In Berlin, there was talk of a different kind. Shirer recalled that the Berliners he spoke to were beginning for the first time to wonder why the invasion of Britain had not come off.2 And, in an extraordinary illustration of the power of propaganda, and control of information, the Sunday Express was reporting how captured Germans, shot down over Britain, believed that half the country was already in German hands and that London was making a last stand. Victory was “inevitable in a few weeks, or even days”. In almost the same league, D. R. Grenfell, the Secretary for Mines, was telling the Labour Party Conference in Glasgow, “I am convinced there will be no coal shortage”.
The air war over Britain saw a few lone raiders, but there was little daytime air activity. Fighter Command flew 158 sorties, the lowest number since July. One Spitfire on the ground was lost to a hit-and-run bomber at Duxford. There were no Bomber Command losses. The Germans lost a Ju 88, shot down by a Spitfire over the Channel. Three aircraft were written off after accidents. Come the night, around 120 bombers visited London. With the continuous flashes of the guns, the sparks of bursting shells in the sky and the haloes of searchlights, London “looked like approaching Dante’s inferno”, wrote General Brooke. The RAF sent up twelve night fighters – Blenheims and Defiants. They failed to make a single interception.
As for the invasion, the small article in the Observer noted that the Navy was “our first defence”. This was a reference to Churchill’s speech earlier in the week, but there was more to it. Special anti-invasion patrols had been carried out nightly by destroyers in the Channel and the southern North Sea. They had been joined by MTBs which carried out a sweep off the mouths of the Dutch rivers on the night of 22/23 September.
The Polish destroyer Blyskaivica sunk a French fishing vessel by ramming off the Brittany coast, having first removed the crew. E-boats had been active in the Channel and North Sea. The armed trawler Loch Inver had been sunk on the night of the 21st, and the armed trawler Edwina, which was in the vicinity, claimed to have hit an E-boat with her 12-pdr. Brooke noted the lack of invasion.3
Before the bombers had droned through the night sky over London, Priestley was back in the public eye, speaking once again on the BBC. In this broadcast, he chose the theme of “women”. There isn’t an airman, submarine commander or unnamed hero in a bomb squad who hasn’t behind him at least one woman, and perhaps half a dozen women as heroic as himself, he said. And as for those women who had been bombed out of their houses, turned away by “middle class women … with any amount of room to spare in their houses”, he spoke of the need for a society “where nobody will have far too many rooms in a house and nobody have far too few”.
Listening to the Broadcast was Harold Nicolson, who was in Sissinghurst, dining with Major General Laurence Drummond and his wife, where there was a “sense of mahogany and silver and peaches and port-wine and good manners … All the virtues of aristocracy hang about these two crippled and aged people and none of the vulgarity of wealth”. Priestley, he later wrote, gave a broadcast about the abolition of privilege. He speaks of the old order which is dead and of the new order which is to rise from its ashes. “These two old people listen without flinching,” Nicolson wrote. “I find their dignity and distinction and patriotism deeply moving”.4
DAY 76 – MONDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 1940
The Times on this day decided that British morale was “in excellent shape”. Any tonic that it might require, it pronounced, “has been supplied by Hitler”.5 Nevertheless, all the newspapers were agreed that the most important story was the sinking by a U-boat of the liner City of Benares, en route to Canada. It had one hundred and two evacuated children on board, ninety of whom were on the government-funded scheme. Only thirteen were reported to have survived, with two of their nine adult escorts. In a “tempestuous sea” 600 miles from land, one newspaper reported, many children had been killed in the explosion or trapped below decks – the torpedo hitting at 10 p.m. The ship had foundered so quickly, developing a steep list, that many of the lifeboats had not been launched.
The ship, the name not as yet disclosed to the press, had been torpedoed on 17 September, but the government had withheld the news. The War Cabinet had been told on 19 September, four days previously. Duff Cooper had been “invited … to arrange for suitable publicity”.6 He had held a press conference the following day (Thursday 20 September).7 Why the newspapers chose to hold over publication to the following Monday is not clear.
