 Good evening everyone afternoon or good morning depending on which part of the the time zone we have caught you in. It's my great pleasure to be here tonight and to welcome you to this Corbett Center event, and in particular it's a great pleasure for me to be able to welcome Dr Andy Andrew Boyd award winning author and historian here with me tonight. I'm Professor Greg Kennedy, and we're going to talk to you about the Anglo American strategic relationship and the path to Pearl Harbor, which obviously on December 7 is quite a fitting thing for us to be doing so. It's a real pleasure to have Andy with us here tonight. I've been a great fan of his books he has two outstanding books that, if you aren't aware of you should be aware of the one Royal Navy and Eastern waters linchpin of victory from 1935 to 1942. And more recently British naval intelligence through the 20th century, and both of these are absolutely critical for any understanding of Great Britain and its role in the Pacific. So it's a real pleasure to have him here live and able to take part, because I think much of the research that he's produced is fundamental to those of us who want to understand the reality of events that take place in that particular part of what is is generally lumped together to be called the second war. So Andy, I gotta leave it over to you and thank you very much again for being with us here tonight. Well, thank you very much and thank you for those kind words and good evening everybody. And my contribution to this event in the year 1937, which I argue marks the beginning of a British strategic journey that initially concluded in mid 1941. In these four years, Britain abandoned the concept of confronting the full might of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the South China Sea and Northwood. But it also recognized that control of the Indian Ocean was an inescapable commitment necessary to secure the war potential of its Eastern Empire core comprising Middle East oil, India and Australasia. This area, not only maximized Empire war effort, but provided important geographic advantage. It was a strategic shift to focus on what mattered most in the Eastern theater. I then argue that during the second half of 1941, there was an extraordinary reversal. The Navy abandoned a rational Indian Ocean defensive strategy and instead reembrace the idea of mounting offensive operations across the South China Sea, and ultimately basing forward alongside the Americans in the Philippines. This reversal primarily reflected American influence and pressure. Many historians have identified 1937 as a pivotal moment for Britain's Far East strategy. They see the combination of the Japanese invasion of China, the potential enmity of Italy following the Abyssinian crisis, accelerating German rearmament and initiation of the Axis with the anti-commentar impact, as endorsing a much quoted comment by Admiral Herbert Richmond in 1925, that Britain could not secure a two hemisphere empire with a one hemisphere Navy. There is ample evidence that by the end of 1937 Britain's political and military leaders did indeed view the prospect of simultaneous war with three different enemies across three divergent theaters with great concern. From this point, they increasingly saw a deployment of a competitive fleet to Singapore to conduct a regional trade war with Japan in the Western Pacific as unrealistic, although the need to preserve the confidence of Australia and New Zealand made them reluctant to admit this. Not surprising, therefore, to find an enduring historical view that the rise of the triple threat eviscerated British strategy for securing its Far East territories and territories and interests through naval power and reduced even relief of Singapore to a hollow gamble. Before considering further how British strategy adjusted to the rising triple threat, it's important to register important qualifications to the worst case projections of the chiefs to start during the two years before the outbreak of the European war in September 1939. These qualifications provide a backdrop to British calculations during this period. First, before 1940, the Japanese threat to British territories beyond the concessions in China remained hypothetical rather than imminent. The Japanese were heavily committed in China and the logistics of attacking Singapore from bases at least 1500 miles away while running the gauntlet of the Royal Navy China fleet submarines were formidable. Secondly, in January 1939 Britain gained perhaps its most important single intelligence insight of the interwar period. Government code and cipher schools signals intelligence demonstrated that Japan had rejected German and Italian proposals to extend the existing anti-Soviet pact into a formal military alliance against other powers. Japan informed its partners that its economy relied on access to British and American markets and that it could not afford to alienate these countries. For the present British fears regarding the triple threat were therefore moderated. Finally, Royal Navy leaders perceive the challenges they faced in conducting simultaneous naval war in European and Eastern theaters in 1938-39 as temporary rather than permanent and certainly not hopeless. By 1939 they had guarded confidence that British naval rearmament was comfortably matching the combined total of Germany and Japan. Now while these qualifications offered British leaders some comfort, they did not remove a potential triple threat. Japanese preoccupation with China was unlikely to be permanent and war in Europe could provide irresistible temptation. Naval rearmament might provide adequate insurance against Germany and Japan, but the Royal Navy would struggle to cope with Italy too. At the June 1937 Imperial Conference, the first sea lord and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Ernie Chatfield, insisted that the core tenets of the traditional Singapore strategies stood. In any confrontation with Japan, Britain would deploy a fleet to the east sufficient to coerce into a satisfactory settlement. However, within a year the Munich crisis and accelerating prospect of European war demanded strategic adjustment. Initially, adjustment reflected greater realism about the limits of British naval resources in the period before modernization and rearmament could take effect. This reduced offensive goal for the Far East, evident in Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's message to the Dominions in March 1939, and the concept of flexible reinforcement defined in parallel by the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Chamberlain reaffirmed that a fleet would deploy to the east if Japan attacked the Empire. Its size would depend on the situation in Europe, and it would focus on three goals, prevention of Japanese operations against Australasia or India, protection of Imperial communications, and preventing the fall of Singapore. While it's fair to see this as a weakening of British commitment, and the Dominion certainly did so, concentrating on these three goals marked an important strategic shift. Britain would now focus on the inner core of the Eastern Empire, and accept it could not contest Japanese aggression north of Singapore. Meanwhile, the revised Admiralty policy announced by Cunningham stated that the timing and composition of Far East reinforcement to meet a Japanese attack could not be predetermined. Britain would depend on numerous factors, British naval forces available, Britain's overall strategic situation, Japanese strategy, ambitious and aggressive, or confined to commerce raiding, and the attitude of other powers, especially Russia and the United States. The defensive strategy with reduced goals and flexible reinforcement, which evolved through the first months of 1939 was not solely driven by limited resources. It reflected at least equally a changing perception of the risks and opportunities in managing Empire security. At the 1937 Imperial Conference, Chatfield argued that if necessary, the Mediterranean could be temporarily abandoned to concentrate forces in the Far East. In his view, Britain's Mediterranean assets could always be recovered, whereas the Far East, once lost, could not. In contrast, through early 1939, a consensus gradually emerged within the British leadership that the potential damage and abandoning the Eastern Mediterranean, probably match damage from any current Japanese move. This consensus drew on three arguments, which together implied great enable priority for the Mediterranean. Though not fully articulated until the end of that year, these arguments resonated in various forms through to 1941 and beyond. The concept of a knockout blow against Italy as weakest member of the axis, the Balkans as buffer against the axis, and possibly as a base for offensive operations. The Eastern Mediterranean as barrier to protect Middle East oil and access routes to the Eastern Empire from the West. The new principles that shall underpin defense of British interests, eastward from Malta, were agreed by the Committee of Imperial Defense, chaired by Chamberlain on the 2nd of May 1939. First, the core interests in the Far East were those identified by the Prime Minister in his March message to the Dominions. Secondly, a serious Japanese threat to this core would take time to develop, giving Britain discretion over the size and timing of naval reinforcements. Immediate deployment of a full fleet was not an automatic prerequisite. This judgment