Dear Arkite,
How do we avoid having to do it all over again?
Today’s In our Arkite Alert and in combienation with Bill Blain's epic Morning Porridge we offer something different and a wee bit special – it’s a joint piece related to D-Day, where the West stands today and what the UK must do to defend itself. In Bills words ''I’ve written it jointly with my friend David Murrin, a man who understands the flow of history and the realities of defence better than anyone else in this country. ''
Let me kick off our story with some history
There is old chap I know in our village. During the war he was too young for the forces, but as a 14 year old living on the River Hamble, he had a vital job in the wartime economy, fighting tooth and nail for freedom and the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny. Each day he skippered a bowser up and down the river, delivering fresh water to the hundreds of vessels moored on the river. From HMS Cricket, the shore establishment where Royal Marines were trained to use landing craft, to the mouth of the river he got to know the crews. He knew the Americans who’d built a quayside from the bombed-out rubble of Southampton a few miles to the North, the Royal Navy matelots sailing the boats and British Marine bootnecks manning the guns. They gave him chocolates and gum, and occasionally a tot of rum.
80 years ago he woke and looked out the window. Aside from the steady drone of aircraft overhead, it was quiet. The river was empty. All the boats had gone. It wasn’t until later that morning, when a smoke-trailing Spitfire with flack splatters across the underside landed on Hamble Airfield, the nearest “prang-patch” repair unit to the Normandy Beaches, that the village knew for sure the Invasion of Europe was underway.
Many villagers must have wondered. The night before they’d heard the sound of Bagpipes on the River. It was the music of the Commandos who’d been training in the Scottish Mountains for years before departing for France. Their commander, Shimi Frazer, better known as Lord Lovat of the Lovat Scouts, had ordered his personal piper, Bill Millan, to play them to war.
Millan recalled years later: “I had been playing to the troops waiting to board the landing craft as we went along the Hamble river, and then I put them back in the box. The Lord Lovat said, "You better get them out again because you can play us out of the Solent and into the Channel. You will be in the leading craft with me."
That night, as he played from the prow of the landing craft, the Lovat Scouts joined thousands of other boats to the East of the Isle of Wight bound for Sword Beach. The 3rd Infantry Division’s first wave of the South Lancs and the East Yorks were supported by elements of Hobart’s Funnies, the 79th Armoured Division of swimming tanks, flail mine clearers and crocodile flame throwers, the shock troops of the Commando Brigades and 177 Free French Marines. Millan played The Road To The Isles: 'They heard the pipes, and they were throwing their hats in the air and cheering,' he recalled.
Lovat told him to disregard War Office orders not to wear kilts or bring bagpipes, “aye, that’s the English War Office, we’re Scots”. Millan landed in his kilt playing Highland Laddie. On hearing the roar of the Great Highland Pipes every Scot, Lancastrian and Yorkshireman on the beach rose as one, thundered up the sands, through the German lines and onwards. Lovat’s mission was to relieve the glider-borne Ox & Bucks who’d seized Pegasus Bridge – the first allied forces to assault France soon after midnight. As the Commandos arrived, the sounds of Blue Bonnets Over the Border could be heard for miles, right down the whole beach.
Many believe the sound of the pipes was the moment the success of the invasion became inevitable. In the hell that was the battle for Sword Beach the Germans chivalrously declined to shoot Millan, thinking he must be an escaped lunatic.
Today, Millan’s statue looks over the beach and towards Juno, Gold, Bloody Omaha and Utah beaches, each with its own tales of Canadian, British and American heroics. I was privileged to meet Bill Millan’s son a few years ago when we sponsored The 100 Pipers march through Hamble in commemoration of Bill’s bravery that day. He told me his father was armed with nothing more than his Sgian-Dubh, the wee dagger tucked into our socks to frighten Englishmen with. Who needs a rifle when you have the pipes?
Operation Overlord, the D-Day invasion was the most complex and unsurpassed feat of military organisation. It was huge. It had mass. 5000 vessels, 133,000 troops landed on day one, and 10,300 casualties. The Battles for Normandy, France, the Low Countries and crossing the Rhine into Germany required a million and a half troops to be trained, supplied and armed, thousands of aircraft to be loaded and painted with invasion stripes, ships’ magazines to be filled and bunkered, landing craft to be crammed with tanks and men, the concrete Mulberry Harbours to be ready and the Pluto oil-pipeline coiled to lay across the channel in days. It was a momentous and huge operation.
Today the world is a very different place. In his writings on “Breaking the Code of History”, David Murrin has seen how new hegemonic struggles seem to erupt every 112 years of so. This one is bang on time. On one hand we have the alliance of Western Democracies. On the other we have the Axis of autocracy centred around China. Under Putin Russia has become a wartime economy dedicated to the leader’s dream of restoring his version of Russian historical lands. In Iran, the ayatollahs covet dominance across the Muslim world.
