ARTHUR MURRAY, LORD ELIBANK. A group of letters and document...

Hammer

£300

ARTHUR MURRAY, LORD ELIBANK. A group of letters and documents concerning the 'Dakar' scandal of 1940, and the subsequent vindication of Admiral Sir Dudley North. Arthur Murray, Lord Elibank. A group of letters and documents concerning Admiral Sir Dudley North and the 'Dakar' scandal of 1940, including a summary of the affair, 'Churchill blamed the "Dakar" failure in Parliament and in his Memoirs on the passage of the French Cruisers through the Straits on September 11th, 1940, and yet he and his stooges knew (1) that only the Admiralty could order Somerville's Force "H" to sea to stop them -- which was borne out by Salisbury's reply to my question on June 15th that there was no suggestion that North should have gone into action on his own against the French squadron -- and (2) that the Admiralty - because the Admiralty machinery had broken down - did NOT order Force "H" to sea until too late to affect the situation. Andyet, knowing these things, they meanly tried to shift the blame off their shoulders, and fell back on the "scapegoating" and unjustified charge against North that he failed to take adequate precautions in an emergency - precautions which Winster and I proved to the satisfaction of all fairminded men in the debate on July 26th that he DID take - and dismissed him from his command, and placed him on the retired list without allowing him any sort of trial. And THIS Government - despite all the evidence in North's favour submitted to it - has maintained the 1940 attitude'; and responses from Sir Dudley North, dated August 1st, 1954, 'Of course, Mr Churchill was infuriated by my letter which I wrote after the French Fleet were bombarded at Oran, and I am told that he wanted to relieve me then, but Admiral Pound thought that I really had not offended sufficiently, and that I could be left there to be carefully watched. And so I was left there. But when the Admiralty failed to take any steps to stop (or perhaps to try to stop whould be better way of putting it) the French Squadron going through the Straits, Mr Churchill said at once, 'It is all the Admiral at Gibraltar's fault, and so heave him out!', 60pp., including correspondence from Sir William Wiseman, R. B. Pirie, Frank G.G. Carr, J.H. Cassady, with further press cuttings and ephemera (a quantity). *Condition Report Hole punched upper left, creased, some correspondence stapled, or repaired. **BP 22.5% (inc. VAT) + a lot fee of £8 (inc. VAT) on each lot. VAT is not applicable on books and unframed maps.