The Battle of Britain

by James Holland

Now, as Hitler walked the expanse of his study dictating to his secretary, there was less than eighteen hours to go. By the next morning, his air fleets would be raining bombs over the Low Countries, his armies marching forward, punching their way through Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium. ‘The battle which begins today,’ he concluded in his proclamation, ‘will decide the fate of the German nation for the next thousand years. Now do your duty.’

  It was Hitler’s way to describe decisions as unavoidable do-or-die choices; his view of life was largely black or white, with few shades of grey. This also justified his gambler’s approach. Yet, in this case, he really did have no choice. He had thought Britain and France were bluffing with their threats to uphold Poland’s independence, that they were mere words. After all, they had stood by and watched when he moved back into the Rhineland, again during the Anschluss of Austria, and then once again during his occupation of both the Sudetenland and then the rest of Czechoslovakia. Why should Poland be any different?

  It was Britain who had declared war first, on the morning of Sunday, 3 September. When Hitler heard the news he had sat immobile, gazing blankly before him. Eventually, he turned to his Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and with a savage look asked, ‘What now?’ In the days that followed, he had time to answer that question for himself. It soon became clear that neither Britain nor France had any intention of going on the offensive – at least, not for the time being. That meant he would have to strike first. He had always known that at some point he would have to deal with the Western powers and Britain in particular. He had nothing but contempt for the French but he did admire the British and their Empire. Yet although he had gambled on her not declaring war over Poland, he had recognized that Britain would need subduing before he could continue with his expansion programme. The need for living space – Lebensraum – lay at the heart of his plans for the Third Reich.

  Thus Britain was the most dangerous enemy. ‘Our enemy Number One,’ Hitler had told Speer, as early as 1937. It was Britain that had led the talks at Munich back in September 1938 and it was Britain that had been most vocal in her protestations against the German absorption of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. From that time onwards, right up until the outbreak of war, it had been Britain, more so than France, that had continued to denounce Hitler’s plans; Britain that had first threatened to uphold Poland’s independence. ‘England is our enemy,’ Hitler had told his Minister for Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, ‘and the showdown with England is a matter of life and death.’

  Nonetheless, since the outbreak of war, Hitler had been wracked by doubts. In the build-up to the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April, he had devoured kilos of pralines. ‘They are nerve food,’ he had said. Now, however, after months of nervous agitation, the Führer was confident and calm; the doubts that had tormented him continually since the invasion of Poland had been put to one side. In his opinion, he told his inner circle, France would roll over in six weeks, and then Britain would settle terms. She would have to. Continuing from such a weakened position would mean losing her Empire and that was unimaginable. Therefore, after France fell, Britain would sue for peace. Europe would then be subdued, allowing him to return to the process of building up strength before turning his attentions eastwards.

  Even so, it was a huge gamble, and Hitler knew it. He had fewer men than the Western Allies, with 135 divisions compared to 151. He had fewer guns – 7,378 whereas the Allies could call on some 14,000, of which 10,700 alone were French. Germany had fewer tanks than France as well – 2,439 as opposed to the French army’s 3,254. And Germany even had fewer operational aircraft than the Allies. Normal military practice is not to attack unless holding a superiority of numbers of at least three to one, and ideally higher than that. Hitler’s forces had nothing like that advantage. But he did, he hoped, have surprise. And a strikingly original plan that he was increasingly confident would work.

  Hitler might have been sure of its success, but this was because he had little operational or strategic understanding. How could he? His military career had ended on the Western Front in 1918, by which time he had risen no higher than corporal. Over twenty years later, despite his obvious intelligence and ability to absorb information, it was only his power and authority, rather than any military acumen, which qualified him to be a war chief.

  Certainly many of his commanders had serious doubts, and with some reason. The plan was for one group of armies, Army Group B, to thrust their way across into the neutral Low Countries, drawing the French – and British Expeditionary Force – forward to meet the threat. At the same time, a larger force, Army Group A, spearheaded by panzer and mechanized divisions, would burst through the dense Ardennes forests, and cross the River Meuse. Then, having taken the French completely off guard, the panzers would charge forward towards the coast, thus isolating the majority of the French, British and Belgian forces in a massive encirclement. Most of the Luftwaffe were to operate in the north, supporting Army Group B, which in turn would help deceive the enemy into thinking it was in the north that the main German effort was coming.

