First Sea Lord who persuaded the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that Britain was capable of retaking the Falkland Islands in 1982
Two events were of particular significance in the long and successful naval career of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach. In late 1941 he was a junior officer in the cruiser Mauritius at Singapore when his father, Captain John Leach, arrived on station in command of the battleship Prince of Wales which, with the battlecruiser Repulse, had been hurriedly sent there to prop up an inadequately resourced and politically bankrupt Far East strategy.
In a vain attempt to check the dynamic Japanese advance from Indochina, these ships were sailed to the north-east of Singapore without air cover and were promptly sunk by Japanese aircraft. This happened three days after the attacks on Pearl Harbor and on Clark Field in the Philippines.
That night Henry Leach sought news of his father among the oil-soaked and stricken survivors as they were brought ashore, to learn that he had gone down with his ship. It was a classic example of political expediency leading to the misapplication of too little force, too late.
Mauritius sailed for Colombo at night shortly afterwards, with the ship’s company gloomily silent and entirely convinced that they were all dead men. The Prince of Wales’s black cat had deserted that ship for Mauritius before sailing and now was nowhere to be found. Half-way down the Johore Straits a roar of joy from for’ard showed that the animal was still on board.
These circumstances were starkly in Leach’s mind as First Sea Lord on the eve of the 1982 Falklands crisis. Political pressures were leading to a defence review which many considered to be ill-conceived and which favoured the continental rather than the maritime role within Nato for the UK. Lack of time properly to consult allies meant that the politically visible and quantified commitments to air and land force levels contained in the Brussels Treaty overrode the more diffuse demands of defence in the North Atlantic.
The White Paper Command 8288 proposed substantial cuts in the naval programme, including the sale of the new aircraft carrier Invincible to Australia, a reduction in amphibious warfare capability and the loss of several frigates and destroyers. It was erroneously believed that an adequate defence against the increasingly powerful Soviet submarine fleet could be mounted by a combination of a few nuclear attack submarines and RAF Nimrod patrol aircraft.
Relations between Leach and John Nott, the Minister of Defence, personally and professionally, were irritable and counterproductive. The First Sea Lord believed that the Government was in danger of forgetting the influence that sea power has had upon history, while the Secretary of State was impatient with a naval élite which he saw as resting on its historical laurels and unwilling, or unable, to justify itself by rational argument.
Before the planned economies, which significantly included the Antarctic patrol ship Endurance, could take effect, the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands in the spring of 1982 provided yet another addition to a long postwar series of demands for military action outside the ambit of Nato and unaligned to the principal thrusts of formal British defence policy.
On the evening of March 31 Leach returned from visiting a naval research establishment to his office in the Ministry of Defence and read the latest intelligence reports. Recognising that an invasion was imminent and that the latest Central Staff brief for the Defence Secretary claimed that no military action to recover the Falkland Islands after a successful invasion by Argentine forces would be practicable, he sought out the Secretary of State.
Nott was not in his office but in the House of Commons. Leach followed him there, and, after a wait in the Central Lobby in full uniform until rescued by the Whips’ Office, was taken up to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s room where she, the Defence Secretary, the Permanent Secretaries from the FCO and MoD, the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary and other officials were discussing the Falklands situation. At this time the Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Terence Lewin, was absent on a visit to New Zealand and the Chief of the Air Staff, who was acting CDS, was elsewhere.
Accounts of this crucial meeting vary in detail. Margaret Thatcher’s own memoirs say that she “sent for” Sir Henry, which is clearly untrue. Others at the meeting have portrayed the pervasive atmosphere of indecision and dismay prior to the arrival of the First Sea Lord who was able to convince the Prime Minister of the practicality as well as of the military and political necessity to muster a naval task force as soon as possible.
In reply to a question from Margaret Thatcher about whether the UK should or should not respond in this way, he said, “It is not my business to say whether we should or not, but if we do not, if we pussyfoot in our actions and do not achieve complete success, in another few months we shall be living in a different country whose word counts for little.” Given the character of the Prime Minister, this statement could have only one result.
Leach also recorded that he had to remind those present that the fleet carrier Ark Royal with its fixed-wing Buccaneer strike aircraft was no longer on the strength, having — with this entire Fleet Air Arm capability — fallen victim to defence cuts some years earlier. He also was able to apprise those present that the Falklands were three weeks’ steaming from Gibraltar, not three days as they believed.
Against great odds imposed by distance, weather and the effects of previous defence cuts, British forces won a primarily maritime battle and restored the Falklands to their inhabitants. It had involved an opposed amphibious assault without adequate air cover and without allies — a possibility which successive defence policy statements had ruled out of court.
Leach’s leadership was truly inspirational. His experience of war, coolness and total confidence that the RN would rise to the challenge galvanised the Naval Staff and straight away decisive actions were taken which sliced through decades of MoD bureaucracy and greatly enhanced the task force’s capabilities in the actions which lay ahead. His careful judgment about the feasibility of the operation had proved correct. This campaign, which is likely to be the last of such to be undertaken alone by the UK, and also its final naval operation of any magnitude, brought substantial benefits to the Argentine population.
The importance of Leach’s decision can be judged by an examination of the consequences of failure. Given its unpopularity at that time, the fall of the Government was certain. Other consequences might well have included severe damage to the “special relationship” with a United States bruised in its South American policies; a permanent loss of credibility as a maritime nation; a loss of influence in Nato circles and the ceding of competence in operations outside the Nato area to the French, not to mention the effects upon the morale, effectiveness and future of the Royal Navy itself.
The virtual withdrawal of Command 8288 caused many to see Leach as the “saviour of the Navy”. Many received honours in recognition of their roles in the Falklands campaign but not Leach, an austere and somewhat private man who would have quietly valued the marked esteem in which he was held by his professionals.
Henry Conyers Leach joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in May 1937. As a junior lieutenant he was in charge of one of the 14-inch gun turrets in the battleship Duke of York during the action in December 1943 which sank the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst off the North Cape. After the war he specialised in gunnery and was promoted commander in June 1955, thereafter commanding the destroyer Dunkirk. After promotion to captain, he undertook a staff tour in the Far East and commanded a destroyer squadron before being appointed, in 1968, Director of Naval Plans during a challenging period when the Navy was withdrawing from East of Suez and formulating its contribution to a North Atlantic strategy.
After commanding the commando carrier Albion, he was promoted to rear-admiral and appointed Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Policy), then to his final seagoing post as Flag Officer First Flotilla. As a vice-admiral he was Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff until promoted admiral in 1977 and appointed Commander-in-Chief Fleet, a post which carries with it the role of Allied Commander-in-Chief Channel, one of the three major Nato commanders. He became First Sea Lord in July 1979, retiring in December 1982.
Leach’s selfless and highly moral nature was well reflected in the many charitable activities that he undertook after retirement. Most significant of these was his chairmanship of St Dunstan’s from l983 until 1998. A tall, slender figure, angular, somewhat awkward, he was much respected for his capacity for detailed hard work and his consideration for his juniors, never forgetting a name. His memoir, Endure No Makeshifts, appeared in 1993.
He married Mary, younger daughter of Admiral Sir Henry McCall, in 1958. They had two daughters. His wife died in 1991.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach, GCB, Chief of Naval Staff and First Sea Lord, 1979-82, was born on November 18, 1923. He died on April 26, 2011, aged 87