reflected the crucial second insights into current Japanese thinking. Thirdly, there were now Eastern Mediterranean interests that matched and possibly exceeded all Far East interest beyond the core. Fourthly, there was a tradeoff between Eastern Mediterranean and Far East dictated by relative level of risk and benefit at a given time. The Prime Minister acknowledged this represented a scaling down of previous assurances to the Dominions, but his March message had already made this clear. If Britain was defeated, the Dominions fate was sealed, Britain would strive to protect them, but must focus on the main enemy, and that was Germany. The CID agreed to inform the Americans of this policy shift, and Commander TC Hampton met the US Navy Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral William Leahy, the following month. The French were also advised in the staff talks then underway. In war, the British and French governments would agree appropriate distribution of Royal Navy forces between Mediterranean and Far East in accordance with relative risk. Planning would take account of the extreme option of temporarily abandoning maritime control in either region. Chamberlain applied these principles when the Japanese threatened the British concession at Tianjin the following month. He accepted the advice of the Chiefs of Staff that the maximum fleet Britain could generate was insufficient to operate safely north of Singapore. It followed that Britain could not stop Japan freezing her out at China. And if a fleet deployed to the east, the temptation for Germany and Italy to take advantage in Europe would be irresistible. Sending a less than adequate fleet was pointless. Britain should not therefore risk war for its China trade. If Japan initiated war, that was of course another matter. Meanwhile, through the summer of 1939, the Admiralty updated its war plans, which identified the maximum fleet available to meet Chamberlain's reduced goals in the event of war with Japan. Three battleships, the entire battle crews of force and three aircraft carriers must remain in home waters to counter Germany. Withdrawing all major units from the eastern Mediterranean would enable seven battleships to aircraft carriers and substantial supporting forces to reinforce the China fleet if the Japanese deployed south in full force to attack Singapore. However, Admiralty planners were clear that this was a maximum fleet to meet a worst case scenario. The timing and pace of Far East reinforcement, once Japan opened hostilities, still depended on the comparative level of risk in the Far East and eastern Mediterranean theaters in accordance with Cunningham's variable factors. The maximum fleet therefore is best viewed as the maximum means available from late 1939 after providing for the home theater to protect the two boundaries of Britain's eastern empire. It was also probably adequate to secure Singapore from the maximum attack Japan could mount in mid 1939. The policy of minimum flexible reinforcement sufficient to secure Chamberlain's eastern empire core was confirmed by the war cabinet after the outbreak of the European war in September 1939. In briefing this to the Dominions, Winston Churchill, now First Lord of the Admiralty, emphasised three points, which he would further underline on becoming Prime Minister through to 1942. Britain could and would protect Australasia against any serious Japanese attack. He insisted that if Britain had to choose between its Middle East interests and defence of Australia, the latter took precedence. Secondly, he emphasised the concept of the fleet and being the power of a fleet applied simultaneously wherever it had bases, irrespective of location at a given moment. Deterrence rested on the possibility of deployment, not just actuality. Thirdly, ships could not remain idle in wartime waiting for an attack that might never come. It was the collapse of France in June 1940 and simultaneous entry of Italy into the European war that drastically reduced Britain's scope to maintain a trade off between Eastern Mediterranean and Far East, offering adequate security for both. The French collapse was not reasonably foreseeable, and it's easily forgotten how different Britain's options in the East might have been had France survived. Britain now had to find substantial extra naval resources to secure the Western Mediterranean and counter greater German access to the Atlantic, while the fruits of the rearmament program were only just beginning to appear. Meanwhile, a strike at the resources of the Western Empires in Southeast Asia became more tempting for Japan, and her ready access to French Indochina made an attack on Britain an easier proposition. Britain briefly considered withdrawing naval forces from the Eastern Mediterranean. Although partly for the reasons identified pre-war, but also because a strong naval presence would discourage Spain, Vichy France and Turkey from joining the Axis. Over the next year, the importance of maintaining a forward position in the Middle East became increasingly apparent to Britain's war leadership. Britain protected the Middle East oil resources on which the economies and war potential of Eastern Empire territories depended, denied the same oil to the Axis and facilitated a potential supply route to Russia through Iran and the Caucasus. The withdrawal to East Africa and the Gulf would bring huge economic and material loss and risk Germany acquiring bases in Spain and Vichy North Africa, with serious consequences for the Atlantic battle. A forward position also brought offensive opportunities, tightening the blockade, knocking out Italy, and wearing down German air power. This case for forward defence now combined with recognition that control of the Indian Ocean was also essential, both to sustain the Middle East position and to protect and mobilize the full war potential of the Eastern Empire territories. By summer 1941, Britain judged that with American support and Germany committed in Russia, the United Kingdom homeland was secure. But to contain German power, let alone the wider Axis, it must hold the resources and strategic leverage of the whole area stretching from Egypt to Australasia and deny them to its enemies. Naval defence of the space at both ends was an inescapable commitment with the Indian Ocean ranking second only to the Atlantic lifeline in priority. Finding naval resources for both ends of this space, however, was beyond Britain's reach in the second half of 1940. Even the China fleet was a pale shadow of that in 1939, with all its submarines withdrawn to the Mediterranean. The response to the most serious threat from Japan was therefore based on three elements. Concessions to buy time, reinforcement of land and air forces in Malaya and Singapore, and seeking protective cover from the Americans. If Japan declared war, the only British naval reinforcement would comprise force H, the new Gibraltar Task Force, which would deploy to the Indian Ocean to discourage IJN surface raiders. However, in line with Churchill's 1939 promise, the extreme option of withdrawing the Eastern Mediterranean fleet to meet a direct and imminent threat to Australia, or by implication the Indian Ocean remained extant. The advancing air and land power in the absence of naval forces to discourage Japanese adventurism, while the potential for American support was explored through the winter of 1940-41 was a reasonable short term policy, especially while Japanese forces remained at a distance, and was arguably a natural evolution of Cunningham's flexible reinforcement. Unfortunately, a temporary expedient became an excuse for British leaders to defer fundamental strategic choices. By autumn 1940, increasing Japanese capability and their potential access to Indochina, Thailand, and the Netherlands East Indies meant that to protect and use Singapore as a base, Britain must control a substantial area around it. The land forces Britain proposed deploying in 1940 were never sufficient to meet the scale of Japanese attack, which intelligence correctly anticipated. And even these inadequate reinforcements were not achieved by December 1941. Adequate forces could only be found by diverting diverting them from the Middle East. This was never possible in 1941, without putting the Eastern Empire on the oil to sustain it at serious risk for Maxis attack in the West, undermining Britain's wider ability to prosecute the war. Britain could pursue a forward defense policy in one theater, but not both. If the Indian Ocean was an inescapable commitment, and Britain's leaders were clear by mid 1941 that it was, then the real choice they and above all the Admiralty faced was whether its security really required the use of Singapore. For a while, Britain hoped the United States would solve its problem in the Far East. During the late 1930s, the Anglo American naval relationship had progressed from rivalry and suspicion to cautious friendship based on perceived common interests, especially regarding the naval threat from Japan. Through the winter of 1941 Britain therefore explored whether the Americans would base a substantial fleet at Singapore. Clearly, Britain hope the US Navy would both substitute for the fleet it could no longer provide itself and embrace pre 1939 Royal Navy plans for securing the China Sea. This approach failed for two reasons. It was politically impossible for the US Navy to deploy its primary asset to secure British Empire territory, while leaving Hawaii and the United