Many Not the Few: The Stolen History of the Battle of Britain

by Richard North

  I was on a delivery in Westbury Avenue when the warning went. I carried on until the guns started when a man offered me shelter in his dug out, as it was getting a bit hot overhead and a few tramlines and old bedsteads started whistling round, I accepted. Just as I entered the shelter he said “Look postman”. I turned round and there on jerry’s tail was one of our Spitfires, he put a burst into the jerry who rolled over, our boy was after him, then jerry straightened out and tried to turn, then the Spitfire flew right over and under him and gave him another burst. I think he must have killed the jerry because he roared down with his engine full out. It was a grand fight, after seeing that I don’t mind paying another ½d on fags.29

  The official line was “London can take it”, but the actual response was often more like: “give some back”. Where people could see this happening, morale was bound to improve. But there was also some solace in shared misery, and to the very great but unspoken relief of many senior politicians and others, the focus of the bombing had been moving westwards. More and more properties in the West End were being hit. Alan Brooke remarked in his diary that bombs had dropped overnight in Burlington Arcade, Bond Street, Berkeley Square and Park Lane. “It is hard to believe that it is London”, he wrote.30

  Adverse weather kept air activity light, although Bomber and Coastal Commands defied a howling gale to keep up their pressure on the invasion ports. The RAF lost two bombers on an unrelated operation, Fighter Command lost eight aircraft and the total losses to the Luftwaffe were eight.

  DAY 71 – WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 1940

  The howling gale in the Channel through the night was being described as “Churchill’s weather”. Newspapers carried reports of the German invasion fleet having variously been driven to shelter or “scattered”. And the RAF had carried out attacks on barges and shipping, which were being bombed and “harassed”. Almost a hundred bombers had been deployed. Later edition newspapers and the US media played down the invasion though. The New York Times led on: “Gales scatter Nazi Channel fleets”, with allusions to the fate of the Spanish Armada. This led Churchill to write to General Ismay, asking him to inquire “whether in view of the rough weather” the invasion alert could be downgraded.31

  “London’s West End had its worst bombing of the war in the two vicious raids during Monday night which had in them more than a hint of baffled desperation”, wrote the Daily Mirror, allocating this news to its page eleven. Doubtless, the Germans were confident that their bombing was having the desired effect. The German-controlled Paris radio confidently broadcast that “the legend of British self-control and phlegm is being destroyed”. In triumphal manner, it continued:

  All reports from London concur in stating that the population is seized by fear – hair raising. The 700,000 Londoners have completely lost their self-control. They run aimlessly about in the streets and are the victims of bombs and bursting shells”.32

  The Times and The Daily Express were actually reporting that the Queen had made personal donations of wardrobes, chairs, and beds from Windsor Castle to people in the East End, remarking that several items had “been in use at the Castle since the early days of Queen Victoria’s reign”, nearly a century earlier.

  More prosaically, the Express reported that London Tube stations were now filled with people every night. Thousands of people, said the paper, had invaded various Tube stations. Extra staff members were being drafted to the stations to deal with the crowds. The shelterers lay with mattresses, blankets and pillows along the platforms, on the subways and on the stairs, chatted, ate sandwiches and played cards. Thousands of home-going City workers, many of whom had to change at one station, added to the crowds. People standing packed, heaved and surged on as trains came in.

  The Daily Mail in a leading article recalled that Sir John Anderson, the Minister for Home Security, had rejected deep shelters, not least because he was opposed to gatherings of large numbers of people during raids. “But he has not stopped mass movements of the people,” the paper observed. “The fact is that the people themselves have adopted a deep shelter policy turning the Underground railway stations into shelters, which is officially prohibited. Once the people are in, however, they cannot be ejected.” In what was remarkably candid criticism, the paper then concluded: “Experience is proving that the policy of Sir John Anderson was mistaken. It is not too late for him to reverse his policy and provide the deep shelters that are urgently needed”.

  Overnight, there had been considerable bombing in Oxford Street. The world-famous John Lewis was left a smouldering, gutted shell.33 And grumbling continued. Even Home Intelligence could not now entirely conceal the disquiet – not after eleven continuous nights of Blitz. “Civilian morale is fragile under the weight of bombing”, it warned. Londoners were still outwardly calm and putting up with difficulties extremely well. But, it said, there were still numbers of people anxious to get out. The report also admitted there had been a certain amount of panic shown in individual cases, where people had had horrible experiences. But this was often due to temporary physical reaction, it said, adding that people were “beginning to wonder how long London will be able to go on taking it”.34

  Official strategy now was to talk up the success of the anti-aircraft defences – the only visible sign that the nation was able to fight back. This was reflected in the Express front page, but even its absurdly optimistic headline could only record four raiders downed. Offering a highly condensed version of the Prime Minister’s speech, the paper attempted to stiffen resolve by declaring: “Mr Churchill urges you to carry on”. Terror raids “will not force Britain to sue for peace”.

