Part 3, Chapter 19 Summary

Churchill was frustrated that people did not heed his warnings about the Nazis. When war broke out, he was restored to the Admiralty and soon became Prime Minister. Deterding hated the Soviets and admired Hitler, and had, on his own initiative, opened discussions in 1935 to provide Hitler with a full year's supply of oil on credit. Upon Deterding's death in 1939, RDSG had to move swiftly to prevent the Nazis from gaining more than a handful of its common shares. When war began, Shell joined other British companies in merging their downstream activities under the Petroleum Board. Britain assumed that Germany would enjoy an abundant supply of Russian oil while its own Southeast Asian supplies would be cut off, once Japan entered the conflict. The country instituted and progressively tightened rationing as military needs increased, and developed plans to destroy petroleum stocks...