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‘Command of the air’: Alfred T. Mahan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston S. Churchill and an Anglo-American personal diplomacy of air power

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Abstract

Explanations of the importance of Allied air power during World War II often look to the supporting military theorists such as Gen. William L. Mitchell and Marshal Hugh Trenchard to explain the rhetoric, if not the reality, of the air campaign. These theorists and their military acolytes undoubtedly had a significant impact on the deployment of air power, but they had much less to say on its use as a diplomatic tool. Study of both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston S. Churchill demonstrates that they had a sophisticated appreciation of how to use air power to achieve their foreign policy goals within the realm of personal diplomacy. For both Roosevelt and Churchill, the origin of this appreciation lay in their early experiences of political office and particularly in their exposure to the work of naval strategist Capt. Alfred T. Mahan. As wartime national leaders, both came to share a discourse of personal air power diplomacy acting to simultaneously refine, challenge and reinforce each other’s conceptions. Viewed in this light, clear Anglo-American fields of cooperation in deterrence, coercion, persuasion and moral diplomacy emerge. Closer examination of this Anglo-American discourse and exchange adds to our understanding of the role of personal air power diplomacy at the national level in this era. It also brings into relief both the consensus and tensions surrounding air power within the Anglo-American wartime alliance. Ultimately, it suggests that there was a good deal of continuity in the personal air power diplomacy of both leaders as they strove to integrate atomic weapons into their calculations and confronted the developing Cold War.

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Notes

  1. John Ferris, ‘Power, Strategy, Armed Forces and War,’ in Patrick Finney ed., International History, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 61 and 63.

  2. For example see Warren F. Kimball, Forged in War—Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War New York, Harper Collins, 1997 and Jon Meacham (2004).

  3. Steve Marsh discusses Churchill’s need to find a stage for personal diplomacy in ‘Personal Diplomacy at the Summit,’ in Alan P. Dobson and Marsh (2017, 116).

  4. On the origins of air power doctrine see Ronald Schaffer (1985), Michael S. Sherry (1987) and Craig F. Morris (2017). On the combination of technological advance and morality, see Mark Clodfelter, Beneficial Bombing—The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917–1945 Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2011.

  5. Roosevelt, Address at Chicago 5 October 1937. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208843 accessed 20 October 2019.

  6. Roosevelt, Letter to Adolf Hitler 27 September 1938 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209205 accessed 20 October 2019.

  7. Tami Davis Biddle (2002, 203).

  8. Roosevelt, An Appeal to Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and Poland 1 September 1939. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209957 accessed 20 October 2019.

  9. Biddle (2002, 182).

  10. J. Simon Rofe, Franklin Roosevelt’s Foreign Policy and the Welles Mission New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 2. Roosevelt, Message to Hitler and Mussolini 14 April 1939. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209511 accessed 2 October 2019.

  11. Roosevelt, Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union 6 January 1941 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209473 and the ‘Atlantic Charter’ 14 August 1941 https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/atlantic_charter.pdf/30b3c906-e448-4192-8657-7bbb9e0fdd38 accessed 20 October 2019.

  12. Jorg Friedrich (2006, 51).

  13. Friedrich (2006, 18 and 75).

  14. On Churchill’s relationship with Trenchard see Vincent Orange, Churchill and His Airmen—Relationships, Intrigue and Policy Making, 1914–1945 London, Grub Street, 2013 and Russell Miller, Boom—The Life of Viscount Trenchard, Father of the Royal Air Force, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2016.

  15. Roosevelt, Memorandum to the Secretary of War Ordering the Construction of Heavy Bombers 5 May 1941 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209565 accessed 20 October 2019.

  16. Roosevelt to Churchill 30 November 1942 Kimbal.

  17. Friedrich (2006, 18).

  18. Sherry (1987, 59–61).

  19. Jeffery S. Underwood, The Wings of Democracy—The Influence of Air Power on the Roosevelt Administration, 1933–1941 College Station, Texas A&M University Press, 1991 argues for the strong influence of political generals guiding the president in air power matters. In ‘Presidential Statesmen and U.S. Air Power—Personalities and Perceptions,’ in Higham and Parillo, eds., (2013, 186). He further argues that Roosevelt rarely intervened in military matters and left the war to his commanders. Eric Larabee, Commander in Chief—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants, and their War New York, Simon and Schuster, 1987 pictures an engaged and active Roosevelt in military affairs.

  20. For a full account of Mitchell’s ‘War’ with the US Navy see Thomas Wildenberg, Billy Mitchell’s War with the Navy—The Interwar Rivalry over Air Power Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2014.

