1st November 1931
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations
The Admiralty Building
Copenhagen
14 men stood in small groups in the well appointed, but not lavish office. They represented most of the hierarchy of the Danish Navy, so much so that earlier one of them had been heard to joke that if anyone wanted to cripple the navy, here and now would be a very good place to start. They chatted amongst themselves, topics ranging from the newest designs from the Design Bureau, to whether Aircraft carriers were the way to go, to the new MTCs coming out of Roskilde. But in the back of their minds, none of them could put aside the idea that this meeting was not the usual end of year planning meeting.
The door opened and a large imposing figure entered with 2 men wearing smart civilian attire. All the assembled officers turned to face them and came to attention.
“At ease Gentlemen, and thank you all for coming. Please be seated.”
Admiral Carl Andrae, commander in chief of the navy, waited for his colleges to take their seats before continuing. “Before we start, may I introduce The Greve Kronborg and Herr Pedersen from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”. Both men gave slight bows to the officers and moved to their seats.
“The information I am about to reveal to you is considered highly sensitive, and therefore until the official announcement to be made by the Prime-Minister upon the return of the Folketing after the Christmas break, it is to be covered by the military secrecy provisions of your oaths of service, and any breach of these provisions will be dealt with harshly. Do I make myself clear gentlemen?”
A murmur ran through the assembled officers, as it was highly unusual for the secrecy provisions to be brought up at the annual development planning meeting. A chorus of replies of “Yes Sir” brought a nod of acceptance from the admiral.
“As you may have ascertained from the presence of Rear Admiral Bluhme and Commodore Schmidt from the Siamese station, and Commodore Jorgensen from the East African station, political developments outside the control of this office have forced us to change some of our plans for the next few years. Principally, these changes will affect infrastructure, although there will be some changes to construction and deployments also.”
“With effect from midnight on December 31st, 1934, the Kingdom of Siam will be completely and solely responsible for its own defence. As a result of this, we have to plan for a full and complete withdrawal of all our forces, Army, Navy and Air Force, from mainland Siam”
Anker Jorgensen cleared his throat to get the admiral’s attention.
“Yes Anker, you have a question?”
“Yes Sir. You specifically mentioned ‘Mainland Siam’, what of Phuket?”
“Phuket has been granted to us by the Siamese, on lease, for the remainder of what would have been left of the Protectorate Act. So we have to develop it to a point where it will be able to support our operations for the next 15 years.”
“Our operations will essentially reverse, and this means that Berbera will have to be enlarged also, to allow it to play a more active role in Indian Ocean operations, basically it will have to become the new Bangkok.”
“Admiral Moltke will be in overall command of the military aspects of the transition, while The Greve Kronborg is in charge of the civilian and political side. They will, over the next 2 months, be liaising with each of your departments to develop a single cohesive plan that will allow us to get this done. Gentlemen, we will all meet again, in this office, on January 3rd, and you will have said plan. Clear?”
The group responded as one with a clear “Aye Aye Sir!”
“Right, let’s get some of the preliminaries out of the way………..”