by Erik Larson
One Luftwaffe bomber pilot: Basil Collier, Battle of Britain, 88–89.
“So, you see,” she scolded: Nicolson, War Years, 111. William Shirer, in his diary, described the sound of shrapnel from exploded anti-aircraft shells: “It was like hail falling on a tin roof. You could hear it dropping through the trees and on the roofs of the sheds” (389).
“one thinks every noise”: Cockett, Love and War in London, 148.
“With this gorgeous moon”: Ibid., 143.
When Colville arrived: Colville, Fringes of Power, 1:264–65.
As it happened, the plane: Air Interrogation Reports, 237/1940 and 243/1940, AIR 40/2398, UKARCH. Report 237 notes the bomber’s markings: “Blue Shield with a White Starfish in the Centre, Yellow patch in centre of Starfish. Upper wing dark green, under wing grey.”
In the course of the war: Bessborough, Enchanted Forest, 118. Lord Bessborough’s son and his co-author, Clive Aslet, published an engaging portrait of Stansted House and of English country life, titled Enchanted Forest: The Story of Stansted in Sussex. Here one can learn a multitude of things, among them the fact that one of the stained-glass lights in the east windows of the house is a depiction of the Ark of the Covenant, a nifty detail if ever there was one (80). Also, one learns about the early tactic of making a “Resurrection Pie” to create the illusion that a host had prepared more foods for a meal than was actually the case—“a homely dish composed of promiscuous fragments, which was intended merely to swell the number of dishes on the board, but otherwise to be ignored” (73).
CHAPTER 33: BERLIN
“The important thing now”: Boelcke, Secret Conferences of Dr. Goebbels, 78–79. Goebbels came up with a particularly cunning way to further generate unease within England, by amplifying already widespread fears that fifth columnists were hard at work paving the way for invasion. He commanded his director of external broadcasting to achieve this by inserting “mysterious-sounding but well thought-out messages” into regular programming, these crafted to sound like what one might imagine the secret communications of spies would sound like, “thereby keeping alive the suspicion that we are getting in touch with members of the Fifth Column in Britain.” One can only imagine a British family listening to such a broadcast on a Sunday evening. “How so very odd—why did that news reader just say porridge for the sixth time?” Ibid., 79.
CHAPTER 34: OL’ MAN RIVER
“It is curious”: Colville, Fringes of Power, 1:266.
“We feel that the material loss”: Upward to Churchill, Aug. 20, 1940; Beaverbrook to John Martin, Aug. 26, 1940, Correspondence, BBK/D, Beaverbrook Papers.
“We have already many interruptions”: Beaverbrook to Churchill, Aug. 27, 1940, BBK/D, Beaverbrook Papers.
“Undoubtedly,” he said: Gilbert, War Papers, 2:697.
“On the whole”: Colville, Fringes of Power, 1:267.
Their mother, Edith Starr Miller: Miller, Occult Theocracy, 8. Miller also wrote a kind of cookbook, published in 1918, called Common Sense in the Kitchen, to show how best to reduce food waste at home, tailoring her advice for a “household of 12 servants and 3 masters.” See Edith Starr Miller, Common Sense in the Kitchen: Normal Rations in Normal Times (New York: Brentano’s, 1918), 3.
“very attractive and refreshing”: Colville, Fringes of Power, 1:99n.
CHAPTER 35: BERLIN
“The collapse of England”: Overy, Battle of Britain, 87.
“a piece of carelessness”: Basil Collier, Battle of Britain, 95.
CHAPTER 36: TEATIME
His enemies made him out: Fort, Prof, 233; Birkenhead, Prof in Two Worlds, 167, 272–73; Note, “Mrs. Beard: An old woman…,” June 4, 1959, A113/F1, Lindemann Papers. See the rest of the long saga of the former nurse—and her increasing fiscal demands—at F2–F15. For other examples of the Prof’s charitable deeds, see files A114–18.
The one universal balm: For various references to tea, see Overy, Battle of Britain, 45–46; Stansky, First Day of the Blitz, 138; Harrisson, Living Through the Blitz, 78; Wheeler-Bennett, Action This Day, 182–83.
“The wisdom of a 2 ounce tea ration”: Fort, Prof, 217.
CHAPTER 37: THE LOST BOMBERS
On the night of: Bekker, Luftwaffe Diaries, 172; Basil Collier, Battle of Britain, 95; Colville, Fringes of Power, 1:270.