States West Coast exposed. The Americans were also unconvinced Singapore was defensible. In January, the collapse of France, and the perception that British defeat might follow led the United States to prioritize the Atlantic, and even the Mediterranean over the Pacific. This decision was enshrined in their plan dog national security memorandum of November 1940. And in the first American British staff talks, known as ABC one, the following January. The American commitment to the Atlantic was strongly encouraged by Britain, but she overestimated American power, failing sufficiently to appreciate how this will weaken us naval power in the Pacific. This effectively eliminated British hopes that the United States would go guard her naval flank in the Far East. It obliged Royal Navy leaders to adopt a compromise American proposal at the ABC one talks. The Royal Navy would relieve sufficient British forces in the Atlantic to enable the Royal Navy to create an Eastern fleet sufficient to secure its vital interests in the East, including Singapore from Japanese attack. Unfortunately, it proved difficult to translate ABC one strategic principles into practical plans for cooperation in the Far East. Through the summer of 1941, the prospect of a new Eastern fleet encouraged Britain, further to defer the hard decisions over Far East defense above all the status of Singapore. Even if air reinforcement and modernization was delayed, the potential resurrection of an Eastern fleet now made holding Singapore, at least in Admiralty Mines, both necessary and apparently feasible. The problem was that the primary forces released by American Atlantic substitution, the obsolescent Royal sovereign class battleships were quite unsuitable to take on the IJN. The Admiralty was potentially willing to embrace a fleet composition, it would never accept against the Italians in the Mediterranean, and without the substantial British air cover available in that theatre. Before September 1941, the creation of this new Eastern fleet remained hypothetical, conditional on American entry into the war. Britain's Eastern theatre naval strategy also remained essentially that of late 1939. Both Prime Minister and Admiralty were firmly focused on defence to the Indian Ocean, especially from IJN's surface raiders, even if they differed over forces composition. Singapore's status as a naval base remained unquestioned, but it would support operations westward, not northward, and its vulnerability in wartime was acknowledged. September brought dramatic change. Following the first Anglo-American summit at Placentia Bay, the US Navy began assuming responsibility for convoy escort in the western Atlantic, thus releasing Royal Navy units immediately, rather than awaiting the outbreak of war. Establishing an Eastern fleet by the end of the year, drawing on these forces, and the growing output of the British rearmament programme now looked feasible. In parallel, the US Navy insisted that a Far East joint operating plan, based on ABC1 principles, depended on a far stronger British naval commitment to defending the Malay barrier. To encourage more forward British deployment, the Americans stressed their determination now to reinforce the Philippines with substantial air forces and for their Pacific fleet to mount more aggressive operations from Pearl Harbour. Together, these factors persuaded the Admiralty that from early 1942 operating north of Singapore into the South China Sea, in accord with mid-1930s war plans, was again feasible. By early October, with the acquiescence of the Chiefs of Staff, the Admiralty was actively preparing the deployment of a substantial battle fleet to Singapore, able to operate offensively and ultimately even base under American air cover at Manila. This new intent to create an Eastern fleet at Singapore was not, however, irrevocable. If circumstances changed, certainly if war looked imminent, early reinforcements could concentrate in salon and resume the defensive focus on the Indian Ocean, while the merits and risks of more forward deployment were reviewed. This was the choice faced by the Admiralty in late November, when the new battleship Prince of Wales arrived in salon to join the battle cruiser of repulse and the old battleship revenge, both already in the Indian Ocean, as the first units of the putative Eastern fleet. Intelligence now pointed clearly to early hostilities, with Japan capable of deploying sufficient air and naval forces to make British operations north of Singapore highly risky. Operational caution therefore, dictated holding the Prince of Wales group, for said as it became, at salon. But deterrence rested on Japanese. In theory, this conflicted with the Prime Minister's political desire for a visible naval deterrent to Japan. But deterrence rested on Japanese awareness that significant reinforcements were in the Far East Theatre, not on their specific location at Singapore. Morgan showed that Tokyo now knew the Prince of Wales was in the Indian Ocean and bound for Malaya. It's therefore unlikely, Churchill would have would have overruled an Admiralty decision pressed by the first sea Lord Admiral the fleet so Dudley pound to hold her in salon. However, the Admiralty did not hold for said back. Now to demonstrate British commitment to defending the Malay barrier and bring serious forces to joint operations with the Americans was a factor. It combined with a belief that reversion to traditional and more aggressive war plans against the IGN were desirable, and now possible. Pound perhaps also judged that the Japanese would attack my Thailand before Malaya. And there was time to review options once for said, once for said, was in Singapore and American forces on their flank, especially the powerful US Navy Asiatic Fleet submarines, which might deter, which might provide a significant deterrent. So Tom Phillips and the commander of the US Navy Asiatic Fleet Admiral Thomas Hart met in Manila. On 6th of December, they agreed that with current resources, their initial approach to an apparently imminent Japanese attack must be defensive. But the planned reinforcements would allow them credibly to contest the South China Sea in the coming months. There was no reckless misjudgment, given their accurate picture of Japanese strength and probable intentions. But it was one broadly shared in London and Washington. It was only partly mitigated by the inability of all involved to anticipate that the Japanese would shortly remove both the US Navy Pacific Fleet and the US Air Force in the Philippines, in the Philippines from the board. The American Asiatic submarine force would prove useless. The subsequent loss of force said, following a vain attempt to disrupt the Japanese landings in Malaya should not be conflated with an argument that Britain lacked the naval resources to defend its maritime interests in the East. But as Chamberlain identified in early 1939 was control of the Indian Ocean, rather than the Malay barrier. In late 1941, Britain had the potential resources to secure this ocean, but even with maximum American support in the Atlantic, and a more aggressive American approach in the Pacific. Britain had to hold the barrier at this time, even ultimately Singapore, let alone reach beyond it without far greater commitment of air power. There was inadequate reinforcement. The Admiralty's forward strategy adopted in September, proposed placing an inappropriate capital ship force in an exposed position within adequate air cover. A significant intelligence to show the enemy could bring concentrated force to bear. It was a classic case. It was a classic failure of risk management. Thank you very much. Thank you Andy. I put down in the chat box after my presentation if you have questions, please do put them into the chat box at that point. Just to indicate who it is that the question is directed at. So my time I'm going to spend looking more on the American side and particularly looking at the element of economics and its relationship to the maritime domain. I think that there are a number of things that have been raised in Andy's presentation that are important to also, you know, continue the threads and the vein that he's put them in terms of this idea about the friction or the variations of frictions that existed between the United States and Great Britain. And I think the question of deterrence is critical to this. If you are trying to paint a perception within your opponent's mind of credibility that will allow deterrence to then therefore take root. That best achieved. And quite often the idea is that it is purely one of military power. I'd like to argue that in many respects the relationship between naval power and actually Anglo American control of the greater global maritime domain is where the true leverage on Japan lies. And it's quite interesting that the one of the key kind of points of friction. I think in terms of of alleviating some of the friction in terms of the ability to create commonality of purpose between Britain and the United States rests in the point that Andy raised about the the triple alliance, the whole kind of question about what is the relationship between Germany, Italy, and Japan, is it military or is it not. And to that then was created this point of contact that the British and the Americans could collaborate on to arrive at an answer as to whether or not there was there for a common set of enemies or a common enemy. Particularly for the United States, and its engagement in the greater