  The flaw in using the Luftwaffe in such a way was that it would leave Army Group A dangerously unprotected from the sky as it clawed its way through the Ardennes. The number of men, vehicles, horses and carts involved in the Ardennes thrust was staggering. Put toe to tail, the spearhead alone had a march movement length of nearly a thousand miles. For ten days or more, the roads passing through the Ardennes would be clogged with traffic, the juiciest of targets for any determined Allied bombers.

  And that concern aside, the majority of the German commanders had neither understanding of nor faith in the tactical concept being suggested – namely that a fast, highly mobile tank force could be used to drive a far-reaching hole into the not inconsiderable French defences. To many, it seemed that only a miracle could possibly bring them victory.

  *

  The idea of this mobile thrust through the Ardennes had been put forward by General Erich von Manstein after considerable discussion with Generalleutnant Heinz Guderian, a dynamic and deep-thinking soldier who had already written Achtung Panzer!, a treatise on the employment of tanks in modern warfare, two years earlier. Jealousy and mistrust had ensured that von Manstein had long since been sidelined, but Guderian had not, and was now, on the morning of 9 May, preparing to lead Panzer Corps Guderian, containing three of the Wehrmacht’s best armoured divisions, as the spearhead for the drive towards the Meuse and then, with luck, to the English Channel.

  As one of the principal architects of the entire offensive plan, the 51-year-old Guderian had complete faith in its potential, but also considerable concerns as to whether his superiors would allow it to unfold in the way he hoped. An unusual and untested grouping of three corps – of which his was one – had been placed under the command of Generaloberst Ewald von Kleist, who, Guderian was well aware, was no great enthusiast for mobile warfare. Nor was Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group A. At planning conferences, Guderian’s heart had sunk as it became clear that von Rundstedt had little idea about the potential of tanks. He also revealed his complete lack of understanding of the battle plan when he told Guderian and von Kleist that he preferred a more cautious approach to battle. Senior German commanders were far from singing from the same hymn sheet, yet since Guderian knew that it would be up to his three lead divisions to make the critical breakthrough over the Meuse at Sedan, he had done his very best to avoid consulting with his superiors, and to train his men in the way that he wanted; to prepare them for the task that he had envisaged.

  At 1.30 p.m. that Thursday he received the orders to prepare to move. The task ahead was an enormous one. Everything depended on maintaining surprise and breaking through the main objective before the French caught wind of what was going on and brought up the substantial reserves they had at their disposal. That required sticking to a very tight timetable. It meant Guderian’s spearhead had to reach the Meuse at Sedan and get across in just four days. Yet b
efore he even reached the River Meuse, his men had to cross the Luxembourg border barriers, then the first Belgian fortification line, and, thirdly, the second Belgian fortification line. After these obstacles, there was the River Semois, which was bound to be defended, and finally there were the French border fortifications, which lay some six miles in front of the Meuse.

  Despite this, despite the hindrances from above, and despite the very real threat of aerial attack, Guderian left his headquarters at Koblenz later that afternoon with spirits as confident as those of his Führer. He had complete trust in his commanders and knew his men were highly trained and ready; each man knew his task and what was expected of him. Nothing, he believed, had been left to chance. And yet for it to succeed, he would need good fortune. Plenty of good fortune.

  Both France and Britain had been expecting a German offensive in the west for some time. Even though theirs was a modern world, the obvious campaigning season was spring and summer and so since the particularly harsh winter had ebbed away, they had been increasingly aware that Hitler could strike at any moment.

  Nonetheless, in Westminster, the political capital of Britain, the attention of the nation’s leaders was less on Germany, that May Thursday, and more on their own survival. Britain was in the midst of a drastic political crisis. For the past two days, a debate had been going on in the House of Commons over the Government’s handling of the war to date and specifically the campaign in Norway, which had begun on 9 April. British forces, under-equipped and without sufficient air support, had been soundly beaten in their first clash on land with German forces, and in a subsequent vote of confidence the Prime Minister had suffered a crippling moral defeat.