  Also attempting to hold the line was Archibald Sinclair. In his capacity as Air Minister, he spoke at a lunch in London hosted by the National Defence Public Interest Committee. A new secret device against bombers was being developed, he told his audience. “We are working hard on the solution of the problem of dealing with enemy night bombers, and are making progress,” he said. “I am now able to look forward to the time when the pleasure of night bombing over Britain and the blowing of humble London homes to pieces will cease to be attractive to Reich Marshal Goering and his aerial minions”.35

  J. B. Priestley had continued to broadcast, and his most recent Sunday talk had been reported by the Guardian. He had made one of his best points so far, the paper thought. Civilians under air bombardment “should be encouraged not to think of themselves as civilians trying to lead an ordinary life but as soldiers actually engaged in a great battle”. As indeed they were, the Guardian observed, going on to say that Priestley’s usual insight made him stress this point, for strange and devastating events are much easier to accept as a normal part of battle than as an abnormal part of civilian life.

  Churchill had not got the point. In his speech to the Commons the previous day, his had been an appeal to authority. “Firm confidence” was felt “by all the responsible officers of the Royal Air Force in our ability to withstand the largely increased scale of attack.” Now was “the chance of the men and women in the factories to show their mettle, and for all of us to try to be worthy of our boys in the air and not make their task longer or harder by the slightest flinching”. But behind the scenes, Churchill was badgering the Home Secretary for information on the area of glass destroyed by bombing and the “stimulation and standardization” of honours, and the Postmaster General on complaints about Post Office service during air raids (three times), which he had picked up from The Times.36

  It was small wonder, perhaps, that the Mirror found itself delivering a robust condemnation of official inertia. Its particular concern was the growing homelessness crisis. It asked:

  Why allow the homeless to wait in odd holes and corners, in amateurish shelters and improvised dugouts, until Somebody or Something – some local pundit or fussy official gets on with the scheme for opening every West End or other comparatively safe basement to all comers. The work is already done – in parts. Make it complete and do it at once. A few
words in the right quarters.

  Strongly echoing the Priestley line, it then launched a strident attack on Anderson. There was, the paper complained, still time to get on with further evacuation schemes and with provision of deep shelters hitherto rejected “with unparalleled obstinacy by Sir John Anderson”. The homeless people of London were not just nondescript, improper persons wandering “without visible means of subsistence”. They were “soldiers, fighters in the front line; and as such worthy of all the first aid we can give them”. They, the paper concluded, must be denied nothing that can be provided.

  During the day, the Germans put up high altitude fighter sweeps early in the morning. Park scrambled fifteen squadrons to meet the first wave, but only six were able to engage. Successive waves followed, a mix of Ju 88s, heavily escorted by Me 109s, but those raids – mainly over north Kent – cost the Germans nine bombers. Post-war analysts marked these raids down as “failures”, but the contemporary press noted: “longest daylight attacks of the war”. AP recorded the views of military attachés and correspondents who had weathered the bombing of Warsaw, Barcelona and Madrid, saying that London had already taken more punishment than any of Hitler’s conquests, including Rotterdam. But, they said, the Luftwaffe had failed to achieve its purpose – “to smash or terrorise the city and its millions into a mood of surrender”.

  Fighting on the day cost Fighter Command ten aircraft, with Bomber Command losing nine – nineteen aircraft lost, exactly the same as sustained by the Luftwaffe. AP, however, noted that the British claimed forty-two German aircraft downed, to nine of their own losses. The Germans claimed fifteen RAF aircraft shot down over England, for three of their own losses. “Claims on ships lost conflict”, the agency remarked, by way of a headline.

  DAY 72 – THURSDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 1940

  On his way to Hendon where the military executive aircraft were based, Alan Brooke complained of the difficulties in getting out of town. Most roads were closed, including Piccadilly, Regent St, Bond St and Park Lane. There were big craters around Marble Arch. That evening, on his return to London, a heavy bomb shook the club building in which he was staying.37

  The misery was being shared, the effects of which were as significant as the bombs on Buckingham Palace. A potential stress point was becoming a unifying force. And the “survivors” of Buckingham Palace were out and about, among the people. Guided by Ministry of Information officials, the King and Queen were taken to see survivors of “heroic rescues”, throughout a tour of three districts of London which had sustained extensive bomb damage. A special point was made of introducing the royal couple to men and women whose houses had been wrecked by a direct hit. As he had on 9 September, the King once again talked up the Anderson shelters, this time saying: “These Anderson shelters are wonderful”. The King and Queen “listened with interest” while occupants of two unharmed shelters told them of escapes when the bomb fell only a few yards away.38

  With unconscious irony, the regional Yorkshire Post illustrated precisely the contradictions at the heart of media reporting. On the one hand, there was the lead story proclaiming: “Another RAF triumph”. Next, there was the story declaring: “Smashing blows at invasion plans”, an account of yet more attacks on invasion ports. Then, centre page, was pictured the devastation at the very heart of the West End, testimony to the RAF’s failure to deny the night sky to the Luftwaffe. Nevertheless, the Daily Mirror picked up on Sinclair’s speech of the previous day, headlining: “Bombing of London by night is not an insoluble problem. We are making progress”.