global affairs. This is I think an undervalued appreciation or an area of appreciation that's undervalued by many scholars, and that while it is associated with Roosevelt's discussions about, you know, outlaw rogue states. It is not taken I think in the in the right light in the context of understanding that the line particularly that is being drawn is one which connects the United States and its values to Britain and values, not just about democracy and rule of law, but also fundamentally about economic power and capitalism. I think that it's important that China and the role of China be brought in here to the discussion and the relationship between the way in which China is sustained, and the need for maritime power to sustain China. And being a critical element in a combined Anglo American appreciation and therefore a combined Anglo American strategy as to how to approach the growth of Japanese power, while at the same time recognizing that both in the United States and also due to domestic politics, British to domestic politics, as well as one could argue perhaps, you know, the imperial overstretch or at least the imperial stretching of limited resources until appeasement can take effect and allow the government to build or rebuild and modernize. You need to find a third way. And if you have an Anglo American agreement that Japan is an opponent and an enemy which I believe, which I believe actually takes place between 1933 and 1937. And therefore, the actual display of Japanese aggression in China which then when consolidates it in the enemy camp. What you also see therefore is an appreciation of how that links to what it was that the main weapon of war against Japan was going to be which is of course, economic warfare and trade bargos and sanctions, and many of the things that were applied in the First World War, but also traditionally applied by Britain in its, in its relation and its ability to leverage the two, you know, key strategic pillars that it has owned for for quite some time through the Napoleonic Wars and onwards which is of course, control of global maritime commerce through both the Navy and the merchant marine, and the relationship that that had to the city of London, or you know, other major international centers of finance, which allowed those two to work in conjunction, and in modern warfare to limit or to control the sinews of war. It's not a quick strategy it's not a very militaristic strategy but it certainly is one which had proven to be resilient and have great enduring capacity to be effective in the British system. The question is, can you bring the Americans into this system. So, let me start in 1937 with the, with the actual declaration, if you will, of Japan as the enemy in the Far East through its activities now in China. And I would disagree I think with Andy in the sense of the, the idea of it not being important or not, not that it wasn't important, the idea of Japan would not be there for any enduring time. But I would agree in both Britain in the United States. The strategic assessment and the word that is used. Ironically enough the word that is used independently in both Washington and in London, and which will go on into the vocabulary of American imperial policy, or interventionist policy, following the Second World War is that of quagmire. Both British and American appreciations of the Chinese role in of the Japanese role in China is that of a wearing down and a continuous drain on Japanese blood treasure, and most importantly political will and the hope for switch of governments and the movement away from militarism to perhaps a more moderate Japanese government that would be more conducive to some of the deterrent deterrent being demonstrated by the West. This quagmire is seen as being the way for the third way in which to be able to not only wear down Japan but fix it and fix it and keep it from actually being able to do any militarism in the southern China sees or in any of the southern access southern flank issues. And I would argue that this is quite a successful strategy, and it's successful strategy due to to to core elements one is that despite Japanese naval dominance in the areas that that Andy so so accurately pointed out in many ways. One of the things that cannot be done by the Japanese is for it to be able to effectively interdict and to blockage China in its totality. It is incrementally able to do so which eventually will lead to the create or the need for the creation of the Burma Road to offset then the loss of the continued access to China that had traditionally been the way to be able to support it. Because that is an incremental movement, the ability to build up China to a degree and then also be able to provide materials is allowable for a fair amount of time to make it credible as this quagmire to help it become this quagmire. More important in that is the ability, of course, for the maritime driven economies of the United States and Great Britain to be able to raise the finances and to create a number of loans to separate set of loans between 1937 and 1940 that are financing the Chinese and then of course later on land lease will have a Chinese at element to it, but before that. It's important to understand that these loans to China are joint Anglo American creations, the complex the complexity and the intricacy of how it is that the two work together to be able to arrive at the way in which the two loans work, how they'll be targeted and amounts is is absolutely fundamental to this growing trust and the dynamic of how the two states collaborate in the Asia Pacific, and therefore, being able to do lots of time the story you know it's like the Chinaltes and the flying tigers or some kind of individual aspiration by a state it's not these things of course take place but ironically enough China Chinaltes P 40s are P 40s that are first earmarked for Australia and then actually given over and written off by largely Britain and then Australia agrees to allow those aircraft to go into what they do there so there's always these connectivities if you will even have resource in the coordination of the two states. So these loans are critical and fundamental to understanding the role and also in terms of the maritime domain being allowed to generate the power to do so. And then of course access, and even if the materials come from Russia they still have to be paid. If the Chinese get the money to pay for that will certainly not Russia. And therefore even Russian materials are bought on the basis of Anglo American finance. The other element of this is of course, the economic warfare against Japan proper, which ranges in, you know, traditional literature we understand the growing kind of escalation of sanctions, and then which eventually in July of 1941 the final step too far, the freezing. It's interesting that in both cases, particularly in the United States there is, there is no desire for this kind of idea of what Britain had practiced in the First World War, which of course is blockade and a maritime element to this. So this will all be sanctions and embargoes and economic warfare at distance, but without the fundamental building blocks, which the British example previous to that had put into place, which was a credible naval force to be able to actually do something about it. Here though geography does work to the advantage of both Britain in the United States again, being able to coordinate even a distant blockade, as opposed to a close blockade, which the Malaya barrier would have been a part because, apart from the Dutch East Indies oil, which of course would be critical, and the rubber plantations all those access accessible and quickly accessible raw materials. That's fine, but where would Japan get the money to be able to continue a modern industrial war. And it's here that the links between Japan and Latin America are critical as well as into other other parts of the world. Largely the parts of the world that are linked to both the United States and Great Britain, but their maritime or naval power actually will allow the interdiction and will allow the interference with Japanese shipping at distance because Japan has to come to them. So how does the system work actually is one of the things that we need to understand how does the legality of this create the ability to keep a deterrent effect but at the same time try to prevent escalation. And here it's fascinating we don't have a nearly enough time to go through this but it is fascinating to look at the waste from September of 1939 all the way through to the freezing point in July of 1941. How the British, the growth of British missions in Washington which creates basically a little London in Washington, as all of these missions grow and grow. The earliest in and one of the largest is, is basically a mission which will transfer all of the knowledge and all of the capability that was earned in the First World War about how to put into place a blockading system, particularly things like nav in the way in which blacklist blockade lists rationing lists, that whole panoply of the legal way of implementing economic warfare at sea takes place is transferred over and put into the various elements of the United States system be at the Treasury, be at the State Department and into the United States Navy itself. But ironically enough it's the United States Navy itself which is the least prepared and the least interested in this kind of a thing, because that's not where it wants to be. When