To avoid war you need to be prepared to fight and win it. Yet, the sad reality is World War 3 is already underway – triggered in Ukraine. Yet many in the West seem in blithe denial of the reality and unaware of historical precedent – appeasement does not work.
At the end of the Cold War, when the Berlin Wall came down, the UK armed forces numbered 312,000 men. Defence spending was 4.09% of GDP – even after decades of defence cuts. Today the UK’s defence capability is perilously thin. Much of our kit is being canabilised to keep others functional. Our airspace is defended by a few elderly Typhoon fighters. The navy’s anti-submarine capabilities are limited to just three on-call escorts. A single attack sub annoys the Russians. Our aircraft carriers – let’s not go there. The Army has been hollowed out to such an extent its single deployable brigade would struggle after just a few days at a high operation pitch. Our recruitment is a shambolic mess.
Yet, the British Armed forces remain among the most professional in Nato sustained by our martial traditions and the ancestral muscle memory of the unsurpassed British Army of 1918 that ended the trench stalemate and destroyed the German Army. The RAF that won the Battle of Britain. The Royal Navy that won the Battle of the Atlantic, and kept the supply lines to Russia open. The Forgotten 15th Army that fought the largest single battle against the Japanese at Kohima and whipped them – a fact Americans are blithely unaware of. Or the 5 battalions that took on the Argies might and swept them from the Falklands. Past glories are not a guarantee of future victory – but British Armed forces have form.
Already critical lessons have been picked up from Ukraine. The first we already knew – that lateral-thinking, highly motivated soldiers with the ability to make swift and effective tactical decisions can smash the Soviet mindset, nullifying their command and control on the battlefield – but it has become a World War 1 stalemate costly in terms of leaders and troops. New simple tech, like drones, has changed battlefield economics. UK forces understand the asymmetric nature of modern war and cyber security – but again it's costly.
What will the UK have to do to win a future war, and hence dissuade Putin and his successors?
David reckons there are a host of factors to be addressed.
- We need to sort out the political leadership of the West – it’s not about how little or how much we spend on defence, but how well we spend and direct defence. There is precious little awareness of defence on the front benches today.
- Trump’s threat to pull the Yanks from Nato must be taken seriously – and Europe become its own defender. 600 million moderately prosperous Europeans vs 140 million poor Russians may not seem a fair fight – but what have they got to lose, and what does it matter to China how much they do? Russia breaking itself in Europe opens the door to China in Siberia.
- The continued focus on initiative and lateral-thinking at all-ranks levels must be encouraged. The market improvement in Russian fighting capabilities in recent months is easy to explain – they are learning.
- The UK needs a missile shield – something comparable to Israel - the modern equivalent of Fighter Command in 1939. We need Patriot-type systems, backed by Sky Sabre and investment into new lazer tech.
- Defence procurement remains a perennial problem. For instance, the RAF is short AWACs radar control – having retired the old ones to save money before the new ones arrived!
- All three services need to upgrade the lethality of their platforms in terms of enhance air defences. The Royal Navy’s Daring Class destroyers have superb radars, but cost cuts meant they aren’t fitted with state-of-the-art missiles and offensive systems. This needs to be addressed immediately.
- The Navy’s carriers have proved a bad compromise – fitted without catapults to save money, but only capable of operation the less effective VSTOL F-35 Bs, and not the cheaper F-18s and the new effective drones coming on line. It hasn’t helped that Big Lizzy and The POW are not reliable.
However, the main issue is Mass. To make clear to Putin that Europe is serious about defence, we need to put boots on the ground, ships on the sea and planes and drones in the air.
- It’s time to bulk up the navy and refit last generation equipment ahead of new kit being designed – that means recommissioning older frigates, amphibious warfare ships and attack submarines.
- We need to strengthen the RAF – train more pilots swiftly and give them more and better Typhoons and F-35s (even if Trump might decide to “switch them off”).
- It’s time to put the UK’s defence industry on a wartime footing – as happened in the race to rearm from 1938 onwards. New equipment and ammunition is critical. The economy would receive a substantial boost if we build new ships using the latest robo-tech.
- Take back control of armed services recruitment from Circo (hopeless), and have experienced soldiers, airmen and sailors run the process.
- Focus on innovating new warfighting paradigm shifts in weapons and tactics to maximise the effectiveness of reconstituted mass.
- Build a capability for the UK to space launch its own satellites – don’t assume Elon Musk is on our side.
- Secure vital resources and build stockpiles of strategic materials.
Finally, a renewed focus on defence needs to involve the whole nation. While Rishi Sunak’s half-cocked conscription plan was yet another embarrassment, the need for a National Resilience Plan to ensure the UK can cope with war and its consequences is a whole population exercise. That’s something every Brit should get used to.
Bill Blain & David Murrin
© David Murrin 2025. All images courtesy of Getty Images. |