  Later that day, Nicolson noted in his diary that, “unless we can invent an antidote to night-bombing, London will suffer very severely and the spirit of our people may be broken”. Already the Communists were getting people in shelters to sign a peace petition to Churchill, he wrote. One “cannot expect the population of a great city to sit up all night in shelters week after week without losing their spirit”.39

  The AP was almost poetic about the overnight raid. “Battered, grimy London took its 13th straight day of devastating bomb assault today, shook off the horrors of the war’s worst night and dealt staunchly with the prospect of spending a winter underground,” it recorded. The Australian Associated Press was of the same mind: “Many observers regard last night’s raid on London as the most savage yet”. It went on to say: “The Germans flew lower than ever previously, and took suicidal chances as they frenziedly endeavoured to pierce the hellish curtain of fire around and over London”. The raiders made no effort to seek out military objectives.

  Despite this, the Guardian led on the anti-invasion campaign – conveying the upbeat message that the RAF was on the ball, dealing expeditiously and effectively with the “most serious threat on the horizon”. It retailed claims of the RAF having caused “heavy damage”, but for once these were not without foundation. The OKW War Diary recorded eighty barges having been sunk, and an ammunition train with 500 tons of explosives blown up. It also reported a torpedo boat sunk and one damaged.40

  The Daily Mail focused on the domestic situation, and it had had enough. It launched a vigorous campaign for improved air-raid shelters and better arrangements for the daily lives of the ten million residents of the Greater London area. The paper noted that the government had become aware that Underground stations were being used as shelters but declared: “something much better must be devised”. It added: “no question of cost should be allowed to hold up construction”. It then blamed the “reluctance to provide such quarters” on the government of the former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and its “cheeseparing policy”. The present shelter policy had been “proven by experience to be wrong”.

  Joining in the criticism, the Mirror slammed “those unimaginative bodies or persons known as the authorities” for rejecting deep shelters and then for failing to devise a new policy. It does seem odd, the paper said, that even now, in the midst of the air war, learned persons should still be considering, inquiring, investigating and making notes.

  On the other hand, Beaverbrook’s Express had on its front page a piece recording: “Don’t use tubes as shelters” – a joint appeal by the Ministries of Security and Transport, “to the good sense of the public, and particularly to able-bodied men, to refrain from using Tube stations as air raid shelters except in case of urgent necessity”. It was immediately followed by another piece headed: “But they did”. Thousands of Londoners again had taken three-halfpenny tickets on the Underground last night – to sleep on the station platforms. At most stations there were police in attendance to shepherd them gently to leave free passage for passengers on the trains. “The whole position is under review,” said an official of the London Passenger Transport Board. “At the moment we are taking no action providing services are not interfered with and fare paying passengers are not impeded.”

  This was not good enough for the newspaper, which headed its editorial: “Hold fast”. Addressing what it felt to be a defeatist sentiment, it spoke to the whole city:

  The Daily Express makes this appeal to the people of London, many of them homeless, many of them in nightly fear of being made so. On your courage and discipline much depends. You are asked to show unparalleled fortitude in face of this great menace. Life is held cheap by our enemies and they seek to disrupt you physically and mentally. If you hold on, behaving with the bearing of soldiers, obeying the instructions you are given, then liberty will one day be yours again. But if you give way then you face the prospect of a lifetime of misery and torture under a foreign heel.

  It looked as if the government was going to make a stand. The Press Association reported that the prime minister and government were convinced that “deep or heavily protected” shelters were impossible to construct in wartime and that the job would be “more or less impracticable” even in peacetime. Anderson complained in the House of Commons of people being misled into believing such shelters were safer and, in the evening, William Mabane, Anderson’s parliamentary secretary, broadcast on the BBC. H
e urged the public not to leave their Anderson shelters for public shelters, saying it deprived others of shelter. “We’re going to improve the amenities in existing shelters,” he promised. “We’re setting about providing better lighting and better accommodation for sleeping and better sanitary arrangements.”

  But discord could not be contained. The story even reached the New York Times. In a “special cable”, its correspondent wrote of the Commons going into secret session to discuss the mounting housing crisis, the absence of suitable deep shelters and the failure to take care of citizens bombed out of their homes. People had been kept in rest centres “for several days” without hot food while officials tried to arrange transportation. Strain on the political consensus was showing. “Laborites” had co-operated with the government in maintaining this “people’s war”, said the NYT, but many now pointed out that the victims are not being cared for well enough. The people would put up with the hardship of this total war, but only if they were convinced the government was doing everything it could, first to guarantee their security and, second, to care for them and their families if they were bombed.

  In response to the government’s appeal, the paper noted that “crowds crushing into subways indicate the growing demand for security”. And in what must have been a worrying development for the government, even Home Intelligence was deserting them. “People are not so cheerful today,” it reported. “There is more grumbling. Elation over the barrage is not so strong: people wonder why it is not more effective in preventing night bombing.” Among the many points of tension identified, “determination of the public to use underground stations as shelters” was listed.