Written in History

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  It was Prime Minister Winston Churchill who best described the courage of those pilots in his famous speech: “The gratitude of every home in our island, in our empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unweakened by their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots.”

  Less than a month after this letter, on 11 September 1940, Hughes was shot down over the English Channel; his body was never recovered.

  RAF ST. EVAL, NR NEWQUAY, CORNWALL, 21 AUGUST 1940:

  My Darlings,

  It is a very long time since last I wrote, and very many things have happened.

  I have shot and been shot at. I have killed, but not been killed. I have had my life saved by a comrade, and saved another in return.

  I am now what is termed as an “Ace,” in that I have over 5 Jerries to my credit, namely 6 machines have been destroyed through my pressing a little button. For the boys’ information I have shot down 3 ME 110’s, 2 ME 109’s, and a Dornier 17.

  I arrived in my new Squadron on Sunday August 4th. There were three officers senior to me in the Squadron then. By August 11th I was the C.O. We lost twelve pilots in 4 days. After I took over we only lost one in a week, and had even greater odds against us. One day we were the first Squadron to make contact with the enemy, and I led my Squadron, twelve of us, against 350 Bombers escorted by 400 enemy fighters. It was one HELL of a scrap. When I landed I had 150 bullet holes in my machine, one was ½" from my head. I said a quick prayer before we dived to the attack, and I think my guardian angel was working overtime!!

  On the 18th August our Squadron was sent down here for a rest, and we needed it. I’d lost a stone in under a fortnight. We had been flying for 6 and seven hours a day, missing meals, and averaging 5 hours sleep a day!

  When we got here I had a telegram which read “Congratulations 238 Squadron for the great part you have played” from Sir Cyril Newall, Air Chief Marshal.

  Up to today we have had a quiet time here, but the Nazis gave us their attention today, and bombed us here. I was in the Mess when the bombs came, and rushed down to the machines and as I took off the Jerries machine gunned me, and then dodged into the clouds and got away.

  I don’t know when we shall return to Wallop, but I expect it will be soon.

  I flew over to Cardiff last Monday and saw Joan [his wife] for a couple of hours. She has had a bad time recently, poor darling, her throat was bad again. I do love her so!!

  I am writing this in flying kit and waiting for the word to take off.

  Take care darlings.

  All my love,

  David.

  Discovery

  Ada Lovelace to Andrew Crosse, c.16 November 1844

  Ada Lovelace was born in 1815, the daughter of the “mad bad and dangerous to know” Romantic poet, Lord Byron. The poet had many illegitimate children, but Ada was the only child of his marriage to Annabel Millbank. His scandalous conduct and political liberalism forced him to leave England just four months after she was born, never to meet her again: “Is thy face like thy mother’s, my fair child! ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?” he wrote in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Byron died in Greece in 1824. Ada’s mother denounced his many perversions and debaucheries for the rest of her life but showed little interest in Ada, who was brought up by her grandmother. She suffered headaches and near paralysis after measles and dreamed of designing a flying machine to fly away in—and escape her illness.

  She was always fascinated by mathematics and science, showing a precocious talent in an age when few women were educated, let alone brilliant scientists in their own right. She had an affair and almost eloped with her tutor William Turner when she was seventeen, but three years later in 1835 she married Lord King, who became the Earl of Lovelace—giving her the fantastical title Countess of Lovelace—and they had three children. Ada’s most important relationship was with her friend and mentor Charles Babbage (who called her “Lady Fairy”) and together they became pioneers of computing. Writing to her fellow scientist Andrew Crosse (with whose son John she probably had a love affair, beginning when he accompanied his father to the meeting referred to in this letter) from her home in Surrey, she calls herself “the bride of science,” explaining her modern philosophy of the interconnectivity of all nature and talking of her usual ill health. Ada died at thirty-six from uterine cancer—the same age as her father, with whom she was buried.

  Dear Mr. Crosse,—Thank you for your kind and cordial letter….On Monday the 18th then, we expect you, and on Wednesday 20th we will all go to Broomfield. Perhaps you have felt already, from the tone of my letter, that I am more than ever now the bride of science. Religion to me is science, and science is religion. In that deeply-felt truth lies the secret of my intense devotion to the reading of God’s natural works….And when I behold the scientific and so-called philosophers full of selfish feelings, and of a tendency to war against circumstances and Providence, I say to myself: They are not true priests, they are but half prophets—if not absolutely false ones. They have read the great page simply with the physical eye, and with none of the spirit within. The intellectual, the moral, the religious seem to be all naturally bound up and interlinked together in one great and harmonious whole….That God is one, and all that all the works and the feelings He has called into existence are ONE; this is a truth (a biblical and scriptural truth too) not in my opinion developed to the apprehension of most people in its really deep and unfathomable meaning. There is too much tendency to making separate and independent bundles of both the physical and the moral facts of the universe. Whereas, all and everything is naturally related and interconnected. A volume could I write on this subject….I think I may as well just give you a hint that I am subject at times to dreadful physical sufferings. If such should come over me at Broomfield, I may have to keep to my room for a time. In that case all I require is to be let alone. With all my wiry power and strength, I am prone at times to bodily sufferings, connected chiefly with the digestive organs, of no common degree or kind….

