Editorial Note
No American record of this conversation has been found. According to Sherwood (p. 457), Hopkins arranged for Marshall.to speak to Churchill privately about unity of command, as a result of Beaverbrook’s note (post, p. 273) passed to Hopkins during the discussion on the afternoon of December 26 (ante, p. 103). The exact time of the Marshall-Churchill conversation is not indicated, but it apparently took place early in the morning and certainly before the meeting of the United States Chiefs of Staff at 11:30 a.m., since at that time Marshall mentioned the meeting. His remarks on that occasion were reported in the minutes (Defense Files) as follows:
“General Marshall stated that he had talked to Mr. Churchill on this matter. Mr. Churchill’s reactions were that he saw the necessity for unified command between the ground and the air but was not convinced about the Navy, that his major consideration appeared to be the defense of Singapore and that he had a great fear of wasting power on the Philippine Islands or Borneo.”
The conversation is also mentioned in The Stilwell Papers (pp. 18–19) and in Churchill’s telegram to Attlee, the Lord Privy Seal, (Churchill, The Grand Alliance, p. 674). It should be noted that this telegram, although dated December 28, was undoubtedly dictated late in the afternoon of December 27.