In this new phase of warfare it became important to extract the optimum of work not only from the factories but even more from the departments in London which were under frequent bombardment during both the day and night. At first, whenever the sirens gave the alarm, all the occupants of a score of Ministries were promptly collected and led down to the basements, for what these were worth. Pride, even, was being taken in the efficiency and thoroughness with which this evolution was performed. In many cases it was only half a dozen aeroplanes which approached—sometimes only one. Often they did not arrive. A petty raid might bring to a standstill for over an hour the whole executive and administrative machine in London.
I therefore proposed the stage “Alert”, operative on the siren warning, as distinct from the “Alarm”, which should be enforced only when the spotters on the roof, or Jim Crows, as they came to be called, reported “Imminent danger”, which meant that the enemy was actually overhead or very near. Schemes were worked out accordingly. Parliament also required guidance about the conduct of its work in these dangerous days. Members felt that it was their duty to set an example. This was right, but it might have been pushed too far; I had to reason with the Commons to make them observe ordinary prudence and conform to the peculiar conditions of the time. I convinced them in Secret Session of the need to take necessary and well-considered precautions. They agreed that their days and hours of sitting should not be advertised, and to suspend their debates when the Jim Crow reported to the Speaker “Imminent danger”. Then they all trooped down dutifully to the crowded, ineffectual shelters that had been provided. It will always add to the renown of the British Parliament that its Members continued to sit and discharge their duties through all this period. The Commons are very touchy in such matters, and it would have been easy to misjudge their mood. When one Chamber was damaged they moved to another, and I did my utmost to persuade them to follow wise advice with good grace. In short, everyone behaved with sense and dignity. It was also lucky that when the Chamber was blown to pieces a few months later it was by night and not by day, when empty and not when full. With our mastery of the daylight raids there came considerable relief in personal convenience. But during the first few months I was never free from anxiety about the safety of the Members. After all, a free sovereign Parliament, fairly chosen by universal suffrage, able to turn out the Government any day, but proud to uphold it in the darkest days, was one of the points which were in dispute with the enemy. Parliament won.
I doubt whether any of the Dictators had as much effective power throughout his whole nation as the British War Cabinet. When we expressed our desires we were sustained by the people’s representatives, and cheerfully obeyed by all. Yet at no time was the right of criticism impaired. Nearly always the critics respected the national interest. When on occasions they challenged us the Houses voted them down by overwhelming majorities, and this, in contrast with totalitarian methods, without the slightest coercion, intervention, or use of the police or Secret Service. It was a proud thought that Parliamentary Democracy, or whatever our British public life can be called, can endure, surmount, and survive all trials. Even the threat of annihilation did not daunt our Members, but this fortunately did not come to pass.
In the middle of September a new and damaging form of attack was used against us. Large numbers of delayed-action bombs were now widely and plentifully cast upon us and became an awkward problem. Long stretches of railway-line, important junctions, the approaches to vital factories, airfields, main thoroughfares, had scores of time to be blocked off and denied to us in our need. These bombs had to be dug out and exploded or rendered harmless. This was a task of the utmost peril, especially at the beginning, when the means and methods had all to be learned by a series of decisive experiences. I have already recounted the drama of dismantling the magnetic mine, but this form of self-devotion now became commonplace while remaining sublime. I had always taken an interest in the delayed-action fuze, which had first impressed itself on me in 1918, when the Germans had used it on a large scale to deny us the use of the railways by which we planned to advance into Germany. I had urged its use by us both in Norway and in the Kiel Canal and the Rhine. There is no doubt that it is a most effective agent in warfare, on account of the prolonged uncertainty which it creates. We were now to taste it ourselves. A special organisation to deal with it was set up. Special companies were formed in every city, town, and district. Volunteers pressed forward for the deadly game. Teams were formed which had good or bad luck. Some survived this phase of our ordeal. Others ran twenty, thirty, or even forty courses before they met their fate. The Unexploded Bomb detachments presented themselves wherever I went on my tours. Somehow or other their faces seemed different from those of ordinary men, however brave and faithful. They were gaunt, they were haggard, their faces had a bluish look, with bright gleaming eyes and exceptional compression of the lips; withal a perfect demeanour. In writing about our hard times we are apt to overuse the word “grim”. It should have been reserved for the U.X.B. Disposal Squads.
One squad I remember which may be taken as symbolic of many others. It consisted of three people—the Earl of Suffolk, his lady private secretary, and his rather aged chauffeur. They called themselves “the Holy Trinity”. Their prowess and continued existence got around among all who knew. Thirty-four unexploded bombs did they tackle with urbane and smiling efficiency. But the thirty-fifth claimed its forfeit. Up went the Earl of Suffolk in his Holy Trinity. But we may be sure that, as for Mr. Valiant-for-truth, “all the trumpets sounded for them on the other side”.