With the City of Benares, the shelter issue was being driven down the agenda, but it had not been forgotten. The King had made a broadcast the previous evening. People had feared the worst, but his main concern was to announce the new George Cross and Medal, second only in rank to the Victoria Cross, specifically for civilian bravery. The Daily Express also noted: “King praises people of the shelters”.
He had paid tribute to the way the civil defences had faced constant danger, but then added: “No less honour is due to all those who, night after night, uncomplainingly endure discomfort, hardship and peril in their homes and shelters”. This would not have been a spontaneous tribute. The message was getting through to the authorities that the home front needed bolstering.
The Daily Mirror had a different take. “London should be ashamed of the way it is treating some of its refugee citizens,” it wrote.
When German bombs drove them from their shattered homes, their spirit remained firm. Now, bungling officialdom is achieving more than ever Hitler could, and the people who held their heads high before the terror of the skies are becoming dispirited and discontented.
One special correspondent had visited a rest centre with a “varying population of between 150 and 250 men, women and children”. Some had been there close to a fortnight, their only air-raid protection bricked-up windows in a few rooms into which everyone was crowded, sharing one indoor toilet and two roller towels. In a fortnight, one family had had only four hot meals.
A London County Council official said the conditions were almost the same at several other centres. “If my wife and children were homeless,” he said, “I would do anything to keep them away from such conditions as these. It just seems as though the authorities were taken by surprise when the blitzkrieg started and only now are things beginning, slowly to improve”.
Behind the scenes, the War Cabinet was pushing for unrestricted revenge attacks on Germany. These, at the moment, were not favoured by the Air Staff, who wanted to maintain at least the appearance of concentrating on military targets. Thus, as the drone of deadly Luftwaffe bombers filled the night skies of London once more, with others hitting Merseyside, 119 British bombers were winging their way to Berlin, ostensibly targeting gasworks, railway stations, power stations, the aero-engine factory at Spandau, and Tempelhof Airport. But only a small fraction of the bombers would get anywhere near their targets and still fewer bombs would do any damage to the city.
The lack of accuracy was brought home to Churchill somewhat forcibly when he was shown photographs of bombing results for the invasion ports. He later admitted they “had several times disappointed me”. This day, having seen photographs of barges in Dunkirk, published in The Times, he wrote to the Secretary of State for Air, lamenting:
What struck me about these photographs was the apparent inability of the bombers to hit these very large masses of barges. I should have thought that sticks of explosives thrown along these oblongs would have wrought havoc, and it is very disappointing to see that they all remained intact and in order, with just a few apparently damaged at the entrance.8
“Can nothing be done to improve matters?” the Prime Minister asked, only then, at an early evening meeting of the War Cabinet, putting to his colleagues whether the bombing effort should be concentrated on the invasion ports or Berlin. He confided that “a number of indications had been received pointing to the possibility of an attempt at invasion over the weekend”. One of these, Churchill stated, “had suggested that invasion would start at 3pm on Sunday, 22nd September”.9
Guy Liddell, on the other hand, was advised by an Intelligence colleague that his “best sources” indicated that the invasion had been meeting with considerable difficulty. The German Naval experts considered the craft entirely inadequate. The troops and naval ratings were tired of waiting and did not view with any enthusiasm the prospect of crossing the Channel in a barge at eight knots. The Air Force was apparently quite ready to have a cut at it but they were feeling their losses rather acutely. Hitler had been told by his High Command that he must make up his mind one way or the other, as it was impossible to keep the troops up the mark indefinitely.10
As for that Air Force, the Germans had during the day concentrated mostly on fighter sweeps, keeping the RAF busy, so much so that the Fighter Command launched as many sorties on this day as it had on 15 September.11 The day saw them lose ten aircraft. Bomber Command lost three aircraft, and the Fleet Air Arm lost a Swordfish, bringing total losses to fourteen, against the Luftwaffe’s sixteen. Overnight, 261 German bombers visited Britain, with the British despatching 119 on raids to Berlin. Shirer was later to report, “The British really went to work on Berlin last night. They bombed heavily and with excellent aim for exactly four hours”.12
DAY 77 – TUESDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 1940
Overnight, the War Cabinet was told, enemy activity had been “rather more intense” than recently.13 The main attack had been against communications. Liverpool Street Station and the Brighton line at Wandsworth Common had been blocked. Traffic at Euston was stopped by a UXB (unexploded bomb). Also, the Northern Outfall sewer had again been damaged at Abbey Mills, and the southern outfall had been hit. Direct hits had been sustained by several shelters, and the casualties had been rather heavier than on the preceding two or three nights.