“This,” he said, his voice deep: I found Murrow’s broadcast at www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2014/today-in-media-history-edward-r-murrow-describes-the-bombing-of-london-in-1940/. I’ve punctuated these excerpts to reflect how I heard it, though transcripts available elsewhere may vary.
“It is to be reported”: Bekker, Luftwaffe Diaries, 172.
“I suppressed a horrid fantasy”: Cockett, Love and War in London, 159.
CHAPTER 38: BERLIN
“The Berliners are stunned”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 388.
One rumor making the rounds: Ibid., 397.
“Unofficial measures are to be”: Boelcke, Secret Conferences of Dr. Goebbels, 82.
CHAPTER 39: AH, YOUTH!
“Now that they have begun”: Colville, Fringes of Power, 1:270.
“I stood in the garden”: Ibid., 271.
“I would not be anywhere”: “Home Opinion as Shewn in the Mails to U.S.A. and Eire,” Sept. 5, 1940, War Cabinet Papers, CAB 66, UKARCH.
“Ah ‘la jeunesse’ ”: Diary, Aug. 26, 1940, Mary Churchill Papers.
She read them the works: Soames, Daughter’s Tale, 167.
“I am indulging”: Ibid., 171.
“It makes me glad”: Ibid., 172.
“It was thrilling”: Diary, Aug. 28, 1940, Mary Churchill Papers.
“I always thought my daffodils”: Andrew Roberts, “Holy Fox,” 268; Maier, When Lions Roar, 251.
“unkind but deserved”: Andrew Roberts, “Holy Fox,” 268.
“Nobody knows the trouble”: Beaverbrook to Churchill, Sept. 2, 1940, Correspondence, BBK/D, Beaverbrook Papers.
CHAPTER 40: BERLIN AND WASHINGTON
Hess and Haushofer spoke: Stafford, Flight from Reality, 82.
“As you know”: Ibid.
“We haven’t had a better”: Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 149.
As one American officer put it: Goodhart, Fifty Ships That Saved the World, 194.
CHAPTER 41: HE IS COMING
“Mr. Churchill,” he said: Manchester and Reid, Defender of the Realm, 152.
“When they declare”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 396.
At Carinhall in the peaceful: Reproduced in Richard Townshend Bickers, The Battle of Britain: The Greatest Battle in the History of Air Warfare (London: Batsford, 2015). Also, see online “Plan of Attack,” doc. 43, Battle of Britain Historical Society, www.battleofbritain1940.net/document-43.html.
Göring told Goebbels: Overy, Bombing War, 88.
German scientists had developed: Wakefield, Pfadfinder, 7–12.
The group’s zone of operations: Ibid., 45.
CHAPTER 42: OMINOUS DOINGS
“PM warmed up”: Alanbrooke, War Diaries, 105.
CHAPTER 43: CAP BLANC-NEZ
“There were no limits”: “The Göring Collection,” Confidential Interrogation Report No. 2, Sept. 15, 1945, 3, 4, 9, and, in attachments, “Objects Acquired by Goering,” Office of Strategic Services and Looting Investigative Unit, T 209/29, UKARCH.
“This moment is a historic one”: Bekker, Luftwaffe Diaries, 172; Feigel, Love-Charm of Bombs, 13. Remarks quoted in Garry Campion, The Battle of Britain, 1945–1965: The Air Ministry and the Few (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). For a ready resource, see Battle of Britain Historical Society, www.battleofbritain1940.net/0036.html.
PART FOUR: BLOOD AND DUST
CHAPTER 44: ON A QUIET BLUE DAY
“It was so lo
vely”: Diary, Sept. 7, 1940, Mary Churchill Papers.
“At first we couldn’t see”: Cowles, Looking for Trouble, 434–35.
“I’d never seen so many”: Stansky, First Day of the Blitz, 31–32.
“It was the most amazing”: Ziegler, London at War, 113.
“We all became conscious”: Stansky, First Day of the Blitz, 33–34.
Harold Nicolson, in his diary: Nicolson, War Years, 121.
“What struck one”: Stansky, First Day of the Blitz, 53.
“the purgatorial throng”: Feigel, Love-Charm of Bombs, 129.
“Thick clouds of smoke”: Cowles, Looking for Trouble, 435.
When dropping their biggest: “More About Big Bombs,” Interrogation Report 592/1940, Sept. 22, 1940, AIR 40/2400, UKARCH.
