Page 320 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

320 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

Gibb’ first report about the”F-P Scheme” was ready the next day, on 29 March. He
sent it to Arthur Francis Pease, the ”Second Civil Lord”, the junior of the two civilian
members of the Admiralty Board. This is remarkable and may either indicate that Gibb
did not know or did not accept how the professional navy had to work. The proper
procedure that would ensure co-ordination would be to send the report to Fremantle for
staffing in Fuller’s Plans Division or Captain Dudley Pound’s Operations Division. His
act also bypassed the Naval Intelligence Division. The Civil Engineer-in-Chief noted
that training of 50 demolition teams had already started in the army’s Shoreham camp.
This was where the Zeebrugge and Ostend harbour reconstruction teams from Gibb’s
previous job were based. Officers detached from the army Royal Engineers were on
the way as were explosives, stores and equipment for training. Standard instructions
had been developed that would be adjusted to the actual ports, when they had been
identified. Charts and plans of the different ports had been collected and the work with
making demolition plans had started. The amount of planning and preparations done by
29 March makes it nearly certain that Gibb had been tasked before 28 March, probably
directly by Geddes, which could also explain why he ignored the Naval Staff and sent
his scheme to Pease.
Gibb wrote that he would form his staff and chose the mobilisation location and
embarkation port, when he had openly and formally been given a level of authority that
would be recognised by other authorities. Thereafter he could request the equipment for
the demolition units, a medical support element as well as the destroyer he needed as
a mobile command platform. Gibb took the directive to command execution literally.
From that vessel he would control the estimated twelve necessary demolition units by
radio telegraphy directly. Maps and plan sketches for the demolition units had to be
produced and the BEF Headquarters had to be informed that Gibb had been given the
mission. The navy’s torpedo and mine specialists should give assistance by mining the
relevant French estuaries. He estimated that he would need 500 army Royal Engineers
and 1.000 Royal Marines for his force. Additional support personnel would be detached
from the British army units in the vicinity of the ports. Gibb neither seemed to under-
stand that France, the owner of the ports to be destroyed, ought to be involved from the
start to avoid later friction or even vetoes, nor that his centralised mode of execution
would fail to match the chaos and stress that might rule when the Germans had broken
through. He would just direct his demolition units like a conductor would control his
symphony orchestra. On the same day Pease suggested to Wemyss that Gibb should be
given the requested formal authority, and on 30 March the navy chief asked Hope to do
what was necessary.
Wemyss had now been discussing the situation with Wilson. The Chief of the Impe-
rial General Staff did not think that the army might be forced to withdraw further than
Abbeville and he hoped that the French could hold the Somme line. This made it unlike-
ly that the Germans would reach the coast and its ports. In spite of this army optimism
the navy decided that the project preparation should continue. Wemyss noted that in his
opinion the demolition force should be commanded by a regular Royal Marine Brigadier
General and the Gibb’s role should be limited to that of a technically-executive deputy