4
The Management of Change -
Mechanizing the British Regular and Household Cavalry Regiments 1918 -1942
Roger Edward Salmon DMS., BA (Hons).
Student Number 1106112
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
October 2013
This work or any part thereof has not been presented in any form to the University or to any other body whether for the purposes of assessment, publication or any other purposes. Save for any express acknowledgements, references and/or biblographies cited in this work, I confirm that the intellectual content of the work is the result of my own efforts and of no other person.
The right of Roger Edward Salmon to be identified as author of this work is asserted in accordance with ss.77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and patents Act 1988. At this date copyright is owned buy the author.
Signature…………………………………………………………
Date………………………………………………………………..
Abstract
The mechanization of British Cavalry regiments took place between the two World Wars and on into 1942. This thesis describes the process by which horsed cavalrymen were re-trained in armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) and the experiences of some of the regiments managing this change. Extensive use has been made of the oral testimonies of many of the soldiers involved, a number of whom are still living, as well as regimental and War Office archives. The reason given for the delay in cavalry mechanization, cited in some military histories, much influenced by Sir Basil Liddell Hart, was resistance from the cavalry to parting from their horses. This thesis refutes this assertion regarding the cavalry as a whole, but details the exceptions of two regiments that lobbied on their own behalf. The principal reason for the protracted process of mechanization, argued in the thesis, was the lack of suitable and sufficient AFVs. Examination of the Vickers papers have revealed that tank production was taking place during the mid-1930s, but for overseas clients. These tanks could, speculatively, have been procured for British units. Why this did not happen is examined, and the following factors considered: the influence of an Army Council member regarding the future usefulness of tanks, the pressure of public opinion, in which the Britain by Mass Observation archives have been illuminating, and the economic priorities of inter-war British Governments. Following the abandonment of the ‘10 Year Rule’ in 1932, a defence policy was formulated that gave the army the lowest priority for rearmament of the three services and this also impacted on cavalry mechanization.
Contents
Acknowledgements – page 5
Introduction – page 9
Methodology – page 36
Chapter One – page 48 Mechanization – The First Phase 1918-1929.
Chapter Two – page 131 Mechanization Phase Two 1930 – 1936. The
Experiment - the dragons porté and the 3rd Hussars.
Chapter Three – page 198 Mechanization - The Third Phase 1936 – 1939. The Mobile Force in Egypt and the Mobile Division at home.
Chapter Four - page 273 Mechanization - Finalé
Conclusion – page 370
Bibliography – page 400
Appendices
Appendix A - page 441 – British Regular Cavalry Regiments – Order of Battle and full titles.
Appendix B - page 446 - British Army commitments and Cavalry regiment locations and organization 1919-1939.
Appendix C - page 503 – Biographies.
Appendix D - page 516 – The Labour Party General Election results 1900 – 1935 and its growth in electoral support.
Appendix E - page 517 – United States President Wilson’s ‘Fourteen Points’.
Appendix F - page 521 – Analysis of the result of the Peace Ballot, June 27 1935.
Appendix G - page 522 - Provision of Army Estimates for the purchase and maintenance of animals and vehicles 1927 – 1938.
Appendix H - page 523 – The maintenance and repair tasks for AFVs to be learned by cavalrymen.
Appendix I - page 524 – An example of the standard required for the classification for a Diver eligible for Tradesmen’s Rates as a Driver Operator.
Appendix J - page 525 – Definitions – mechanization / mechanisation
motorization
armour
charger
Appendix K – page 527 – Interviewees by Unit
Acknowledgements
There is really no order of precedent for my appreciation, for I am equally grateful to each of the following academics, archivists, curators, librarians, regimental secretaries, friends and family, all who have provided pieces, great and small, in this jigsaw that eventually have formed a completed ‘picture’. I must, however, and understandably, place at the top of this list the veteran servicemen and women who allowed me to interview them, and to confer and clarify points with them on a number of subsequent occasions. The detailed list of these officers and men and women, and their units, can be found in the bibliography. All had checked the transcripts of their interviews that were then amended if necessary. I am sad to report that some have since died and I dedicate this work to their memory and to their comrades who live on, now all aged in their 90s.
The Veterans –
Kay Ash 1920-2013
William Bate 1925-2012
John Bennett 1921-2008
Thomas Bishop
Raymond Bullock
Stanley Chapman
William Cross
Robert Cruddace
William Davidson MBE 1921-2012
R L Val ffrench Blake DSO 1913-2011
Joseph Hodgeson 1921-2011
George Husband
Basil Jeffcut
Ronald Lucas
Charles Need 1914-2010
James Randall MID
Aiden Sprot MC
Margorie Stead
The Academics –
Professor Stephen Badsey - The University of Wolverhampton
Dr Phylomena Badsey - The University of Wolverhampton
Professor John Buckley - The University of Wolverhampton
Dr Robert Bushaway 1952 - 2013 - The University of Birmingham
Mr Peter Hart - The Imperial War Museum London
Dr Robert Self - The London Metropolitan University
Professor Peter Simpkins - The University of Birmingham
Professor David Stephenson - The London School of Economics
Archivists, Curators, Librarians and Regimental Secretaries of the following –
The National Archives – Kew
Imperial War Museum – Department of Sound Records – London
The Tank Museum - Bovington
The Cambridge University Library
The University of Birmingham Library
Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings College – London
The permission of The Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives to use selected quotations is gratefully acknowledged.