Very quickly, but at heavy sacrifice of our noblest, the devotion of the U.X.B. detachments mastered the peril.
It is difficult to compare the ordeal of the Londoners in the winter of 1940-41 with that of the Germans in the last three years of the war. In this latter phase the bombs were much more powerful and the raids far more intense. On the other hand, long preparation and German thoroughness had enabled a complete system of bomb-proof shelters to be built, into which all were forced to go by iron routine. When eventually we got into Germany we found cities completely wrecked, but strong buildings standing up above the ground, and spacious subterranean galleries where the inhabitants slept night after night, although their houses and property were being destroyed above. In many cases only the rubble-heaps were stirred. But in London, although the attack was less overpowering, the security arrangements were far less developed. Apart from the Tubes there were no really safe places. There were very few basements or cellars which could withstand a direct hit. Virtually the whole mass of the London population lived and slept in their homes or in their Anderson shelters under the fire of the enemy, taking their chance with British phlegm after a hard day’s work. Not one in a thousand had any protection except against blast and splinters. But there was as little psychological weakening as there was physical pestilence. Of course, if the bombs of 1943 had been applied to the London of 1940 we should have passed into conditions which might have pulverised all human organisation. However, everything happens in its turn and in its relation, and no one has a right to say that London, which was certainly unconquered, was not also unconquerable.
Little or nothing had been done before the war or during the passive period to provide bomb-proof strongholds from which the central government could be carried on. Elaborate plans had been made to move the seat of government from London. Complete branches of many departments had already been moved to Harrogate, Bath, Cheltenham, and elsewhere. Accommodation had been requisitioned over a wide area, providing for all Ministers and important functionaries in the event of an evacuation of London. But now under the bombardment the desire and resolve of the Government and of Parliament to remain in London was unmistakable, and I shared this feeling to the full. I, like others, had often pictured the destruction becoming so over-powering that a general move and dispersal would have to be made. But under the impact of the event all our reactions were in the contrary sense.
In these months we held our evening Cabinets in the War Room in the Annexe basement. To get there from Downing Street it was necessary to walk through the Foreign Office quadrangle and then clamber through the working parties who were pouring in the concrete to make the War Room and basement offices safer. I did not realise what a trial this was to Mr. Chamberlain, with all the consequences of his major operation upon him. Nothing deterred him, and he was never more spick and span or cool and determined than at the last Cabinets which he attended.
One evening in late September 1940 I looked out of the Downing Street front door and saw workmen piling sandbags in front of the low basement windows of the Foreign Office opposite. I asked what they were doing. I was told that after his operation Mr. Neville Chamberlain had to have special periodical treatment, and that it was embarrassing to carry this out in the shelter of No. 11 where at least twenty people were gathered during the constant raids, so a small private place was being prepared over there for him. Every day he kept all his appointments, reserved, efficient, faultlessly attired. But here was the background. It was too much. I used my authority. I walked through the passage between No. 10 and No. 11 and found Mrs. Chamberlain. I said: “He ought not to be here in this condition. You must take him away till he is well again. I will send all the telegrams to him each day.” She went off to see her husband. In an hour she sent me word. “He will do what you wish. We are leaving to-night.” I never saw him again. I am sure he wanted to die in harness. This was not to be.
The retirement of Mr. Chamberlain led to important Ministerial changes. Mr. Herbert Morrison had been an efficient and vigorous Minister of Supply, and Sir John Anderson had faced the Blitz of London with firm and competent management. By the early days of October the continuous attack on the largest city in the world was so severe and raised so many problems of a social and political character in its vast harassed population that I thought it would be a help to have a long-trained Parliamentarian at the Home Office, which was now also the Ministry of Home Security. London was bearing the brunt. Herbert Morrison was a Londoner, versed in every aspect of Metropolitan administration. He had unrivalled experience of London government, having been leader of the County Council, and in many ways the principal figure in its affairs. At the same time I needed John Anderson, whose work at the Home Office had been excellent, as Lord President of the Council in the wider sphere of the Home Affairs Committee, to which an immense mass of business was referred, with great relief to the Cabinet. This also lightened my own burden and enabled me to concentrate upon the military conduct of the war, in which my colleagues seemed increasingly disposed to give me latitude.
I therefore invited these two high Ministers to change their offices. It was no bed of roses which I offered Herbert Morrison. These pages certainly cannot attempt to describe the problems of London government, when often night after night ten or twenty thousand people were made homeless, and when nothing but the ceaseless vigil of the citizens as Fire Guards on the roofs prevented uncontrollable conflagrations; when hospitals, filled with mutilated men and women, were themselves struck by the enemy’s bombs; when hundreds of thousands of weary people crowded together in unsafe and insanitary shelters; when communications by road and rail were ceaselessly broken down; when drains were smashed and light, power, and gas paralysed; and when nevertheless the whole fighting, toiling life of London had to go forward, and nearly a million people be moved in and out for their work every night and morning. We did not know how long it would last. We had no reason to suppose that it would not go on getting worse. When I made the proposal to Mr. Morrison he knew too much about it to treat it lightly. He asked for a few hours’ consideration; but in a short time he returned and said he would be proud to shoulder the job. I highly approved his manly decision.