President Roosevelt in 1940 is talking about trying to interdict Japanese shipping in mid Pacific or someplace you know if it slips through the. The answers that are coming back or of course, one based on truth the United States Navy is not capable of doing that. It does not have links to a merchant marine that can be turned into sorts of kind of blockading cutters as you would have seen say, with the 10th cruiser squadrons in World War one by the Royal Navy. It certainly doesn't have enough long range aircraft to be able to enter interdict and to be able to monitor, and it certainly doesn't have light cruisers or those kinds of ranging vessels nor enough aircraft carriers to be able to cover the distances involved as well, but that that's irrelevant because it doesn't have to cover all Pacific. This is trade is not a battle group we don't have to find it we know where it's coming to. You need to be able to position your, your assets at the proper kind of choke point where those will come to a port or to a nation and it's international waters and be able to do it there. But even still, it's not capable. So in other words, the Royal Navy's capability in this regard has been run down for all of the reasons that Andy put forward and so therefore its ability to do this is badly damaged. And then United States Navy is not interested in doing it but nonetheless both pursue a higher policy of economic warfare and deterrence, which demands that there be naval power underneath and underpinning that to give it credibility. And this is where C and C us fleet Admiral jail Richardson kind of comes unstuck, if you will, with the president. And will eventually be relieved because he does not believe that the United States fleet in Pearl Harbor is having that deterrent effect on the Japanese to be able to allow these kind of activities to take place with anything other than a guarantee that there will be escalatory actions that will result in war. And he's quite, you know, quite straightforward and quite scathing about just exactly how unbalanced, what it is that all of these economic warfare elements are doing in terms of the political and diplomatic and the economic elements but it's out of whack with what it is that the United States can actually perform with its Navy. And therefore, you know, he calls for a far greater kind of understanding if you will I suppose, of the limitations and therefore this is where the, the kind of expectation I think of the evolutionary nature and the rating nature of what might happen in 1942 between the United, the Royal Navy and the United States Navy comes to, to some to have some traction. But with Richardson's departure. I don't think that that would probably be very likely control is definitely then invested, you know, Betty Betty see the chief of naval operations, Admiral Betty Stark. She admits to Richardson that in this kind of game of escalation and as the Japanese bite low hanging fruit from the rotten European empires that are now left to crumble in the Far East. There is no solution to this because American forces are very much an all or nothing kind of thing there is no intermediary media kind of position for them to be able to operate from. And this is why then the need to go forward and move away in terms of the other option within or war plan or it's the more forward basing presence in the Philippine is seeing all of a sudden is being preferable. But by this point, this is of the say now the fall and early of the 1940 and early 1941. The situation in the dynamic has changed. If you start to do that at one hand you are trying to deter through these economic means and create a deterrent strategy, but then if you're now going to move and trying to press forward and have a forward presence. How will that deter. It's obviously escalatory on the one hand to do this. So there would be a even more massive schizophrenia. If a forward deployment of naval assets would have taken place and this is where then air power as seen as perhaps being a panacea, and we can start to look at the idea of putting forward to be 17s and a greater amount of air power to be able hopefully to work with British or other units of the Dutch and the British to be able to create some kind of deterrent effect in terms of economic economic warfare but also in terms of a signal. But, you know, operationally, there are good relations from 1935 up until 19 up until the outbreak of actual war in 1941 between the China Squadron and the American Asiatic fleet. There is local codes are created and made information is shared they actually operate and do have operational exercises that are not operational exercises that are are seen as being formal. But what you do see is the ability for these to to translate into having some kind of operational understanding of one another. And when it's seen that you know that as part of this economic warfare that the Asiatic fleet would maybe get four old cruisers to help boast bolster it's a this question of where basing should take place. Well, the British are interested to get the Americans to base out of Singapore they don't care if it's a tugboat, all they want to do is have the signal to be able to say that look, the Americans work with us when we work with them. Anyway, they want a very open and overt kind of signal for that to take place. This is why you don't have American delegates to the Singapore naval talks that take place. You have observers but you don't have actual former formal American participation in the sense of having a participant that by name is there. Certainly in terms of the, the outcome of that those are immediately shared, obviously and distributed throughout the, you know, the United States Navy quite quite quickly and it's clear in the testimony, the Pearl Harbor testimony, Admiral Starks, you know, kind of scathing idea that the war plans that are being made in Singapore. And I get the exact phrasing where you know the usual kind of British, the unreality basically of the condition that faces them, but also the idea that as soon as President Roosevelt is reelected that the United States will automatically then now therefore be a war. So, they do understand though that the allied objective of both is to economically starve the Japanese ability to wage war. And I just want to tell you that the way in which the naval power is being oriented to do that is correct. And it's not just about fighting the next Trafalgar the next job and or about actually the next midway, but what you're seeing is the ability to get these units that's why it doesn't matter that said is a fleet unit that can conduct major operations in a fleet battle. It's there to help to cover and to be in addition to the other forces and the other units that should be there to start to wage this economic warfare and the strangulation and the erosion of even more of the Chinese Japanese ability to continue to create wealth and to generate any kind of modern industrial war. I believe that that's also what it is that leads to Pearl Harbor. There are two critical events, I think that make Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor. One is the fact that Japanese perceptions of what it is that they face is a combined joined up and a relatively united Anglo American front on the maritime economic in the maritime and economic spheres. The fear of that, which keeps them from just taking what they believe they could have in the way that they had gobbled up French and other, you know, European possessions is what keeps them from going after the Dutch and the British low hanging fruit is that if that happens, they do believe the Americans will be pushed now to finally take that action because there is that agreement and that understanding. The antithesis if you will, to the pact of steel, there is the pact of the sea, which is the Anglo American pact. And the other of course, and we don't have time to fit this in which is one of the other big threat to China, or to Japan has always been Russia. And when you have Barbarossa in the spring summer of 1941, followed then by the freezing of assets in July of 1941. There is very little choice now left to the Japanese in terms of what they can do with their naval power, which is going to shrink and demonstrably shrink year by year by year, as well as its airpower is that you have to use it, or you will lose that card, both the British and the American industrial capability is now starting to flex itself, and certainly in terms of what the quagmire of China has done. Well, yes, there are stockpiles, and there are critical strategic raw materials that have been put away for a rainy day. All of the Japanese assessments know just exactly what what they have to do in that year. They can't win a war in China in a year. But what they can do is perhaps win enough battles, be able to cause some sort of peace to be declared. And therefore that's why a risk gamble strategy has to now be the one that takes itself forward. So, if in all of this, the sea and the maritime domain is absolutely fundamental, it's the platform upon which I would argue a united Anglo-American front has been created, not declared, and not obvious, and therefore the best of those kinds of things, which is an unknown unknown. And the other is that of course the economic power that both America and the United Great Britain can still draw on globally is is enough for that to be the critical factor for the Japanese to have to take into account when they decide their way forward. So