  Despite the numerous news programmes on the radio and the detailed accounts of the debate in the papers, however, these dramatic events seem to have passed over the heads of many in Britain that morning. Certainly, it made little impression on David Crook and his fellow pilots, for example. Young men with Spitfires to fly might have found all this politicking of little interest, yet there were few signs of it causing much of a stir in the Surrey village of Tadworth either. ‘Out this morning,’ wrote 37-year-old Daidie Penna, ‘people didn’t seem to have much to say of the Government’s stormy passage. I think they’ve got into the habit these days of concentrating on their own lives and trying to exclude the unpredictable and rapidly varying international situations.’ Although a housewife and mother of three, Daidie was also a writer and artist, intelligent and opinionated. She had a further particular interest in politics because an old family friend was a Labour Opposition MP, Herbert Morrison. Decidedly left of centre herself, Daidie was certainly no admirer of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, who she wished would be kicked out of office as soon as possible. Two days before, on 7 May, as the Norway debate had begun, she had wondered whether Chamberlain would be let off the hook, as it seemed to her he always was. ‘If we allow him to remain in office,’ she typed in her diary, ‘I feel we might just as well save what we can and come to terms with Hitler at once. It is amazing – the blindness of this man – he seems so completely enveloped in the fog of his own complacency.’

  A few days earlier, most in Westminster would have agreed with Daidie that Chamberlain had been unlikely to lose his job as a result of the debate. And yet what had begun as an attempt to censure the Prime Minister now looked to have escalated so much that, despite a whopping majority of more than 240 seats, the Prime Minister had been left fighting for his political life. Daidie was delighted – and even more so to read in the paper that Thursday morning that Herbert Morrison had been one of the politicians leading the attacks the day before.

  Later that day, Daidie did find someone in the village who was willing to discuss the news with her, however – a neighbour and former pacifist Daidie called ‘Mrs G’. Despite what the papers were saying, Mrs G told Daidie she still thought it very unlikely Chamberlain would go. ‘You know how obstinate old people can be,’ she said. Hitler had made him look silly. ‘If he resigns it means that to all intents and purposes Hitler has got the better of him again.’ Then Daidie asked her what she would do were there to be a German invasion of England. Her friend looked at her blankly for a moment then burst out laughing. ‘Oh but that’s absurd,’ she said, ‘a ridiculous idea.’

  Watching the Norway debate from the Commons gallery was the 51-year-old United States Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy, a dapper man, with a broad face, pale eyes, a high forehead and round, horn-rimmed spectacles. Joe Kennedy had been posted to London two years before. An enormously wealthy businessman, he had made his fortune on the stock market and in commodity broking, before turning his hand to real estate, bootlegging from Canada during Prohibition, and then moving to Hollywood, where he created RKO Pictures. In the 1930s he had made a move into politics, providing much of the funding for Roosevelt’s first successful bid for the Presidency in 1932. He had been rewarded, not with a Cabinet post, but with the position of the inaugural Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Committee. His reforming work in this post gained him wide respect, particularly at a time when America was emerging from the Depression.

  His appointment as Ambassador had raised a few eyebrows both sides of the Atlantic, however. Although his bootlegging had never been proved, there was the faint whiff of the crook that accompanied him, while he was also known as mercurial and as something of a philandering Irish Catholic rogue, and a man who liked to call a spade a spade; his style was plain talking with no bull rather than the subtle language of diplomacy. Yet he was also undeniably energetic, ebullient and fabulously well connected. Furthermore, he had been accompanied to London by his bright, beautiful and apparently charming family – his wife, Rose, and their nine children. Very quickly the Kennedys had been embraced by British society. His second daughter, Kathleen, had been the ‘most exciting debutante’ of 1938, while Eunice, his third and no less beautiful daughter, had ‘come out’ in 1939. His elder sons, Joseph Junior and Jack, were clever and worldly and had become leading social figures, much photographed and discussed in the gossip columns and diaries of Britain’s national papers.

