Melville, Ronald Henry (IWM interview)

British civil servant in Air Ministry, London, GB, 1934-1937; served as Private Secretary to Chief of Air Staff at Air Ministry, London, GB, 1937-1940; served as Private Secretary to Secretary of State for Air in GB, 1940-1943; served as Assistant Under Secretary of State in Department of the Air Member for Supply and Organisation in GB, 1943-1945; served as civil servant with War Office in London, GB, 1960-1963

REEL 1 Aspects of period as civil servant in Air Ministry in London, GB, 1934-1937: obtaining first post with Air Ministry, 1934; first job; re-writing regulations; duties as resident clerk. Recollections of period as Private Secretary to Chief of Air Staff in GB, 1937-1940: pressures from national press to give confidential information; threat to use flour bombs to illustrate inadequate defences; memories of Sir Philip Sassoon and Lord Londonderry; work he did for Chief of Air Staff; how minutes of meetings were drafted; question of size of German Air Force prior to Second World War. REEL 2 Continues: results of discussions with Erich Milch about size of German Air Force; anticipations from 1936 that war would break out in 1939; memories of Cyril Newall, Chief of the Air Staff; RAF's loss of Fleet Air Arm to Royal Navy; Cyril Newall's reaction to Munich Crisis, 1938; Melville's support for the Munich agreement; recruitment to Local Defence Volunteers and instructions to defend Air Staff in case of invasion; false air raid alarm, 3/9/1939; attitude towards Norwegian campaign, 1940; French Government distress at refusal of British Government to send more fighter squadrons to France, 1940; failure of Fairey Battle during Battle of France, 1940; marriage, summer 1940; unsatisfactory accommodation during Blitz, 1940-1941; restiveness of staff about not being in armed services. Recollections of period as Private Secretary to Secretary of State for Air in GB, 1940-1943 opulence of Sir Archibald Sinclair and his friends. REEL 3 Continues: Sir Archibald Sinclair's style of work; political personalities he worked with including Reginald Maudling; historian in his department who kept diary based on secret official records who Reginald Maudling dismissed after Reform Club incident; character of the Churchill Club luncheon club; relations with Professor Lindemann (Lord Cherwell); memories of Marigold (Lady Sinclair); attitude to responsibilities as Private Secretary to Archibald Sinclair; role of Gadets Committee; clash between Lindemann and Tizard in Gadet Committee; memories of Prime Minister Winston Churchill on roof during German Air Force raids, 1940-1941; strain on civil servants of Archibald Sinclair's method of working. REEL 4 Continues: work of Lord Swinton and Air Chief Marshal Freeman on pre-war aircraft supply; personality of Lord Beaverbrook; clash between Lord Beaverbrook and Archibald Sinclair over sending aircraft aboard for Empire Air Training Scheme; parliamentary speeches Melville prepared for Archibald Sinclair; the vote of confidence in House of Commons after fall of Singapore, 2/1942; Archibald Sinclair's relief at news of Pearl Harbor, 12/1941; slowness of Supermarine Walrus in head wind; Archibald Sinclair's visits to RAF stations in Scotland; Winston Churchill's sending of speeches to department concerned prior to them being given; his failure to realise the historic nature of Churchill's 'the Few' speech; visit to North Africa, 7/1943; memories of King George VI, 7/1943. REEL 5 Continues: memories of Vivien Leigh in Algiers, Algeria, 7/1943; contracting malaria in North Africa. Recollections of period as Assistant Under Secretary of State in the Department of the Air Member for Supply and Organisation in GB, 1943-1945: taking up position, 10/1943; Archibald Sinclair's failure to foresee Liberal Party electoral decline after 1945; his stopping of plan to remove coast shingle to provide hard core for RAF Lakenheath, 1944; his writing of paper leading to development of Heathrow, 1944; how Government took control of areas around airfields for planning purposes, 1945; question of which airfields RAF should give up after 1945; decision to replace troopships by aircraft, 1949. REEL 6 Continues: effects of abolition of troopships in Far East; period working in Bush House during V weapon attacks, 1944-1945; belief that Germans would lose war; question of negative side to Lord Beaverbrook's work during Second World War. Aspects of period as civilian servant with War Office in London, GB, 1960-1963: contrast between Air Ministry and War Office; his opposition to Lord Louis Mountbatten's plan to unify Air Ministry, War Office and Admiralty, 1963; problems working for Lord Louis Mountbatten.