islands; discussion of operation "Ironclad" [code name for British occupation of Diego Suarez, Madagascar]; the British naval...
Dates:
01 Apr 1942 - 30 Apr 1942
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
Unknown
"War Cabinet: Chiefs of Staff Committee: Weekly Resume (no.56) of the naval, military and air situation from 12 noon September to 12 noon September 26th, 1940", 27 Sep 1940
Unknown
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 23/6/86-99
Scope and Contents
Summary of events including: attempted landing at Dakar by General [Charles] de Gaulle; U boat activity in the North Atlantic and shipping losses; operations by German raiders; information about the disposition of German and Italian troops; events in Greece, Yugoslavia [later Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia], Bulgaria, the Mediterranean and the Middle East; air attacks on Germany (including Berlin) and on invasion ports in France and...
Dates:
27 Sep 1940
Conditions Governing Access:
Open