Quite soon after the Ministerial movements a change in the enemy’s method affected our general policy. Till now the hostile attack had been confined almost exclusively to high-explosive bombs; but with the full moon of October 15, when the heaviest attack of the month fell upon us, German aircraft dropped in addition 70,000 incendiary bombs. Hitherto we had encouraged the Londoners to take cover, and every effort was being made to improve their protection. But now “To the basements” must be replaced by “To the roofs”. It fell to the new Minister of Home Security to institute this policy. An organisation of fire-watchers and fire services on a gigantic scale and covering the whole of London (apart from measures taken in provincial cities) was rapidly brought into being. At first the fire-watchers were volunteers; but the numbers required were so great, and the feeling that every man should take his turn upon the roster so strong, that fire-watching soon became compulsory. This form of service had a bracing and buoyant effect upon all classes. Women pressed forward to take their share. Large-scale systems of training were developed to teach the fire-watchers how to deal with the various kinds of incendiaries which were used against us. Many became adept, and thousands of fires were extinguished before they took hold. The experience of remaining on the roof night after night under fire, with no protection but a tin hat, soon became habitual.
Mr. Morrison presently decided to consolidate the fourteen hundred local fire brigades into a single National Fire Service, and to supplement this with a great Fire Guard of civilians trained and working in their spare time. The Fire Guard, like the roof-watchers, was at first recruited on a voluntary basis, but like them it became by general consent compulsory. The National Fire Service gave us the advantages of greater mobility, a universal standard of training and equipment, and formally recognised ranks. The other Civil Defence forces produced regional columns ready at a minute’s notice to go anywhere. The name Civil Defence Service was substituted for the pre-war title of Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.). Good uniforms were provided for large numbers, and they became conscious of being a Fourth Arm of the Crown.
I was glad that, if any of our cities were to be attacked, the brunt should fall on London. London was like some huge prehistoric animal, capable of enduring terrible injuries, mangled and bleeding from many wounds, and yet preserving its life and movement. The Anderson shelters were widespread in the working-class districts of two-storey houses, and everything was done to make them habitable and to drain them in wet weather. Later the Morrison shelter was developed, which was no more than a heavy kitchen table made of steel with strong wire sides, capable of holding up the ruins of a small house and thus giving a measure of protection. Many owed their lives to it. For the rest, “London could take it”. They took all they got, and could have taken more. Indeed, at this time we saw no end but the demolition of the whole Metropolis. Still, as I pointed out to the House of Commons at the time, the law of diminishing returns operates in the case of the demolition of large cities. Soon many of the bombs would only fall upon houses already ruined and only make the rubble jump. Over large areas there would be nothing more to burn or destroy, and yet human beings might make their homes here and there, and carry on their work with infinite resource and fortitude.
On the night of November 3 for the first time in nearly two months no alarm sounded in London. The silence seemed quite odd to many. They wondered what was wrong. On the following night the enemy’s attacks were widely dispersed throughout the Island; and this continued for a while. There had been another change in the policy of the German offensive. Although London was still regarded as the principal target, a major effort was now to be made to cripple the industrial centres of Britain. Special squadrons had been trained, with new navigational devices, to attack specific key centres. For instance, one formation was trained solely for the destruction of the Rolls-Royce aero-engine works at Hillington, Glasgow. All this was a makeshift and interim plan. The invasion of Britain had been temporarily abandoned, and the attack upon Russia had not yet been mounted, nor was expected outside Hitler’s intimate circle. The remaining winter months were therefore to be for the German Air Force a period of experiment, both in technical devices in night-bombing and in attacks upon Bri
tish sea-borne trade, together with an attempt to break down our production, military and civil. They would have done much better to have stuck to one thing at a time and pressed it to a conclusion. But they were already baffled and for the time being unsure of themselves.
These new bombing tactics began with the blitz on Coventry on the night of November 14. London seemed too large and vague a target for decisive results, but Goering hoped that provincial cities or munitions centres might be effectively obliterated. The raid started early in the dark hours of the 14th, and by dawn nearly five hundred German aircraft had dropped six hundred tons of high explosives and thousands of incendiaries. On the whole this was the most devastating raid which we sustained. The centre of Coventry was shattered, and its life for a spell completely disrupted. Four hundred people were killed and many more seriously injured. The German radio proclaimed that our other cities would be similarly “Coventrated”. Nevertheless the all-important aero-engine and machine-tool factories were not brought to a standstill; nor was the population, hitherto untried in the ordeal of bombing, put out of action. In less than a week an emergency reconstruction committee did wonderful work in restoring the life of the city.
The Second World War Page 48