that's enough from myself, and I will now quickly move down to the chat box, and we will start there. So, I think this is from John Cullen, and he says, Hi Andy, do you feel that had the army been able to hold the north of Malaya longer, maybe even a long siege of Panang fortification built in 194041 supported by the Royal Navy from the notion might have changed the Royal Navy's ability to reinforce hold Singapore. I think the interesting issues here are. I mean the British have what they've gotten in Malaya at the outbreak of war. So in keeping the Japanese at bay, at least initially, undoubtedly, and of course if they'd exercised Operation Matador and moved into the charisma as war plans anticipated their position again would have been greatly strengthened. But as you move beyond the first, the first few weeks, both sides are going to have to sustain their forces in the field, and of course bring in reinforcements. And it seems to me therefore the Japanese have enormous advantages, I mean they're operating on much more interior lines, not without risk, but they've got lots of options available to them. So if they were held back a bit in Malaya, I think they would have been tempted to adjust their overall plan for the Southern offensive, and perhaps brought forward aspects of the invasion into the Netherlands East Indies with a view to cutting Britain's supply lines and outflanking any defensive moves. So in answer to your question, maybe a bit, but I think it would have been very difficult for Britain ultimately to hold Malaya under any circumstances. I'll hide that again. Okay. The question of the kind of intent part, Andy I find really interesting in the sense of the, all of the plans and all of the planning and all of the thinking that goes into moving ships eventually to some part of the ocean to do some kind of thing. I mean, when, when you look at the kind of the balance that you talked about, you know, the failure of the risk assessment exercise and managing risk. I guess the question about what, what would be if the fundamental kind of rule out of out of the way in which they were dealing with risk, would you see as being kind of the critical element. Is it the political shaping the intelligence, you know, situating the estimate again, because it seems, you know, that the intelligence pictures is fairly substantial for, for that risk appreciation to take place. Or is it that there seems to be, you know, just a wedded kind of determination that there is going to be this one, the one way of moving forward, even if it's slightly altered. I think, and I argue this in my book that it's easy to forget how things would have looked in the final two to three weeks before the outbreak of war. I mean, on the one hand, I think there's, there's, there's a there's certainly a good understanding of the forces the Japanese can bring to bear in theater. And I don't think there are too many illusions about their, their, their, their air power and and their overwhelming naval superiority immediately in, in theater, but, but set against that I think the two allies, and I'm sort of, or perhaps one should say three allies I mean because we shouldn't forget the Dutch and this that the Dutch do bring some important small cards to the table. I think if we're looking, if we're looking primarily on on the naval side. Phillips and heart would have seen a number of pieces on the table that would give them some confidence they had, they had time in hand. And then looking at the balance of naval forces, it would have looked closer than historians tend to view it in in in hindsight. They would have looked at on the one hand, the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, but then the very substantial oceanatic fleet submarine for submarine forces which from memory amount to about 30 or a bit more than 30. The air forces are beginning to, to build up and the Japanese will will know that there are the forthcoming British reinforcements arriving with force said the beginning of December and then a steady movement of admittedly older battleships by by the beginning of by the beginning of 42. The Dutch bring a significant submarine contribution. I mean I can see that Phillips and heart as they talk together on the 6th of December would have said, you know, there's quite a there's quite a bit here that if the Japanese do move in the next few weeks is capable of doing them significant damage. They'll make progress, but we've every, we've every hope of containing them before they do too much damage. Now I think what of course they didn't anticipate was you can forget the Pacific Fleet because that's taken out MacArthur's Philippines forces, inexcusably eliminated a day later and those wonderful 23 modern submarines in the Pacific Fleet really do nothing very much. And again inexcusably, inexcusably all of them are alongside on the 8th of December, which in the wake of Pearl Harbor seems quite remarkable. And I mean not just what's happened at Pearl Harbor, but all the warning intelligence over the previous over the previous 10 days. So suddenly from Phillips's point of view on the 8th of December. Having two days earlier thought that there's a limited but still reasonable defensive package here. Almost all of it's gone. And he's left with a very thin force and the decision do I go north and at least have a go at interdicting the landings with all the risks that that involves. Yeah, it's, I think it's interesting in the sense of seeing Pearl Harbor. I mean, obviously an American tragedy but the centrality of so many things that rested upon Pearl Harbor that are not American. It's not just their, their war it's not just their, you know, kind of concern that now has been tied to what happens on December 7 there's so many of these other things that rested upon, obviously the existence of that fleet. But also I suppose in many ways, the, the kind of continued neutrality of the United States I mean to make to make some of the leaps I suppose in terms of the consolidation of things into a reality and it's, it's quite clear that there, you know, the, the kind of thing about how long would any kind of, of the preparations that we're talking about have been allowed to go on if there is no no Pearl Harbor. Does it exacerbate things in such a to such a degree, you know that in many ways you see that as being the only the only solution that the Japanese really have left to them. Or, you know, do they preempt what could have been, you know, a change in conditions that would have, would have allowed, you know, maybe a different type of peace but certainly some kind of peace to been to settled with them with regard to China and maybe even possessions of Indochina places like that. So I think, I think the attack on Pearl Harbor and the actual activities of Pearl Harbor itself. That's one of the reasons why I would say that it's, it's good to look at it as more than just the, the American experience really it has to be seen as being a wider kind of an event and then just the United States is entry into war. Yeah, I think that's so that that's right. I think really right up to the, to the outbreak of war. I mean, I mean, despite all the Admiralty plans for creating a new Eastern fleet and deploying it offensively. I mean, at the political level, it's about limiting, limiting commitment and limiting liabilities. And through all of 1941 of course Churchill has been the driving force to give priority to, to the Middle East and that that Western boundary of the Eastern Empire, as I see it but but of course Churchill's not just thinking defensively he's thinking about the opportunities that it may offer in the future. And even when it becomes clear that Japan is likely to move. I think at the political level, I mean there's the whole deterrence. There's the initial deterrence idea but but it's all about doing, doing a minimum to keep the Japanese Japanese in check. I mean, perhaps we should also mention I think Churchill and to some extent, the Admiralty expects the Japanese to be to be relatively cautious. All right, they're going to move, they're going to move south, but of course it's going to be step by step. And that takes us in on the one hand to the famous, is it going to be Thailand or are they going to go straight to Malaya. And I think there was probably an attractive consensus that they'd go for Thailand first I mean maybe only briefly but it will, it will provide a little bit of a breathing space and perhaps create some options. And and of course the fixation about raiding in the Indian Ocean, which the Japanese certainly could have done. I mean they had all the forces available to do that. And it would have been, and it would have been very damaging. We now know that the Japanese never anticipated pursuing such a, such a strategy I mean it just wasn't part of their, their war making ethos. So I think these, these thoughts all play into, into how the British play those, those final weeks. And perhaps the last thing we should say of course they are. I mean Churchill, certainly, but equally the chiefs of staff are terrified that if they precipitate a move by Japan and the US do not come in. They're only left in a very difficult, difficult position. So again, there's, there's reluctance to, to do anything preemptive and, and ultimately most importantly, I think that bears on Brooke Popham and his reluctance to move into the charisma because he's not sure he's got the political cover to do that. Yeah. Do you feel, do you feel the US would