University of Sussex Library - Brighton
The University of Wolverhampton Library
Essex County Library Services - Loughton
The British Library – St. Pancras and Colindale - London
The Household Cavalry - Windsor
Royal Scots Greys – Edinburgh
The Queen’s Hussars – Warwick
The Queen’s Own Hussars Home Headquarters – London
The Queen’s Royal Lancers - Grantham
The 9th/12th Lancers – Derby
The 15th/19th Hussars – Newcastle
Friends and family –
Peter Armitage FCA
Susan Debnam
Malcolm Clough
Charles Mathiesen
William M Salmon
John Sly
Susan Smith
David Thomas 1947-2011
And for their love and encouragement, my son and daughters – Glenn, Emily and Paula Salmon.
Introduction
For the British horsed cavalryman undergoing ‘mechanization’, the move from horses to vehicles, there were many changes to which he had to adapt other than the form of transportation and weapons platform.[1] In tanks, or other armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), the cavalrymen’s individual role changed. As a horseman he had a dual role of being part of a mobile arm, but was equipped and trained to fight equally well mounted or on foot.[2] In his new role in a vehicle it was different; he became part of a crew. His personal armaments were exchanged, swords and rifles for revolvers.[3] The weapons platform transferred from an individual conveyance, ‘grace laced with muscle and strength by gentleness confined’,[4] to a clanking, hot, claustrophobic, metal capsule that had to be shared with other men.[5] George ‘Yorkie’ Husband of the 16th/5th Lancers[6] explained, when interviewed for this thesis in 2010 and having undergone mechanization, that ‘the training was better as a horseman than [in] a tank. Tank life [he remembered], takes a bit of getting used to, one horse and you together and then you finish up with five of you, it was a different world’.[7]
Sharing, mutual dependence and teamwork brought a cultural as well as a mechanical change to cavalry regiments. Horsed troopers, unless they were in a specialist group, such as machine-gunners or signallers, were all trained for a similar role, and with their horse were solo performers. More importantly, mounted cavalry officers both lived and worked separately from the men they led.[8] A tank crew had to form a team, equal in status, except for the commander, but nonetheless mutually dependent as a driver, signaller, gunner or commander. The commander of a tank could be any rank from a lance corporal to a major, or sometimes the commanding officer of the regiment, who would ordinarily be a lieutenant colonel.[9] Tank crews fought, cooked, ate and slept together, totally reliant on each other, for each other. As a consequence of mechanization and because of this new closeness between officers, NCOs and troopers, the style and nature of the leadership changed.[10]
The management of mechanized training appeared to have been similar in each cavalry regiment. Tried and tested, and no doubt honed by experience, it followed the principles of the original programme ordered by the War Office in 1928 for the conversion to armoured cars of the 11th Hussars and the 12th Lancers.[11] The troopers were organized into cadres of around twenty men.[12] Cavalry regiments had a higher proportion of NCOs to men, about 1 NCO to 6 or 7 troopers, than did infantry regiments.[13] This ratio was ideal for effective leadership and would have enhanced the efficiency of the training. There were specialist trainers; the Signals Officer took charge of signals training and the ‘Technical Adjutant’ commanded the gunnery and maintenance training. The majority of regiments took about twelve months to convert from horses to AFVs, but much depended on the availability and continuity of the supply of equipment with which to train. Elements of the 8th Hussars regiment achieved an effective transition to vehicles in five months in 1936, and in 1942 the Royal Scots Greys took just eight months to convert the whole regiment from horses to tanks. Interviewed in 2007, Lieutenant Colonel Aiden Sprot of the Royal Scots Greys, the last British Regular cavalry regiment to become armoured, contended that one of the most singularly exceptional achievements of the British Army was that all Regular horsed cavalry regiments had become armoured by 1942:
[It is] really rather remarkable that from that time, August 1941, we [the Royal Scots Greys] went from a completely horsed regiment to a completely mechanized one. It is quite a complicated thing, for someone who has never driven a motor car before to then suddenly drive a tank. And someone who had never played with a wireless before – nobody had wirelesses in those days. Only about fifty men out of 500 could drive a motor vehicle in August 1941. And it was rather remarkable that from that time, August 1941, we were fit to go into battle with Rommel in the desert in June the following year.[14]
This was a particularly notable feat given that there was hardly a man who had not previously taken his place in the regiment as a horseman.[15] The mechanization or armouring of horsed cavalry was an exceptional example of change management. A change of this magnitude could not have been successfully achieved without appropriate leadership, strong motivation and an effective training programme.
The Army Council, following the end of the Great War, had no intention for the British Army’s Regular cavalry regiments other than to mechanize them.[16] When, in 1928, the mechanization of two cavalry regiments, the 11th Hussars and the 12th Lancers, was decided upon (discussed in Chapter One), the War Office set out a programme of how this change should be managed. So successful and robust was this programme that it was, in essence, replicated for the other 18 Regular cavalry and the Household Cavalry regiments as they too went through the process of change from horses to AFVs from 1928 until 1942. However, the Army Council and the War Office throughout most of the inter-war period faced two challenges: what mechanical vehicles should replace horses and how was the capital cost of the vehicles to be afforded.
In researching and critically examining the change process employed by the British cavalry to replace horses with vehicles and train cavalrymen in their operation, the question inevitably arose, why did this take so long? If each regiment took one year to dispose of their horses and learn to use the AFVs and the whole process took some 20 years, perhaps the Army Council’s budget could afford to equip only one regiment each year. That was not the case; the mechanization of the cavalry regiments was not evenly spaced in this logical fashion. Perhaps the change was poorly managed, the expertise inadequate or the men difficult to train, but when ordered to do so the regiments appeared to have moved effectively from one operational method to the other. Perhaps there were other, less obvious, reasons for the protracted mechanization of the cavalry, perhaps the change from horses to vehicles was resisted by the officers and men tasked to bring it about as has been suggested in popular historiography.