“A blazing girdle”: Overy, Bombing War, 87.
“an appalling shriek”: Cockett, Love and War in London, 165.
“the deep roar”: Cowles, Looking for Trouble, 439.
“an acute irritation”: Feigel, Love-Charm of Bombs, 53.
“The bombs are lovely”: Wyndham, Love Lessons, 113–16.
“I recognized one head”: Stansky, First Day of the Blitz, 72.
“The day,” he said: Adolf Galland Interrogation, May 18, 1945, Spaatz Papers.
“let himself be carried away”: Kesselring, Memoirs, 76.
“It was, I think, inconceivable”: Farrer, G—for God Almighty, 62.
CHAPTER 45: UNPREDICTABLE MAGIC
“The destruction was”: Ismay, Memoirs, 183.
“Morale rose immediately”: Gilbert, War Papers, 2:788–89.
“he was in one of his most”: Ismay, Memoirs, 184.
“Apparently indiscriminate bombing”: “Diary of Brigadier General Carl Spaatz on Tour of Duty in England,” Sept. 8, 1940, Spaatz Papers.
“anybody who imagined”: Ismay, Memoirs, 184.
“dangerously exposed to enemy”: Young, Churchill and Beaverbrook, 152.
“It was high-handed”: Farrer, Sky’s the Limit, 61.
“I had the opportunity”: Stafford, Flight from Reality, 83.
“Buz! Take notice”: Ibid., 141.
“I think of you all”: Diary, Sept. 8, 1940, Mary Churchill Papers.
“The ‘ordering’ of my life”: Soames, Daughter’s Tale, 173.
“He gave me such”: Diary, Sept. 11, 1940, Mary Churchill Papers.
“We cannot tell,” he said: Gilbert, War Papers, 2:801–3.
“largely wild and uncontrolled”: “Air Defence of Great Britain,” vol. 3, “Night Air Defence, June 1940–December 1941,” 56, 66, AIR 41/17, UKARCH.
“a momentous sound”: Feigel, Love-Charm of Bombs, 15.
“Tails are up”: Martin, Downing Street, 25.
“The dominating topic”: Addison and Crang, Listening to Britain, 414.
“the severest bombing yet”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 401.
CHAPTER 46: SLEEP
“to smash as much glass”: Gilbert, War Papers, 2:834.
“People living near guns”: Addison and Crang, Listening to Britain, 418.
“It’s not the bombs”: Harrisson, Living Through the Blitz, 102.
A survey found: Ibid., 105.
“Conversation was devoted”: Cowles, Looking for Trouble, 440.
On the night of September 27: Harrisson, Living Through the Blitz, 112. Field, “Nights Underground in Darkest London,” 44n17, notes that in November 1940 only about 4 percent of Londoners sheltered in the tube “and equivalent large shelters.” In October 1940, Home Intelligence quoted a Mass-Observation study that found about 4 percent of Londoners used public shelters. One major reason people gave for not using tube stations as shelters was “fear of being buried.” Home Intelligence Weekly Report for Sept. 30–Oct. 9, 1940, INF 1/292, UKARCH.
“A very formidable discontent”: Overy, Bombing War, 147.
Many more Londoners: Harrisson, Living Through the Blitz, 112. The estimate of 71 percent, derived from a Mass-Observation study, appears in the Home Intelligence Weekly Report for Sept. 30–Oct. 9, 1940, INF 1/292, UKARCH.
“We looked at each other”: Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI, 468.
“It was a ghastly experience”: Ibid., 469.
“I’m glad we’ve been bombed”: Ibid., 470.
“Everything looks like an invasion”: Alanbrooke, War Diaries, 107.
“We must expect”: Gilbert, War Papers, 2:810.
CHAPTER 47: TERMS OF IMPRISONMENT
The room was imbued: J. Gilbert Jenkins, Chequers, 26–30, 120–21; Soames, Daughter’s Tale, 176–77.
the match as “monstruoos”: J. Gilbert Jenkins, Chequers, 28.
“Mummie had ordered”: Diary, Sept. 15, 1940, Mary Churchill Papers.
“the last day”: Ibid., Sept. 14, 1940.
“the weather on this day”: Winston Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 332.
The family took seats: Ibid., 333–37.
“What losses should we not suffer”: Ibid., 336.
“It was repellent”: Ibid., 336–37.
“How sweet everyone is”: Diary, Sept. 15, 1940, Mary Churchill Papers.