  Ever yours truly,

  AA Lovelace

  Wilbur Wright to the Smithsonian Institution, 30 May 1899

  A letter that flies. Enthusiasts of flight, not a pair of cranks, Wilbur Wright and his brother Orville were mechanics who produced their own brand of bicycle, but that was at many removes from an airplane. Yet they long dreamed of flight and practiced the mechanics in their shop. It still seems extraordinarily unlikely, but when Wright, aged thirty-two, writes this letter, he is only three years from the first controlled flight….

  THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON

  Dear Sirs:

  I have been interested in the problem of mechanical and human flight ever since as a boy I constructed a number of boats of various sizes after the style of Cayley’s and Pénaud’s machines. My observations since have only convinced me more firmly that human flight is possible and practicable. It is only a question of knowledge and skill just as in all acrobatic feats. Birds are the most perfectly trained gymnasts in the world and are specially well fitted for their work, and it may be that man will never equal them, but no one who has watched a bird chasing an insect or another bird can doubt that feats are performed which require three or four times the effort required in ordinary flight. I believe that simple flight at least is possible to man and that the experiments and investigations of a large number of independent workers will result in the accumulation of information and knowledge and skill which will finally lead to accomplished flight….

  I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine. I wish to avail myself o
f all that is already known and then if possible add my mite to help on the future workers who will attain final success. I do not know the terms on which you send out your publications but if you will inform me of the cost I will remit the price.

  Yours truly

  Wilbur Wright

  John Stevens Henslow to Charles Darwin, 24 August 1831

  One of the foundation theories of modern biology starts with this letter. Charles Darwin said of his friend the Reverend John Stevens Henslow: “I fully believe a better man never walked the earth.” The two met at Cambridge University in 1828, where Henslow was the Regius Professor of Botany, and became sufficiently good friends that Darwin was known as “the man who walks with Henslow.” When Henslow heard of a place on an expedition led by Captain Robert FitzRoy aboard HMS Beagle to South America for two years, he thought first of his protégé Darwin. The friend referred to in this letter, Marmaduke Ramsay, had proposed a trip to the Canary Islands, which Darwin would have attended had it not been for Ramsay’s sudden death. This journey, which would last five years, gave Darwin the chance to research his ideas and led to his world-changing theory of evolution by natural selection, finally published in 1859 in On the Origin of Species.

  My dear Darwin,

  Before I enter upon the immediate business of this letter, let us condole together upon the loss of our inestimable friend poor Ramsay of whose death you have undoubtedly heard long before this. I will not now dwell upon this painful subject as I shall hope to see you shortly fully expecting that you will eagerly catch at the offer which is likely to be made you of a trip to Terra del Fuego & home by the East Indies—I have been asked by Peacock who will read & forward this to you from London to recommend him a naturalist as companion to Capt FitzRoy employed by Government to survey the S. extremity of America—I have stated that I consider you to be the best qualified person I know of who is likely to undertake such a situation—I state this not on the supposition of yr. being a finished Naturalist, but as amply qualified for collecting, observing, & noting any thing worthy to be noted in Natural History. Peacock has the appointment at his disposal & if he can not find a man willing to take the office, the opportunity will probably be lost—Capt. F. wants a man (I understand) more as a companion than a mere collector & would not take any one however good a Naturalist who was not recommended to him likewise as a gentleman. Particulars of salary &c I know nothing. The Voyage is to last 2 yrs. & if you take plenty of Books with you, any thing you please may be done—You will have ample opportunities at command—In short I suppose there never was a finer chance for a man of zeal & spirit. Capt F. is a young man. What I wish you to do is instantly to come to Town & consult with Peacock (at No. 7 Suffolk Street Pall Mall East or else at the University Club) & learn further particulars. Don’t put on any modest doubts or fears about your disqualifications for I assure you I think you are the very man they are in search of—so conceive yourself to be tapped on the Shoulder by your Bum-Bailiff & affecte friend

  J. S. Henslow

  Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Castile and Aragon, to Christopher Columbus, 30 March 1493 and 29 April 1493

  The letters that give Europeans their first glimpse of America. This marks the beginning of the age of empires in the Americas and their settlement by European colonists. The entire modern world starts with this letter accepting Spanish sovereignty. After much lobbying by the Genoan sailor and visionary Christopher Columbus, the “Most Catholic Monarchs” of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, had finally permitted him to set sail expecting to find a route to India. On 3 August 1492 he embarked with ninety men. The Most Catholic Monarchs heard nothing until March 1493 when they received word that although he had lost one ship he had indeed discovered the Indies, seen the mainland of Asia (which in fact was today’s Cuba), and founded a settlement on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). On 30 March they reply with this letter, urging him to return to the court in Barcelona:

  Sir Christopher Columbus, our admiral of the Ocean Sea and viceroy and governor of the islands that have been discovered in the Indies. We have seen your letters and were very pleased to learn about what you wrote to us in them and also that God has given you such a good ending to your efforts, guiding you well in what you began, by which He and we will be well served and our kingdoms will receive great benefit. May it please God that, besides serving Him in this, you will also receive because of it many favors from us that, rest assured, will be conferred on you as your services and labors merit.

