Winston Churchill's War Leadership - Martin Gilbert [27]
Lindemann and his team provided Churchill with the information he needed to enable him to follow up with the relevant government departments and, where necessary, to accelerate action. Sometimes Churchill felt the need to stimulate Lindemann himself to greater efforts. On 3 June 1940, he minuted to him: “You are not presenting me as I should like every few days, or every week with a short clear statement of the falling off or improvement in munitions production. I am not able to form a clear view unless you do this.”
Not only did Lindemann give Churchill the ability to look with an independent eye on the workings of production and manufacture but he also undertook to supervise and accelerate work on new inventions and to examine— using material provided through Enigma—the actual strength of the German air force. The two men were good friends. Lindemann spent almost every weekend with Churchill and travelled with him to a number of overseas conferences. As one of the few people with constant access to the Prime Minister, he was a source of strength in times of setback and difficulty.
Other officials, less well known than Lindemann, played their part in ensuring the smooth working of the machine and in overcoming difficulties. Each of them was an integral part of the complex mosaic that made up Churchill’s war leadership. In Washington Arthur Purvis worked tirelessly to secure the munitions of war and other war supplies desperately needed by Britain. His daily telegraphic exchanges with London and his ability to persuade the United States administration—including Roosevelt’s closest advisers—to fulfill Britain’s urgent needs have no place in most of the history books of the period, or indeed in most of the Churchill biographies, but for the first year of Churchill’s premiership Purvis was a central pivot in ensuring the success of Churchill’s determination to remain at war and to wage war effectively. At the very moment when Churchill sought to reward Purvis with a knighthood, the Canadian was killed in a plane crash while on his way to join Churchill and Roosevelt in Newfoundland.
Among the other little-known pillars of Churchill’s war leadership was General M.G.H. Barker, whom Churchill had appointed Vulnerable Points Adviser in August 1940 as the threat of invasion intensified. As with several of those whose work was crucial at a time of danger, Churchill gave instructions that Barker “should work under me in my capacity as Minister of Defence.” This authority enabled Barker to ensure that troops, weapons and equipment were sent to the areas most vulnerable to German invasion at any given date and at the shortest notice—depending on the state of the tide and the moon and on Intelligence indications—without becoming ensnared in conflicting interests of a dozen different government departments. Churchill scrutinized all Barker’s proposals and endorsed them without complaint, noting on most “Proceed as proposed.”
Another officer Churchill brought within his own orbit as Minister of Defence and provided with research facilities only a few miles from Chequers was Major Millis Jefferis. Churchill had first noted