Why published Admiralty fuel stocks need careful interpretation

The 1939 comparison gives the Petroleum Board control of ten million tons and excludes separate Admiralty holdings. Published naval totals depend on which reserve category is being counted: operational, supply, and training reserves can appear separately. Some facilities were not publicly acknowledged. Clarke recalls his father attending a parliamentary committee where an MP asking about visible fuel facilities received a denial. This secondhand recollection illustrates the limits of public disclosure, but establishes neither the current contents nor the present status of undisclosed sites.