Armed Forces Bill

Viscount Slim Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord West of Spithead]

We have gone down the route of the coronial system. As Plato said, only the dead see the end of war. Sadly, I am afraid that at some stage we will be in a war when we lose thousands of people, and I have no idea how the system will work at that stage or what the thought processes are about that.

[Viscount Slim (CB)]

Just to give noble Lords an example of an incident that might have involved an inquest and lessons learnt, in Korea, in an hour and a half, my battalion lost about—I am giving approximate figures as I do not remember them—probably nearly 30 dead and slightly more than 70 wounded. The reason was that during the battle, when we called for air support, we got some excellent American pilots, but they bombed us with napalm, instead of the enemy. We would call that “blue on blue” today, and you would have an investigation. Of course, it encouraged the enemy, who were the North Koreans at that time, to put in a counterattack, so we really had a very unpleasant time for a couple of hours. In those days, when we had a good number of soldiers, we had a reinforcement system, at the back of the Korean peninsula and in Japan, that sent you, within 24 hours, fully battle -trained soldiers to replace them—and we got about 100 or 110 good new soldiers.

Today, someone would want to have an inquest about why we were bombed. The chaps made a mistake, we had all those casualties—what use is an inquest? You have to get on with the battle. Lessons learnt—well yes, we can learn a lesson in 20 minutes about how to improve on what went wrong. In those early days of close air support, it was a lengthy process—not like today, when it is almost instantaneous. The military is the first to make amends for, and take decisions about, what went wrong and put that right. I do not see how a coroner with no military experience looking at that disaster would have helped at all. You must get on with the war.

The noble Earl was right to talk about what happens when a chap you have with you and who is your responsibility is killed. As the noble Lord, Lord West, said, you write to his mother, father, wife, daughter and whoever there is, and I am not sure that you write just a little—you write quite a lot. Those are the hardest letters to write of any kind. When everyone else is having a night’s sleep, you are up all night writing those letters—it is not just one. The commanding officer will write and so will his platoon or company commander. The wretched widow, mother or whoever gets two or three letters. On the whole, because you must explain how and why the son was killed, you write rather fully. You write in your own hand. When there are 30 of those letters to write, that is quite difficult. Do not tell me that the odd tear does not come down from the officer writing them.

Inquests play into the hands of the opposition nine times out of 10. On lessons learnt, nobody learns them quicker than the Army, Navy or Air Force.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I will be brief. This debate is very important and shows that there has been a degree of overlap between inquests into the death of an individual and inquiries into perhaps wider problems that have arisen in conflict.

I spent 27 years working in newspapers and publishing before entering the House of Commons. I know only too well from my time as a young journalist covering inquests how important they were to a grieving family who had sometimes lost a loved one in the most tragic circumstances. With that experience of observing, I am not sure that inquests brought closure to a family coming to terms with a sudden and unexpected death but I have no doubt that they contributed to a sense of healing and understanding that the family was desperate for—an understanding of what happened and why some tragic death occurred to a son, daughter, husband or wife.

To no other group is that more important than to service families. A service family worries and frets as soon as its loved ones are sent on deployment somewhere in the world to defend Britain’s interests. We all agree that we have a duty of care to those who serve in our Armed Forces but we also have a duty of care to the families of those who serve. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, made clear that this is a probing amendment, really seeking to find out more about the present way in which these things operate. That is important and this is a step in the direction. It is fully supported on this side.

Armed Forces Bill

Viscount Slim Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Grand Committee

In summary, I do not believe that it is necessary for the Bill to be amended and I hope that the noble Lord will agree to reflect on what I have said and, for now, to withdraw his amendment.

[Viscount Slim (CB)]

Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that when we were in a committee trying to put all three manuals of service law into one manual, many of us were worried that we were removing the power of the commanding officer in a number of instances. We were all thankful that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, sat in on just about every sitting of the committee. We saw the demeaning of a commanding officer taking place in some of the discussions.

There is no doubt that there is a certain wish among many politicians to civilianise the military, and I have been worried about that in one or two things that have been said today. If you do not think that a commanding officer is doing his job properly, then, as the Minister said, you lay more and more on him so that he does do his job properly. I myself dealt with a case where I was very perturbed by what was happening. I merely picked up the telephone and asked the special investigation services and the Military Police to be in my office at 10 o’clock the next morning, and the whole thing was sorted out.

I ask noble Lords to be very careful before more powers are taken away and the position of the commanding officer is demeaned. I put it that a commanding officer can do his job, and if the military do not think he is doing it properly, certain things that the noble Earl has described can be put in place.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, legally everyone has a commanding officer; someone somewhere is the commanding officer. The Minister said that commanding officers are given training. I agree that they are given a significant amount of training and that they have a significant amount of experience. The problem is that the powers of a commanding officer can be delegated to someone who has not had that training. Their commanding officer might be only a major and might be deployed to a desert island. That has happened to me. When I deployed on Operation TELIC, my commanding officer was the commanding officer of 1 UK Armoured Division and Signal Regiment. I never met him; I did not know him from Adam. I would suggest that many soldiers do not know their commanding officers from Adam because they normally deal with their officer commanding.

The Committee needs to understand the difficulties faced by a junior serviceman. In these situations they are often making a complaint about someone who is their immediate superior, and perhaps even in their chain of command. They might rustle up the courage to make a complaint, but when they find themselves being interviewed by the company sergeant major, who they might in any case have an issue with for other reasons, they may quickly withdraw the allegation even though it is well founded. I have to say that I am not absolutely convinced by the Minister’s response and we shall need to return to this issue at a later stage.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Viscount Slim Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Slim (CB)]

My Lords, I look to Asia in my short speech. I thank the noble Lord for initiating the debate.