have been able to come to British support had the Japanese just attacked the British. That's a, that is, that is a great question and it is certainly one, when you see London ask the rest of the Commonwealth to actually now buy into the freezing assets system. The whole of the Commonwealth comes back. All of the telegrams are exactly that question. Yes, we will do it. Yes, we'll go sign up to the freezing orders. Yes, we will participate in this. We want to have the confirmation or we want to have the assurance that if we therefore then are the ones that by doing this create, you know, a Japanese attack that the United States is going to to then come to our support. So this sets off a flurry of activity obviously between London, Washington, getting assurances making it would go down as being one of the biggest, biggest, biggest betrayals of any sort, if that had not happened. And I mean, again, this kind of counterfactual history I always find quite ironic what, what would have been the advantage if, you know, the Japanese attack had been that just try and take the last little little bit of low hanging fruit and the Dutch Netherlands East Indies for the oil. And of course then with the capture of Singapore the atrocities of Singapore. You make sure that there's the odd American ship that might get in the way to create your Gulf of Tonkin type incident or, you know, us and Ruben type incident again. I said you don't need Pearl Harbor. Now you have an intact American fleet now you have an intact American Pacific, everything. Can you then go forward and do you see that this is, would it have been better. I guess in the long run, if that had actually been what it had to happen. And I think actually, if it had been that that would have been actually much more to script of both sides of the equation. I believe, I believe that this that I believe the Churchill's government would not have gone ahead and done the freezing order, no matter how badly. They knew they needed to stay and step with the United States for the war in Europe for all of the reasons that the British war effort needed the United States. I believe that it would have gone ahead with supporting, and actually, it's the British that come up with the concept of the freezing order, not the timing, but it's a British concept the whole freezing asset, the freezing order concept. And it's therefore, yes, I would, I would say that they did expect that the United States would support them in that condition. David Page has got for everyone so was there an option to deter the Japanese that UK could have done example move submarines back. Could Japan have fought just the UK and Commonwealth, I am mindful that US troops ships delivered part of UK division to Singapore a week before Pearl Harbor. Andy. I think I would argue. I mean Britain had options in in the autumn of 1941 to reinforce the Far East at the expense of the Middle East, and, and again I, I look at this a bit in my, in my book. My key points, August, July, August, September. Would it have been possible to send say four squadrons of fighters and four squadrons of bombers to to Malaya. Perhaps at some accelerated naval reinforcements as well. I think the problem with getting into those counterfactuals is they of course come at a price in the frontline in the western desert where they're building up for the crusader for the crusader offensive. And, and I think you can certainly argue that if Britain had withdrawn those forces mean crusader was a very closely fought battle. It, it might have turned a narrow win into at best stalemate at worst something something of a defeat. And Churchill, as the driving political force and commanders on the ground would would have been aware that they were operating to, to fairly a fine margin so there would have been deep reluctance to to see major diversion to a theater which is not yet at war. Even if it had happened, and you get for fighter squadrons and for relatively modern bomber squadrons, would that have made that much difference. I mean the Japanese could have increased their force levels for the Southern attack to take account of that. That reinforcement. And, as I said in answer to John Collins earlier question, they could reinforce much more quickly than than than Britain could. They could move more in the way of options to to alter their attack plan to to make life more difficult for for Britain by moving earlier into the Netherlands East Indies and conducting a flanking maneuver and making sure that no further reinforcements came in. I see there's a reference to submarines. Certainly one, I think possibly two submarines did reach Singapore. Shortly before it's fall, and one of them trustee conducted a patrol into the Gulf, the Gulf of Siam, without any significant impact. I mean again, any further submarine reinforcements had to come from the Mediterranean, and that would have been that at a cost where the Mediterranean fleet was operating to quite fine fine margins. Anything coming from UK if they were available. I mean the time scales are far too far too long to get any significant force in theater for it to be for it to be useful. So I think overall my answer is without a major shift in strategy and essentially a decision to adopt a strictly defensive stance in in the Middle East pullback, not just to the Egyptian border but somewhat east of that and forego any prospect of offensive operations for the foreseeable future with all the implications that would involve. I just don't think it was possible to hold malaria in Singapore. Yeah, I mean the submarine question is interesting because many of the submarines that move into the Mediterranean to try and help out there, of course they're sunk. They aren't they're going to come back because they're not appropriate for the Mediterranean. The submarines love many of the submarine types are specific to region and the ones that are in the Pacific are a bit bigger bit more to them. And when they're in the Mediterranean in the shallower waters clearer waters they show up quite easily to particularly Italian and German air. And so therefore you see a high number of losses of those submarines that come from the Singapore squadrons into the Mediterranean. And, you know, it as Andy says you just. It's just not that easy to, to all of a sudden pick them up and move them out there with the margins that already the Navy's working with within the Mediterranean and in these, these types of ships so. I think that the idea to deterge the Japanese what else could they have done would have had more I suppose to do with the levels and the escalation of the kinds of things that they would have done faster in terms of declaring even greater numbers of sanctions and embargoes and the withdrawal of, you know, financial access and things like that, instead of the pace at which they did. But again this, this comes down to having to understand that this is a joint effort. The UK really cannot do many of those kinds of things. Unless they're in step with the Americans about this, because there's a great deal of fear about one being put out in front of the other, or one being left behind. So the need to coordinate these and, and that takes time. So this is not a really speedy. This is not as I would argue, autonomous decision making process, as it often is lend itself to be presented as this is not just a dialogue. It's in the Royal Navy and London or, you know, British system. The dialogue is taking place constantly with and then once, you know, the war increases through 1940 and 41, the volume and the amount of integration of these things is becoming greater and greater. And of course that is sand in the machinery because the machinery that we don't that you see in the actual war once it's declared in if you want to call it this kind of pre another phony war the Anglo American phony war from 39 to the end of 41. All of that growth of this machinery and the dialogue and the interaction that I'm talking about is not is not conducive to rapid and quick decision making. So today is one of the problems is that that that is that is one of the things that for those that are critical about kind of the speed of a British decision making. Well you have to see that as as now no longer a unit, a sovereign body. And before that is one of the reasons and one of the things so even in terms of these kinds of questions about, you know, movements of units and stuff like that there has to be conversations that take place because it could be interfering with the other actor, or the way in which these units were going to be or could be used for other kinds of purposes or even just symbolic gestures, the type of capability. If you only move a submarine. Why don't you move a capital ship. You know, take for example the modern day. Why is the new Queen Elizabeth been spent the last you know months cruising around the South China Seas and the Asia Pacific. It's there to demonstrate that Britain is a serious power in the region. You can't do that with submarine so you can't do that with things that don't get seen. So same kind of thing applied at that particular time. I think I would just, it's interesting to actually pursue the submarine issue a little bit further I mean I've referred to it a couple of times already. The Americans and the Dutch between them have a have a significant force of the Americans have 23 very modern submarines the latest classes, which are very well adapted to Pacific operations. They have, I think, I think 10 older