  21. Davis (1967, 51 and 58–60).

  22. Davis (1967, 51 and 58–60), 89–90.

  23. Mitchell, Winged Defense, 9.

  24. Sherry (1987, 48-49). Davis (1967, 338).

  25. Capt. A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1890, Capt. A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power Present and Future Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1897. Isabel Leighton and Gabrielle Forbrush, My Boy Franklin-As Told by Mrs James Roosevelt New York, Ray Long and Richard R. Smith Inc., 1933, 15. Joseph P. Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill 1939–1941: The Partnership That Saved the West New York, W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1976, 37. Alan P. Dobson has noted the early importance of Mahan for Roosevelt. See FDR and Civil Aviation—Flying Strong, Flying Free New York, Palgrave MacMillan, 4–5.

  26. The main work suggesting TR as the major influence on FDR is John Milton Cooper, Jr., The Warrior and the Priest—Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt Cambridge, Cambridge MA, Belknap Press, 1983, 359.

  27. J. Simon Rofe, ‘“Under the Influence of Mahan”: Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and their Understanding of American National Interest’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 19 2008, 732–745.

  28. Roosevelt to Mahan 14 June 1914 Franklin D. Roosevelt Library quoted by Rofe, ‘Under the Influence,’ 737.

  29. See Francis P. Sempa, ‘Churchillian Geopolitics: Mackinder, Mahan and the Preservation of the British Empire,’ Competition Forum Vol. 15, No. 1 2017 drawing on W. D. Paulson, Mahan, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1939 and Suzanne Geissler, God and Sea Power: The Influence of Religion on Alfred Thayer Mahan, Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2015. Meacham (2004, 71) states both were students of Mahan.

  30. Richard Overy, ‘Air Power and the Origins of Deterrence Theory before 1939.’ Journal of Strategic Studies 15:1, 81.

  31. Overy, ‘Air Power,’ 82 and 86.

  32. Overy, ‘Air Power,’ 89–90.

  33. Dallek (1995, 166). Oxford, Oxford University Press.

  34. For example, see Reynolds (2001, 41). On the Roosevelt’s political motivations, see Barbara Rearden Farnham, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis—A Study in Political Decision-Making Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1997 and Dallek (1995, 172–175).

  35. Roosevelt to John Cudahy 9 March 1938 Roosevelt, Letters, 232.

  36. John Morton Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Urgency, 1938–1941 Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1965, 49.

  37. Sherry (1987, 76–78).

  38. Sherry(1987, 80 and 82).

  39. Sherry(1987, 89). Dallek (1995, 173).

  40. Roosevelt, Message to Congress on Appropriations for National Defense 16 March 1940 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209636 accessed 20 October 2019. Martin Van Crevald, The Age of Airpower New York, Public Affairs, 2011, 120 suggests he plucked the figure from thin air. Sherry (1987, 91).

  41. Biddle (2002, 262) and Sherry (1987, 101–102).

  42. Crane (2016, 28 and 32). Sherry (1987, 99). See also Haywood S. Hansell, The Air Plan that Defeated Hitler Atlanta, Arno Press, 1972.

  43. O’Brien (2015, 46 and 485). O’Brien argues the American, British and Soviet air forces would have been considerably smaller and victory a longer-term aim with Roosevelt’s decision.

  44. A. T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1897, 98.

  45. Freidel (1954, 3–15).

  46. Roosevelt, Joint Press Conference with Prime Minister Churchill at Casablanca 24 January 1943 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210111 accessed 20 October 2019. See also Roosevelt, Address to the White House Correspondents' Association 12 February 1943. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209772 accessed 20 October 2019.

  47. Dallek (1995, 373–376). Roosevelt thought ‘It would be a mistake, in my judgement, to abandon or make an exception in the case of the words “unconditional surrender”.’ Roosevelt to Cordell Hull 1 and 4 April 1944 Roosevelt (1952, 498–499).

  48. Dallek (1995, 472–473).

  49. Roosevelt to Churchill, 6 January 1944 Kimball, Correspondence II, 652. See also Roosevelt to Cordell Hull 17 January 1944 Roosevelt, Letters, 492.

  50. Roosevelt to Churchill 9 February 1944 Kimball, Correspondence II, 714.

  51. Churchill to Roosevelt 10 February 1944 and Roosevelt to Churchill 12 February 1944 Kimball, Correspondence Vol II, 715 and 724.

  52. Roosevelt to Churchill, 4 November 1943 Kimball, Correspondence II, 581.

  53. Churchill to Roosevelt 17 August 1944 and Roosevelt to Churchill 26 August 1944 Kimball, Correspondence III, 278 and 297.

  54. Churchill to Roosevelt 18 August 1944, Roosevelt to Churchill 19 August 1944 and Roosevelt to Churchill 24 August 1944 Kimball, Correspondence II, 282–283, 285 and 294.