Prominently its morning edition, the Daily Mirror announced government plans to distribute a million sets of ear plugs to shelterers who found it difficult to sleep. The paper was distinctly unimpressed, offering a critical editorial, complaining about the lack of preparedness: “The new or newly announced plans for London’s security are of course hurried improvisations to meet an emergency. Yet an emergency foreseen for years!” Its cartoonist Zec produced a distinctly unflattering picture of Sir John Anderson, his head buried in a pile of sand as bombs fell around him, a notice on his pin-striped backside declaring: “This is not a military objective – by order”.
The newspaper might have been less than impressed by a memorandum produced under the names of the Chiefs of Staff, advising on the defence of Whitehall against air attack. However, after proposing an impressive array of weaponry, they were conscious of the impression it might give. It has occurred to us, the Chiefs wrote, that the provision of such defences for government offices in Whitehall “may react unfavourably on the morale of other sections of the community”, and on the East End of London in particular. Therefore, they suggested that the War Cabinet should consider the wider issues before the guns were put in position.14
At last, though, the government was moving to improve the conditions of the people. A million bunks were to be fitted to existing shelters and extra shelters were being opened up. First-aid posts were also to be provided. The stations were being occupied by sleepers under police supervision. Sanitary arrangements were being improved, drinking water was being supplied and better heating and lighting was being arranged.
Security Minister William Mabane admitted to the Guardian that the shelter policy had “been been guided largely by the conduct of the people in London”. He said that although the London Passenger Transport system must be carried on, the fact that people had been using the Tube stations had now been “recognised”. The government was going to “relate shelter policy to the conditions of the time and the behaviour of the people”. Instead of trying to dictate what the people would do, it would accept and make the best of present shelter arrangements and the popular attitude to them. The Guardian noted that it was “not easy to gather from Mr Mabane what the government thought about London’s invasion of Tube stations, but it is clearly prepared to accept it”. The government cave-in was complete.
This day had been marked by the Germans as meeting its optimum requirements for tides, moon and daylight for the invasion. One suspects that, even had the British media known this, it might not have even remarked on it. “Except in certain areas, invasion talk has receded into the background”, Home Intelligence reported.
On the front pages, newspapers were covering a new subject, unrelated to the air war but one that was to rock the Churchill Government to the core – another heroic failure. At the moment, it was just “breaking news” – not that such an inelegant phrase had been invented yet – on the Prime Minister’s adventure in Dakar, which went by name of Operation Menace, supporting an effort by de Gaulle to claim the West African Vichy territory in the name of “Free France”. It was too early to report the outcome, but the media had picked up the arrival of Vichy French warships after they had been permitted to pass unhindered through the Straits of Gibraltar. The press sought to discover who had allowed this, and why the naval authorities had apparently stood idly by while the Vichy Government had sent reinforcements to its colonial outpost. Soon, highly critical leaders would be complaining of another Churchillian “blunder”.15
What was not yet known, although soon perceived, was that there had been a more profound change in Luftwaffe tactics over Britain. Following the mauling that his air fleets had suffered, Göring had decided that his aircraft should revert to attacking the British aircraft industry. This was evident when the élite bombing unit, Erprobungsgruppe 210, equipped with Me 110 fighters and bomber conversions, made a direct attack on the Spitfire factory at Woolston, on the edges of Southampton. The raid lasted a mere eight minutes and little damage was done, although a works shelter was hit, killing ninety-eight skilled workmen and injuring forty others.