  Although vehemently anti-communist and unashamedly anti-Semitic, Kennedy most strongly believed that there should be peace at all costs, and that America should and could stay well out of European squabbles. Unsurprisingly, then, he had soon allied himself to Chamberlain and the appeasement policy that was dominating British politics at the time of his arrival as Ambassador. Indeed, he came to know Chamberlain well and considered him a good friend. Thus it was that he had watched the closing debate in the Commons with no satisfaction whatsoever.

  The results of the vote of no confidence had been read out by the Speaker just after 11 p.m. Although Chamberlain was Prime Minister of a National (that is, coalition) Government of Conservatives, National Liberals, National Labour and Nationals, the majority were Tory MPs like himself. Only around forty Conservatives had voted against him, but a number had abstained, and with the votes of the Opposition the Government’s majority had been cut to a mere eighty-one. That was nowhere near enough to bring down a Prime Minister in peacetime; but in times of war it was a very different matter.

  The results had prompted, first, a gasp around the packed House, and then pandemonium had ensued.

  An ashen and rather shell-shocked Chamberlain had walked stiffly from the Commons amidst jeers and taunts of ‘Missed the bus!’, ‘Get out!’ and ‘Go, in the name of God, go!’, while another Tory rebel, Harold Macmillan, began singing ‘Rule Britannia’ before being silenced by irate supporters of the Prime Minister. A more sensitive man than his sometimes austere persona suggested, Chamberlain had been profoundly humiliated by events. ‘Everybody was shocked,’ Joe Kennedy wrote in his diary the following day. ‘The Prime Minister looked stunned and although he appeared to carry it off, he looked to me like a definitely beaten man.’

  In the lobby afterwards, Kennedy met Lady Astor, who told the Ambassador that she thought Chamberlain wou
ld have to fall and that Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, should take over. He then went to see the Canadian press baron Lord Beaverbrook, to get his slant on the situation. He too thought Chamberlain would go. The following morning, Kennedy spoke with President Roosevelt on the telephone and heard the news that Germany had just delivered an ultimatum to Holland. Later, at the Admiralty, he saw Winston Churchill, and the Minister for Air, Sir Samuel Hoare, and relayed the news about Germany. ‘A terrible world this is getting to be,’ Churchill told him. ‘There really doesn’t seem to be much hope anywhere, does there?’ added Hoare.

  Despite the predictions given to Kennedy the previous evening, the 71-year-old Prime Minister had woken early that Thursday morning, 9 May, determined to fight his corner. The Government whips had busied themselves trying to discover what concessions the Government would have to make to win back the rebels’ support, while Chamberlain’s Parliamentary Private Secretary invited leading back-benchers to No. 10 to discuss grievances. Chamberlain even offered Leo Amery, the man who more than anyone had landed the killer blow during the debate, a choice of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer or Foreign Secretary, but the Prime Minister’s assassin refused.

  Yet Amery was not the only Tory rebel in no mood for either concessions or olive branches; clearly the revolt had lost none of its momentum after a night of reflection. It was also becoming apparent that a consensus was emerging that a full cross-party coalition was needed – one that included Labour and the Liberals too. Chamberlain hoped he might yet lead this new administration but was conscious that neither Clement Attlee, the Labour leader, nor Arthur Greenwood, the other most prominent Labour MP, was likely to serve under him.

  By 10.15 a.m., then, when Lord Halifax arrived at No. 10 to talk with him, Chamberlain knew that the hopes of dawn had been dashed and that he would almost certainly have to resign – and, as Lady Astor had suggested, hand over to Halifax. A former Viceroy of India, a hugely experienced politician and a man widely respected for his sound judgement, Lord Halifax was certainly top of Chamberlain’s list as successor. In fact, he was the outstanding candidate. Most of the other leading Tories were either too young, lacked sufficient following, were too unpopular or were too inexperienced. There was, however, one exception: a man with unrivalled experience; a man who had held Cabinet posts over a forty-year parliamentary career that included the Home Office, Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the Admiralty; a man who had been a soldier as well as a statesman; a man who, despite eight long years in the political wilderness, had returned to the Cabinet on the outbreak of war and was one of the most dominant personalities in the country. He was Winston Churchill.