  55. Hansen (2012, 377).

  56. Churchill to Roosevelt 25 August 1944 and Roosevelt to Churchill 26 August 1944 Kimball, Correspondence III, 295–296.

  57. Churchill to Roosevelt 4 September 1944 Kimball, Correspondence III, 309–310.

  58. Roosevelt to Churchill 5 September 1944 Kimball, Correspondence III, 312–313.

  59. Hansen (2012, 378).

  60. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat 29 December 1940. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209416 accessed 20 October 2019.

  61. Churchill to Roosevelt 7 December 1940 Kimball, Correspondence I, 102–10.

  62. Winston S. Churchill to Franklin D. Roosevelt 20 May 1940 in Warren F. Kimball ed., Churchill and Roosevelt—The Complete Correspondence I (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984) 40. Churchill raised the P-40 fighters again in his message to Roosevelt of 1 June 1940. See Kimball, Correspondence Vol. I, 41–42. On aircraft supplies generally in October see Churchill to Roosevelt 27 October 1940 Kimball, Correspondence I, 80.

  63. Churchill to Roosevelt 4 October 1940 Kimball, Correspondence I, 74.

  64. Churchill to Roosevelt 10 May 1941 Kimball, Correspondence I, 183. Roosevelt to Churchill 29 May 1941 Kimball, Correspondence, I, 199.

  65. Roosevelt to Stimson 4 May 1941 Roosevelt, Letters, 365. In a further letter to Stimson on 28 May 1941, he pushed for further speeding up of getting bombers to England Roosevelt, Letters, 371–372. See also Roosevelt, Memorandum to the Secretary of War Ordering the Construction of Heavy Bombers 5 May 1941 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209565 accessed 20 October 2019.

  66. O’Brien (2015, 238).

  67. See Roosevelt to Churchill 19 March 1942, Churchill to Roosevelt 20 March 1942 and Churchill to Roosevelt 29 March 1942 in Kimball, Correspondence I, 424 and 434.

  68. Overy (2013, 306).

  69. Roosevelt to Churchill 9 July 1943 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. II, 317–318.

  70. Churchill to Roosevelt 4 January 1944 Kimball, Correspondence II, 646.

  71. For a detailed account of Portuguese, British and American relations at this time see Norman Herz, Operation Alacrity—The Azores and the War in the Atlantic Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 2004.

  72. Roosevelt to Churchill 6 October 1943, 9 October 1943 and Churchill to Roosevelt 15 October 1943 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. II, 494, 515 and 532.

  73. See Roosevelt to Churchill 26 October 1943 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. II, 564 and description referencing Cordell Hull to George Kennan 16 October 16, 1943 Foreign Relations of the United States 1943 II, 554–556.

  74. Churchill to Roosevelt 1 November 1943 Kimball, Correspondence II, 574.

  75. See Roosevelt to Churchill 8 November 1943 and note Kimball, Correspondence II, 590.

  76. Roosevelt to Churchill 17 January 1944 Kimball, Correspondence II, 667.

  77. Churchill to Roosevelt 19 January 1944 and Roosevelt to Churchill 22 January 1944 Kimball, Correspondence II, 674 and 677.

  78. See Chapter 12 ‘Pan Am Goes to Santa Maria,’ in Herz, Operation Alacrity, 304–318.

  79. See Dobson (1991, 2011).

  80. Jeffrey A. Engel, Cold War at 30,000 Feet—The Anglo-American Fight For Aviation Supremacy Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2007, 29–38.

  81. Churchill to Roosevelt 28 November 1944, Roosevelt to Churchill 30 November 1944 and Roosevelt to Churchill 15 March 1945 Kimball, Correspondence III, 419–424 and 566.

  82. Roosevelt to Churchill 24 November 1944 Kimball, Correspondence III, 407.

  83. Churchill to Roosevelt 3 December 1942 Kimball, Correspondence II, 57–59.

  84. Churchill to Roosevelt 30 August 1942; Churchill to Roosevelt 14 September 1942 Kimball, Correspondence Vol I, 579 and 594.

  85. Roosevelt to Churchill 30 August 1942 and 15 September 1942 Kimball, Correspondence, I, 584 and 596.

  86. Roosevelt to Churchill 24 September 1942 (not sent); Roosevelt to Churchill 26 September 1942 and Churchill to Roosevelt 28 September 1942 in Kimball, Correspondence I, 607, 612–613.