No Spitfires were destroyed in the raid but, in air combat, the RAF lost eleven fighters and five bombers – sixteen aircraft in all. By way of exchange, the Luftwaffe lost seven aircraft during the day. That included three to the anti-aircraft guns of Southampton and Portsmouth, small recompense for the people they had killed.
DAY 78 – WEDNESDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 1940
The bombing had temporarily receded in intensity as a media event, with the Daily Express devoting its front-page lead to the Dakar operation. Other newspapers followed suit. Nevertheless, there was no slackening of the bombardment. On the contrary, the War Cabinet was told that the previous night’s raids had been heavier than usual, mainly directed against the West End. The Tottenham Court Road area had suffered severely. The new police station at Savile Row had been badly knocked about, railway communications had suffered very severely and Waterloo Station was again out of action. The East End had suffered very little.16
Home Intelligence reported that “responsible people” were saying emphatically that women, children and old people should be got out of the heavily raided areas. Many women were showing “great nervousness and fatigue” and there was “a lot of bitter feeling” about the government’s slowness in coping with the emergency.
For once, the situation was not quite as black as painted. The Guardian reported that “enormous crowds” had spent the night at the Aldwych Tube Station, even though the tunnel had not been officially opened. The overflow was being accommodated in Aldwych House basement. Slow it was but, very gradually under the pressure of events, the system was responding – mostly through voluntary initiatives. However, according to Hilde Marchant in the Daily Express:
One thing stands out in the East End. Voluntary work is excellent. The WVS under the drive and initiative of a good leader has a smooth and sympathetic organisation. Red tape is official. One woman told me that all her work, covering hundreds of people a day, depends on one harassed, overworked clerk who is so busy that he occasionally forgets. His lapse leads to the discomfort of many. There are too many natural officials who are too ready to cipher the people they are deal
ing with, and forget that each name represents a story of human misery.17
And now that the crisis was contained, if not yet completely over, The Times weighed in with another ponderous editorial. Headed, “The shelter problem”, it noted that in Mabane’s broadcast statement of the preceding Monday was “an admission of the insufficiency of the present provision” and of the need for “urgent and large-scale action”. Nothing of that could have been deduced from earlier reports in the “paper of record”, but having reviewed the options, and pronounced on the need to make good use of the deep shelters available, it observed dryly that the people had decided this question “very largely for themselves”. It also added that their claims to space on Underground railway platforms had been “irresistible”.
The Guardian joined in, to make this a chorus of criticism, with an interview of former prime minster, David Lloyd George. He called for the “provision of adequate, comfortable, and well-equipped shelters deep underground”. My daughter raised the issue in the House of Commons fully eighteen months ago when she and other members urged the construction of deep shelters, he said.18 That was before the war, and particular mention was made of the need for adequate protection for the people in the East End of London, because their houses are so fragile and so many jerry-built, and because so many are without cellars and basements. The answer given then was that everything was being done or going to be done. They ought to have been provided.
Lloyd George thus argued that there has been “an appalling lack of foresight, drive, and imagination in our plans for protecting our people and our industries against the inevitable perils of an unparalleled attack from the air”.
Still the bombers came. Fifty-eight Heinkels, escorted by fifty-two Me 110s, attacked the Bristol Aircraft Company at Filton. Serious damage was caused and shelters were hit by a stick of bombs, killing 60 and injuring 150. Production was seriously affected. The Luftwaffe’s own magazine, Der Adler, proclaimed: “this factory will not produce many more aircraft”. But bombers had scattered their loads over the general area as well, leaving a total of 132 dead and 315 injured. Other areas in the south-west were hit, the naval towns of Portland and Plymouth in particular. In the evening, bombers visited coastal towns from Margate to Worthing. They made a nuisance of themselves in the south-east area of Essex.
Many Not the Few: The Stolen History of the Battle of Britain Page 33
