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These next four chapters of our manpower story will
deal with the actual business of mobilizing the people for total war.
They concern the first of the three basic principles, namely, to secure,
within the limits of our war economy, that each citizen is so engaged
that the maximum use is made of his or her ability. Here, the clause “within
the limits of our war economy” is important. It may rule out the use
of certain kinds of ability simply because the war effort does not need
them. Thus a man might have astonishing skill in painting
rocking-houses, but can be more usefully employed for the duration of
war in painting ships.
A girl may be an exquisite manicurist, but serves
the country better by working at a capstan lathe in a munitions factory.
But even when this necessary limitation is understood and allowed for,
some people will hotly deny that the principle has been properly
applied, and will be ready to point out various relatives and friends
who, after being directed to war service, now appear to be square pegs
in round holes. To which there is more than one possible reply. First,
people are not always the best judges of their own ability. Secondly, we
are now considering millions of pegs and millions of holes, and a
perfect fit everywhere at once is obviously impossible to attain. There
are bound to be hard cases. Furthermore, it may be necessary in some
instances to jam a few square pegs into round holes, just because, for
the time being, the war situation demands that the round holes must be
hilled somehow. Nor must it be forgotten, for it is our credit, that the
idea of total war is naturally repugnant to us as a people. We accepted
it with reluctance, almost at the last possible moment, and then only
because we were threatened by a far greater evil, the conquest of the
world by the power-seeking and barbaric groups.
The mobilization of manpower is the major
instrument of total war, therefore it comes easier to us to criticize
than applaud its workings. We should remember that this mobilization is
a continuous process, not aiming at some static pattern, but for ever
changing as the war itself changes. The Ministry of labour can no more
settle down to a permanent fixed plan than Imperial General Staff can,
and indeed the two must work together.
 This
is as we all know, mainly a war machines. Without aircraft, tanks, guns,
munitions and a vast mechanical equipment, a nation at war now is almost
helpless. In order to produce these machines, and maintain all the
essential services that feed this production, we have had to make the
fullest possible use of all our skilled manpower, and, as we have
already, expand our production by introducing into it a large amount of
new, trained or semi-trained labour. At the same time it was necessary
to find men (and afterwards women, too) for the rapidly expanding
fighting services, which in their turn demanded a considerable
proportion of skilled labour, for not only have the war machines to be
made, but they have to be serviced and repaired at the fighting end.
Meanwhile, though you can cut all unessential production, as we have
done, the life of the nation has to go on. Finally, certain non-military
and un-mechanical operations, such as those connected with agriculture
or coalmining, are the highest national importance.
To deal adequately with all these conflicting
claims – for a man cannot be making a tank in Birmingham and repairing
a tank in Libya at one and the same time, or ploughing a field in Sussex
and firing a Bren in Tunisia – is a giant’s task. It demands
instruments that are both powerful and flexible. The first of these was
the Schedule of the Reserved Occupations, which was prepared before the
war. It was intended to safeguard the country against the worst mistakes
of the last war, when enthusiastic but indiscriminate recruiting in the
earlier period seriously hindered the nation’s war effort. This
Schedule was based on a careful estimate of the supply of skilled labour
that would be of importance in the war time. Each occupation had its own
age of reservation. The more important the job, the lower the age of
reservation. The skilled tradesmen in the Armed Forces were drawn from
men below the age of reservation in corresponding civil occupations
(known as Service Trade “feeder” Occupations) Such skilled men were
not called up or allowed to volunteer for general services. Provision
was also made for the deferment of “key men,” that is, any men who
were considered to be of greater value for the time being in their
civilian occupation than they would be in the Armed Forces.
A series of Royal Proclamations, made under the
provisions of the National Services Acts, called ever-widening age
groups to register at one of the 1,225 local offices set up by the
Ministry. (How many strange epics of courage and endurance, blazing in
the Burmese jungle or the Africa desert, began in one of those shabby
premises of some Market Street?)
 A
man liable for service first registers and is asked whether he wishes to
express a preference for a particular service. He then has his medical
examination, which places him in one of four grades, from the last two
of which men have not so far been called up. Grades I and II are
sub-divided into a number of categories that take into account general
physical condition, eyesight and hearing, etc. (We shall deal later with
the various safeguards of individual rights.) He may then be invited to
undergo a selection test, by which a preliminary assessment is made of
his mental capacity and fitness for various branches of the Services.
(Many a man must have wondered why he could not have had, just for his
own satisfaction, a similar test in peacetime. Have there to be square
pegs in square holes only in war time?) He is then seen by a Nay, Army
or Air Force interviewer, according to his choice or suitability, and
this Interviewer decides whether the man may be accepted for the
particular Service, after which he is posted.
Posting of men to the Services is done at the
Regional Offices of the Ministry, of which there are eleven. This
arrangements ensures an even spread of demands through the Regional area
and also makes it easier to carry out the Government’s policy that, so
far as is practicable, younger men in an age group should be called up
before older men, and single men before married ones. From time to time
each of the Services forwards to the Ministry its demands for men, with
detailed information about the numbers of non-tradesmen and numbers and
types of tradesmen required. Except in the instances of highly skilled
men, quotes are apportioned between the various Regions according to
statistical information previously obtained of available men. The
Regional Offices select their men from their own registers, then send
them enlistment notices, travel warrants, a day’s advance of pay and
any special directions about reporting. Under the Acts, the minimum
period between the issue of an enlistment notice and the date on which a
man is required to report is three days, but in practice the period
varies between six and nine days. How the principles work themselves out
when applied to a particular case is shown in the following example.
George Eustace Hiller, born on 1st
March, 1940, registered at the Battersea Employment Exchange on 18th
January, 1941. He was a warehouse stock clerk who had been employed for
23 years by a firm of paint manufacturers. For this occasion he was not
reserved. He was medically examined in February, 1941, and placed in
Grade I. After being interviewed by Army Service Interviewer he was
posted to the Black Watch (royal Highland Regiment) in March, 1941. In
January, 1943, he was awarded the Military Medal in recognition of
gallant and distinguished services in the Middle East.
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