CHAPTER 48: BERLIN
“We lost our nerve”: Interrogation of General A. D. Milch, Transcript, May 23, 1945, Spaatz Papers.
“a vulgar little man”: Air Ministry Weekly Intelligence Summary, No. 51, Aug. 23, 1940, 7, AIR 22/72, UKARCH.
“to ascertain”: Boelcke, Secret Conferences of Dr. Goebbels, 91.
CHAPTER 49: FEAR
“This is the twentieth century”: Diary, Sept. 21, 1940, Mary Churchill Papers.
Her father ordered: Gilbert, War Papers, 2:862.
“My darling, you must realize”: Interview Transcripts, July 1991, Biographies File, Pamela Harriman Papers.
“The night,” he wrote, “was cloudless”: Colville, Fringes of Power, 1:292–93.
CHAPTER 50: HESS
The letter was a curious one: Stafford, Flight from Reality, 21, 88–89, 160–63. A copy of the letter is in “The Capture of Rudolf Hess: Reports and Minutes,” WO 199/328, UKARCH.
CHAPTER 51: SANCTUARY
“proclaims the enemy’s entire abandonment”: Gilbert, War Papers, 2:839.
“Alive”: Kathleen Harriman to Mary Harriman Fisk, June n.d., 1941, Correspondence, W. Averell Harriman Papers.
Audiences edged toward tears: Panter-Downes, London War Notes, 26. The pianist’s trick with the orange is mentioned in Fort, Prof, 49.
“Walked out into the light”: Cockett, Love and War in London, 188.
“I lay there”: Harrisson, Living Through the Blitz, 81.
“Finding we can take it”: Cockett, Love and War in London, 195.
“I am getting a burying-phobia”: Ibid., 175.
“Siren Stomach”: Wyndham, Love Lessons, 121.
“If you would also”: Elements of this saga reside in the Churchill Archives Centre, at CHAR 1/357, Winston Churchill Papers.
The Chequers Trust: For the cost overrun, see “Chequers Household Account,” June–Dec. 1940, and C. F. Penruddock to Kathleen Hill, March 25, 1941; Hill to Penruddock, March 22, 1941, CHAR 1/365, Winston Churchill Papers. The file contains numerous other accountings, for other periods. To come up with the $20,288 figure, I used the equivalence and escalation formulas presented by David Lough in his No More Champagne, whereby £1 in the period 1939–41 is equivalent to $4, which when multiplied by a factor of 16 comes to an approximation of today’s value. Churchill’s overrun in 1940 pounds was £317; in dollars, $1,268. Multiply this by 16 and you get $20,288. Regarding the chauffeurs, see Elletson, Chequers and the Prime Ministers, 107.
One Chequers order: See “Wines Installe
d in Cellar at Chequers, 23rd October, 1941,” and related correspondence, CHAR 1/365, Winston Churchill Papers.
At least one brand: Andrew Roberts, “Holy Fox,” 292.
“Greetings to our nightly companions”: Süss, Death from the Skies, 314; Swiss Cottager, Bulletin Nos. 1–3, digital collection, University of Warwick, mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/ABT/6/2/6.
“From its high windows”: Cooper, Trumpets from the Steep, 44.
“Experts agree,” the brochure proclaimed: Ziegler, London at War, 135.
“reminiscent of a transatlantic crossing”: Andrew Roberts, “Holy Fox,” 248.
“Edward only takes three minutes”: Ibid., 247.
“Between 6 and 6:30”: Cooper, Trumpets from the Steep, 68.
“They wandered about”: Cowles, Looking for Trouble, 441.
“Everyone talked to everyone else”: Ibid., 442.
“We decided that”: Field, “Nights Underground in Darkest London,” 17; Overy, Bombing War, 146; “On This Day: Occupation of the Savoy, 14th September 1940,” Turbulent London, turbulentlondon.com/2017/09/14/on-this-day-occupation-of-the-savoy-14th-september-1940/.
After one raid set: Ziegler, London at War, 122–23.
Early in the war, the zoo: Nicolson, War Years, 120; “Animals in the Zoo Don’t Mind the Raids,” The War Illustrated 3, No. 4 (Nov. 15, 1940). See also, “London Zoo During World War Two,” Zoological Society of London, Sept. 1, 2013, www.zsl.org/blogs/artefact-of-the-month/zsl-london-zoo-during-world-war-two.