submarines that are of more limited military value. The Dutch have about 12 boats of which six again so half of them are again modern and well suited to operations in this theater. That's a fascinating question. So if you take around 30 modern well equipped boats, why didn't they achieve achieve more. Now the Dutch don't do too badly I think the 12 Dutch submarines take out about 12 Japanese tron transports. Not a great balance but but it deserves it deserves some note. The American force does very very little. I think they take out about three Japanese transports and, and there is a fascinating question I know somebody's just completing a thesis on this subject. Why did they perform so badly. Why did those 23 boats in the Asiatic fleet fail fail to deliver. I mean essentially the the answer is poor poor leadership poor training and just not being prepared for any type of war and certainly not the one that they ended up they ended up fighting. But as a counterfactual if the overall framework had been there to make use of these ally allied submarines effectively with the Dutch coming under our and control at least in part. And if they had all performed. They would have made life pretty difficult for the Japanese because the Japanese attack plan was very finely calibrated I mean they were operating to quite slim, slim margins. The overall framework for attacking first malaria then successive parts of the Netherlands East Indies and of course the Philippines depended on carefully reusing certainly transports but also many many of their forces and a very finely tuned and synchronized way. Now if you start taking out transports in a serious way that was going to upset the planning and just possibly provide the allies with a significant breathing space it might have made it possible to certainly hold a line somewhere in in the in the Netherlands East Indies, if not in Malaya or Singapore. So that's an interesting counterfactual thought. On the air side I do find it remarkable how little attention is given to what happened in the Philippines compared to Pearl Harbor. I mean, a day two days after Pearl Harbor the Japanese are apparently able to catch the not insignificant bomber and fighter forces in the Philippines completely by surprise and virtually virtually take them out. And I do think that does seem rather inexcusable. And I'm not sure what happened has ever really been adequately scrutinized. The. Okay, we got to John Cullum you feel that the political position is determined at plus sent your bay and fear of a Russian collapse with an increasingly aggressive stance to Japan. I think for sent your Bay is a is just a confirmation of many things that I mean it's particularly important for getting the kind of direction, or at least a public political statement of direction. But there are, I find there are a whole bunch of kind of inconsistencies and many of the things that we take as a given about, you know, the Second World War and we just kind of assume that that it was so. So I mean things like, you know, the declaration of Europe first. Well that might be true for the American Army might be true for the American Air Force although discuss how much money the B 29 program takes, how much the atomic bomb and I could argue the atomic bomb could be work used in both theaters so that's not fair. Or discuss the growth of the United States Navy and the whole West Coast of the United States compared to the East Coast of the United States which are already relatively developed. And if you look at the kind of economics of this is Europe really first for the United States. And if, if you're looking at amount of money and kind of things spent in the political capital where with all is it. But I think, I think that the political position in placenta Bay. You know, is about making sure that Europe, Europe is seen to be what it is that is going to be the, the great crusade. It does speak to the closeness of the Anglo American Alliance at this point because I think Roosevelt could have quite easily, you know, have made a case for the, you know, the Americans to lead in one theater and say, you know, the British lead in another theater which of course then would have put the British in a very hard position to be able to lead in that European theater without American support. So actually, who actually would have led in that theater still would have been the United States, providing the leadership in terms of, of material so I think placenta Bay does what you know is already expected in many ways it's not. It's not a great revelation. It's just kind of a confirmatory thing. And what will happen now is that, you know, it will, it will now go to plan as, as has been discussed but it has not been openly articulated to anybody, apart from those within a very close knit and very kind of elite part of the Anglo American strategic relationship. David Page's point about the QE and the visit yeah I'm one of the ones would argue that certainly the role of the American or sorry the role of British aircraft carriers just to let the American aircraft carriers actually refresh replenish recharge record. So, but doesn't mean you can't do two things for the price of one my caveat to that, much like American British relations over carriers in the mid to late part of the Pacific war. Make sure that you can act like a CVN. If you talk the talk, they expect you to walk to walk. And if you repeat, you know, Summerville's experience of showing up with kit on flight decks that don't work. They aren't interested in fairly swordfish and whatever else and if you have to get Corsairs and Hellcat and TBF and all the rest to make yourselves efficient. How efficient are you just providing the whole, you're not actually carrier fit, which speaks to your second part why is it that's not the United States Navy and it's the United States Marine Corps that put the F 35s on board. Because it's much more likely that they're the ones that are going to be far more compatible with you in terms of the ones as you provide a platform that they will be the ones that will be requiring this platform. And you know the US United States Navy's platforms are already there. I think it's interesting. You know this idea of Commonwealth or Imperial Navy's. If you can, you know you look at the last stages of the Second World War in the Pacific, and how integrated the United States, the Royal Navy and the United States Navy are in carrier operations and things like that. You are, you know you kind of see that return. I think that is taking place so you and it. Ironically enough, during the last couple weeks of the cruise, you had not only United States Marine Corps and Royal or UK F 35s but of course you had Italian F 35s. If you talk to Canadians and the Singaporeans and the rest of the Commonwealth and buying F 35s, you could run around with your mobile airport and say hey, just put a put an air wing on it and we're good to go. But I think in many ways this is, you know you look back at the kind of history of this thing, the Abda history and the ability to interact and interoperability that you know Andy is speaking to here, and the kind of leadership. It's still not clear to me at all. You know I mean it ends up being a Dutch admiral in charge of Abda and all the rest for political reason things like that, but that that's kind of circumstance to the, I'm still not convinced who it was actually would have led a, you know in a non Pearl Harbor world, who would have taken an Abda force, as we have kind of discussed was in the idea and the concept of maturing, and where that those lines of operations would have would have rested. There's lots of fast. I guess my final point would be that there is time for for those who think that this is a dead topic and there is nothing left to be done out there. There is so much that has yet to be done, I would argue, it's not the proper term but to be done right, as opposed to have been done more nationalistically. Then we, we know, and until we do that we don't really know the real kind of thing that was going on in that part of the world, which is why I'm so grateful you know Andy's books that have come out to clarify and work through a lot of that stuff. Just by the time that we're already a good 10 minutes over when we were supposed to end, which is a good sign I think of, well, it's a good sign either we talk a lot or we just can't watch the clock and keep time, keep track. The rest with me to just thank you, the faceless audience of the webinar whose names I see so thank you all very much for for coming tonight and to sticking with us throughout this I hope that you'll keep an eye on future core but activities and and join us again and to thank Andy for joining us here tonight and making this an absolutely really splendid event and and really put the December 7th kind of story into, I think a lot better context and a lot better understanding of the totality of the picture as it existed on that day so thank you very much Andy, I look forward to meeting you in the flesh for a pint at some point as opposed to just that sounds that sounds great. It's been a pleasure to be here. And I certainly agree with you that there's still lots that needs to be done. Thank you. Thank you, Danny. Danny McDonough are always behind the scenes communications officer for getting us up here and in place and thank you all once again. Take care. Stay safe. And we will see you again, hopefully on these webinars in the future. All the best. Good night. Good night.