  87. Roosevelt to Churchill 6 October 1942 Kimball, Correspondence I, 620.

  88. Churchill to Roosevelt 7 October 1942, 8 October 1942 Kimball, Correspondence I, 621–623, 628 and 630.

  89. Churchill to Roosevelt 24 October 1942 and Roosevelt to Churchill 27 October 1942 Kimball, Correspondence, I, 637 and 643. Stalin agreed to the proposal in a message to Churchill forwarded to Roosevelt 13 November 1942 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. I, 671.

  90. Churchill to Roosevelt 3 December 1942 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. II, 57–59.

  91. Roosevelt to Churchill 6 December 1942 and Churchill to Roosevelt 6 December 1942 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. II, 61. See also Churchill to Roosevelt 8 December 1942 and Roosevelt to Churchill 8 December 1942 Kimball, Correspondence II, 65.

  92. Churchill to Roosevelt 17 December 1942 Kimball, Correspondence Vol II, 78.

  93. Overy (2013, 232). Hansen (2012, 376).

  94. Friedrich (2006, 67–68 and 70).

  95. Churchill to Roosevelt 29 March 1942 Kimball, Correspondence Vol I, 435.

  96. Churchill to Roosevelt 16 September 1942 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. I, 598.

  97. Overy (2013, 282).

  98. Crane (2016, 68).

  99. Grayling (2007, 196–197). The Deputy Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, issued similar denials, Friedrich (2006, 82).

  100. Grayling (2007, 187).

  101. Schaffer (1985, 89) and Overy (2013, 381).

  102. Crane (2016, 7).

  103. Roosevelt to Churchill 29 March 1945 and note Kimball, Correspondence III, 591–592.

  104. Schaffer (1985, 85). Overy (2013, 574).

  105. Biddle (2002, 241). Sherry (1987, 263).

  106. Churchill to Roosevelt 9 April 1945, Roosevelt to Churchill 10 and 11 April 1945 Kimball, Correspondence III, 621, 623 and 631.

  107. Quoted in Grayling (2007, 88).

  108. Grayling (2007, 182–183).

  109. Grayling (2007, 201–203).

  110. Grayling (2007, 203). Stephen Early ‘Letter’ Fellowship 10 April 1944 in Schaffer, Wings of Judgement, 170–171.

  111. Churchill to Roosevelt 10 January 1943 Kimball, Correspondence Vol, II, 234.

  112. Roosevelt to Cordell Hull 18 December 1942 Roosevelt (1952, 451).

  113. Roosevelt to Cordell Hull, 28 June 1943 Roosevelt (1952, 468). The first raid damaging several churches took place on 19 July 1944 see Schaffer (1985, 45-46).

  114. Roosevelt to Churchill 4 July 1943 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. II, 303.

  115. Roosevelt to Churchill 14 June 1943 Kimball, Correspondence Vol. II, 250–251 and Roosevelt to Churchill 15 June 1943 Kimball, Correspondence Vol II, 252–253.

  116. Schaffer (1985, 52).

  117. Grayling (2007, 175). Richard Overy, Churchill and Air Power, Churchill Archives http://www.churchillarchive.com.mmu.idm.oclc.org/teaching-and-research/in-depth-guides/Overy accessed 20 October 2019. Friedrich (2006, 145) is damning of a cynical Churchill.

  118. Churchill to Roosevelt 7 May 1944. Churchill also forwarded the concerns of the French Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Massigli. Kimball, Correspondence III, 123–124.

  119. Roosevelt to Churchill 11 May 1944 Kimball, Correspondence III, 127. Biddle (2002, 235). Friedrich (2006, 105) takes Gen. Spaatz’s protests to Eisenhower at face value rather than motivated by a desire to target Germany’s oil supplies as part of a strategic campaign.

  120. Friedrich (2006, 82 and 109) argues Churchill was the more efficient slaughterer for not expressing concern to the Deputy Commander of the Invasion, Air Marshal Tedder.

  121. Friedrich (2006, 110).

  122. As Grayling does in (2007, 152).

  123. Schaffer (1985, 171). Sherry (1987, 219). Aide Memoir 18 September 1944 http://www.fdrlibraryvirtualtour.org/graphics/07-27/7-27-FDR-66.pdf accessed 20 October 2019. On race, see John Dower, War Without Mercy—Race and Power in the Pacific War, New York, Random House, 1987.

  124. Grayling (2007, 152).

  125. See Miscamble (2007).

  126. Alperovitz (1996). See also Miscamble (2011).

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  1. Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

    Graham Cross

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Correspondence to Graham Cross.

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I wish to thank Marc Dierikx and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on this article.

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Cross, G. ‘Command of the air’: Alfred T. Mahan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston S. Churchill and an Anglo-American personal diplomacy of air power. J Transatl Stud 19, 27–53 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-020-00063-w

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