  We wish you to continue and carry forward what you have begun, with the help of God, and thus desire that you return immediately, because it is to our service that you hurry your return as much as possible in order to supply everything needed on time.

  Christopher Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella, 29 April 1493

  Upon his return to Spain after his first voyage, Columbus writes a letter detailing “the recently discovered Islands of India beyond the Ganges,” addressed to the royal treasurer but meant for the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. It is later published. Famed for the “discovery” of America, it was only new to Europeans: civilizations unknown to Europe had thrived there for millennia. Columbus was correct though that the Carib people were man-eating—and this letter describing them is the origin of the word “cannibal.” Columbus believes he has reached the coast of China. Only Amerigo Vespucci later realized this was the New World.

  As I know that it will afford you pleasure that I have brought my undertaking to a successful result, I have determined to write you this letter to inform you of everything that has been done and discovered in this voyage of mine.

  On the thirty-third day after leaving Cadiz I came into the Indian Sea, where I discovered many islands inhabited by numerous people. I took possession of all of them for our most fortunate King by making public proclamation and unfurling his standard, no one making any resistance.

  To the first of them I have given the name of our blessed Savior, with whose aid I have reached this and all the rest; but the Indians call it Guanahani. To each of the others also I gave a new name, ordering one to be called Sancta Maria de Concepcion, another Fernandina, another Isabella, another Juana; and so with all the rest. As soon as we reached the island which I have just said was called Juana, I sailed along its coast some considerable distance toward the West, and found it to be so large, without any apparent end, that I believed it was not an island, but a continent, a province of Cathay [China]. But I saw neither towns nor cities lying on the seaboard, only some villages and country farms, with whose inhabitants I could not get speech, because they fled as soon as they beheld us. I continued on, supposing I should come upon some city, or country-houses. At last, finding that no discoveries rewarded our further progress, and that this course was leading us toward the North, which I was desirous of avoiding, as it was now winter in these regions, and it had always been my intention to proceed Southwards, and the winds also were favorable to such desires, I concluded not to attempt any other adventures; so, turning back, I came again to a certain harbor, which I had remarked. From there I sent two of our men into the country to learn whether there was any king or cities in that land. They journeyed for three days, and found innumerable people and habitations, but small and having no fixed government; on which account they returned. Meanwhile I had learned from some Indians, whom I had seized at this place, that this country was really an island….

  In the island, which I have said before was called Hispana, there are very lofty and beautiful mountains, great farms, groves and fields, most fertile both for cultivation and for pasturage, and well adapted for constructing buildings. The convenience of the harbors in this island, and the excellence of the rivers, in volume and salubrity, surpass human belief, unless one should see them….Besides, this Hispana abounds in various kinds of species, gold and metals. The inhabitants of both sexes of this and of all the other island
s I have seen, or of which I have any knowledge, always go as naked as they came into the world, except that some of the women cover their private parts with leaves or branches, or a veil of cotton, which they prepare themselves for this purpose. They are all, as I said before, unprovided with any sort of iron, and they are destitute of arms, which are entirely unknown to them, and for which they are not adapted; not on account of any bodily deformity, for they are well made, but because they are timid and full of terror. They carry, however, canes dried in the sun in place of weapons, upon whose roots they fix a wooded shaft, dried and sharpened to a point. But they never dare to make use of these; for it has often happened, when I have sent two or three of my men to some of their villages to speak with the inhabitants, that a crowd of Indians has sallied forth; but when they saw our men approaching, they speedily took to flight, parents abandoning children, and children their parents. This happened not because any loss or injury had been inflicted upon any of them. On the contrary I gave whatever I had, cloth and many other things, to whomsoever I approached, or with whom I could get speech, without any return being made to me; but they are by nature fearful and timid. But when they see that they are safe, and all fear is banished, they are very guileless and honest, and very liberal of all they have. No one refuses the asker anything that he possesses; on the contrary they themselves invite us to ask for it. They manifest the greatest affection toward all of us, exchanging valuable things for trifles, content with the very least thing or nothing at all. But I forbade giving them a very trifling thing and of no value, such as bits of plates, dishes, or glass; also nails and straps; although it seemed to them, if they could get such, that they had acquired the most beautiful jewels in the world…for pieces of hoops, jugs, jars, and pots they bartered cotton and gold like beasts. This I forbade, because it was plainly unjust; and I gave them many beautiful and pleasing things, which I had brought with me, for no return whatever, in order to win their affection, and that they might become Christians and inclined to love our King and Queen and Princes and all the people of Spain; and that they might be eager to search for and gather and give to us what they abound in and we greatly need….