In Burma the Army was nearly a million. It had men of every religion in the world and of none and who spoke some 30 different languages, which was quite a problem. It was totally integrated with the air forces who came from Britain, India, Canada and America. They fought together, trained together, carried each other’s wounded and died together. It was agreed that they would all be buried together in one cemetery down in Rangoon. You experience a very poignant and great feeling when you go into this cemetery. Hindus and Sikhs, of course, cremate but their names go up on the memorial. Muslims bury, Christians bury and Jews bury.

If you switch quickly to Kohima in Assam, you will find among the Muslim graves two stars of David commemorating two Jewish officers of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. There is a lesson there for the people of Dewsbury or anywhere else in this country— this is not multiculturalism with ghettos but total integration.

The second thing about the war graves concerns the people who visit them. I took an old lady to Kohima who had never left England or flown. Her husband—a sergeant—had been killed. I took her into the cemetery with one of my sons and said to her, “Don’t stand beside the headstone and the burial place of your beloved husband; sit on the grass. You can sit here for two or three hours or all night if you want. My son and I will stay with you”. The point of this is that, when she eventually got up three hours later, she was a completely different woman. She was in her 80s. Her eyes were bright and she had been crying. I heard her say—perhaps I should not repeat this but it was so moving—“Darling, I am sorry it has taken me 25 years to get here to see you”. But she was alive again. The effect of visits of widows, parents, whoever is absolutely vital: please let us keep this up.

I get fed up with the three-minute speech limit we have in this House. We really must improve our technique. This is the second debate where I have only been allowed to speak about something vitally important for three minutes. The Front Bench ought to have a damn good look at themselves.

Gurkhas: Anniversary

Viscount Slim Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Slim (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, for the chance of a debate about Nepal and the Gurkhas. He mentioned that he particularly wished to raise the issue of the Gurkha Welfare Trust. Noble Lords have done that. One thing should be known at the start, which is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been extremely good to a number of military charities, and the Gurkha Brigade has done well by them.

The amount of money required to put Nepal straight is very great. One or two noble Lords have said that the Government must tell us exactly what is happening. I am rather sad that there has not been a general call within the country to get volunteers from the many Gurkhas who live here. Apparently there are a lot of unemployed Gurkhas around Aldershot and other places, and I would have thought they could be got together to volunteer for some form of pioneer company to go out to Nepal and do some work to help put the place straight.

Politically, we want to be very careful. China is not being pleasant to the Tibetans, and I have a feeling that Nepal is in their sights, long term, as well. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, said, it is about time some of the British Government got out to Nepal to assess the situation and make some firm judgments about how we can stand by Nepal and help it.

Noble Lords have heard about the Gurkhas’ courage. I speak as one who was a Gurkha. I had to work very hard to have the same courage. The Gurkha is also very generous about other people who are brave. In the great old Indian Army, it was not just Gurkhas. The great martial tribes of India, which still join its Army, be they Rajputs, Punjabi Musulmans or Maratha —you can go on—all have great histories of courage. The Gurkha is generous. He is even generous to a brave enemy. We all hated the Japanese, who were not a pleasant enemy, but no one is rude about the courage—the vicious courage—of a Japanese solider. The Gurkha would pay due tribute to his enemy.

I feel that the Government are not doing sufficient at the moment to really get to grips with the situation. Like the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, I was very suspicious over that Chinook incident. There was something funny about it—maybe the Maoist Government and the Russians. A number of people I have spoken to who have been bravely rescued said that it was by Russian helicopters and Russian pilots.

I think something is going on in Nepal. It is not well administered. After this awful earthquake, people have been putting their hands in their pockets and giving money that should go towards relief and that sort of thing. The trust also has its problems: veterans’ houses destroyed while medical centres, hospitals and old people’s homes put up by the trust have all disappeared. The British Government should take some interest in this.

Not only is the Gurkha brave but he is very flexible, inquisitive and not stupid. If I may just tell noble Lords a lovely little story from before World War II, some recruits had come down from the hills and, as their training and induction took place, they started to be educated. For the first time in their lives, they were suddenly shown a thing called a book and told, “If you read one of these, you will learn many things”. A recruit picked one up, looked at it and twisted it around. He said to the instructor, “I don’t quite understand about this book but you tell me one day I’m going to do this thing—‘read’ it. I’ve opened it and I want to know, do I read the white or the black?”. I call that rather intelligent questioning, when you look at the situation.

There is none better to be with than a Gurkha. Training and fighting is a pretty serious business but, take it from me, it is fun being with the Gurkhas. Please also take it from my father who, at a place called Sari Bair in Gallipoli, first met the Indian Army—a brigade of three or four Gurkha regiments and King George’s Own Sikhs, with Punjabi, Musulman and Sikh gunners all fighting as one. They got higher up the ridge—they could see over it at one point—than any other British, Australian, New Zealand or French unit. They were decimated. In my father’s own platoon of the Warwickshire Regiment, of about 40 men, 27 were killed and everyone else wounded except for two. He himself was severely wounded but he always said, “If I can get through this, I want to transfer to the Indian Army and be a Gurkha”. I can tell noble Lords that his son felt much the same in World War II.