Never Surrender

by John Kelly

  CHAPTER TEN: “GOOD MORNING, DEATH”

  “Any ideas how we shall win?”: Nigel Balchin, Darkness Falls From the Air (London: Cassel Military, 2002), 40.

  Visiting the pediatric ward: Calder, The People’s War, 107.

  “Every time we meet now”: Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 90.

  “In the last war”: Boothe, Europe in the Spring, 284–85.

  Johnny Churchill’s arrival from France: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 429–30.

  Every road was packed: Whiting, The Poor Bloody Infantry, 46.

  “I have never felt greater serenity”: Colville, The Fringes of Power, 140.

  “A timely miracle would be acceptable”: Ibid., 141.

  Keyes says he is not optimistic about Belgium: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 414–15.

  Dill’s mistaken belief that Calais is still holding and cabinet debate about air estimates: Confidential Annex, Cab, May 27, 1940, 65/13 W.M. (40) 141.

  “I trust you realize, Mr. President”: Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 37.

  “If members of the present administration”: Ibid., 40.

  “The United States has given us practically”: Cab, May 27, 1940, 65/7 W.M. (40) 141.

  “This statement would apply”: Confidential Annex Cab, May 27, 1940, 65/13 W.M. (40) 141.

  Australian prime minister favors peace conference: Clive Ponting, 1940: Myth and Reality (Lanham, MD: Ivan R. Dee Publisher, 1993), 111, 116.

  Events in Rome, May 27, 1940: Reynaud, In the Thick of the Fight, 407–15.

  Events in Paris, May 27, 1940: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, 239–43.

  “Good morning, death”: Boothe, Europe in the Spring, 270–71.

  Patrick Turnbull’s flight to Dunkirk: Patrick Turnbull, Dunkirk: Anatomy of Disaster (Des Moines, IA: Home Publishing Co., 1978), 160–70.

  French not told about Dunkirk evacuation: Gates, End of the Affair, 106–8.

  “Who shot him”: Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 108.

  “Things [are] as bad as that, are they?”: Allingham, The Oaken Heart, 197.

  Churchill and Halifax clash at afternoon cabinet of May 27, 1940: Confidential Annex, May 27, 1940, 65/13 W.M. (40) 141.

  Colville hears rumors of dischord after cabinet ends: Colville, The Fringes of Power, 141.

  “I can’t work with Winston any longer”: Dilks, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 291.

  “I thought Winston talked the most frightful rot”: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 413.

  Churchill was too restless to go to sleep: Colville, The Fringes of Power, 141.

  “My impression of the situation”: Nasaw, The Patriarch, 448.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: “WE WERE NO LONGER ONE”

  Strength of Belgian army: John Keegan, The Second World War (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 324.

  “Spring came late this year”: The woman I call Jane Pratt is one of several hundred people who kept a wartime diary for Mass Observation. In MO’s files she is listed as J. L. Pratt, subject 5041; I’ve turned the J into “Jane” in order to clarify her gender. And as indicated in the text, the diary entry was made at some point during late morning or early afternoon of May 28, 1940.

  “All this day of the twenty-eighth”: Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 84–85.

  The German Triumph in the West: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 383–84.

  “I have no intention of suggesting”: Churchill, Hansard, May 28, 1940, vol. 361, 421–22.

  “A deed without precedent”: Jacques Benoist-Méchin, Sixty Days that Shook the West: The Fall of France, 1940 (New York: Putnam, 1963), 179.

  French hostility to Belgian refugees: Horne, To Lose a Battle, 541.

  “Polyphonic symphony”: Arthur Koestler, Scum of the Earth (London: Eland Books, 2007), 186.

  Spears visits Reynaud, morning of May 28: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, 253–54.

  Gort and Blanchard meet: Henry Pownall, Chief of Staff: The Diaries of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall (London: L. Cooper, 1972), 347–50; Gates, End of the Affair, 107; Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, 337.

  Churchill’s tribute to defenders of Lille: Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 85.

  Number of British ships involved in Dunkirk evacuation: Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 88.

  Evacuation numbers as of midday, May 28; warning of Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding: A description of the situation at Hazebrouck can be found in Cab 65/7 W.M. (40) 144.

  Defense of Cassel and biography of Brigadier Nigel Somerset: Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, 368–69.

  Lloyd George discusses past with Churchill: Sylvester, Life With Lloyd George, 263–65.

  Lloyd George believes war is unwinnable: Memo, September 12, 1940, Lloyd George Papers, G/81; David Reynolds, “Churchill and the British decision to fight on in 1940,” in Richard Langhorne, ed., Diplomacy and Intelligence in the Second World War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 154–55.

  Rationing ends in 1954: www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/war/rationing.htm.

  Churchill tests Lloyd George: Taylor, Lloyd George, 586.

  Ashford hosts Dunkirk evacuees: Mass Observation, Dover, June 6, 1940.

  Discussion in afternoon cabinet, May 28: Confidential Annex, May 28, 1940, 65/13. W.M. (40) 140.

  “People are calm but exceedingly anxious”: Mass Observation, Morale Today, May 28, 1940.

  “He was quite magnificent”: Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years: Memoirs 1931–1945 (London: Cape, 1957), 335–37. The evening meeting of the war cabinet that followed Churchill’s speech to the outer cabinet was a continuation of 65/13 W.M. (40) 140.

  The cabinet agreed to reject it: Cypher telegram from Prime Minister to M. Reynaud, May 28, 1940, no. 235 DIPP.

  “Now we have the Allies in both pockets”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 384.

  “In these dark days”: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 80.

  “A gallant man”: Macleod and Kelly, Time Unguarded, 344.

  “I wonder as I gaze out”: James, Chips, 313.

  Dill and Pound wobbly: Esnouf, British Government War Aims, 265.

  Ignorance is bliss: Mass Observation, Morale Today, May 29, 1940.

  “The English were stiffening themselves for the coming struggle”: Boothe, Europe in the Spring, 276.

  Foreign diplomats impressed by British morale: Lukacs, Five Days in London, 173.

  Trancelike state of British: Bliss, In Search of Light, 25.

  George Orwell lists latest rumors: George Orwell, A Patriot After All: 1940–1941 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1999), 168.

  “waxen immobility” of the dead: Ritchie, The Siren Years, 55–59.

  A little before 4:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 30: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, 277–80.

  Churchill’s instructions for Spears: Premier papers, 3/175.

  At the morning meeting of the French War Committee: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, 281–84.

  Rumors about why compromise peace debate had ended: James, Chips, 312–13; Dilks, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 292.

  Fighter Command puts fewer patrols over Dunkirk: John Terraine, A Time for Courage: The Royal Air Force in the European War, 1939–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 156.

  request for continuous fighter action in the air: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 430.

  J. B. Priestley’s broadcasts on the “little boats”: Calder, The People’s War, 108.

  “For all the good you chaps seem to be doing”: Terraine, A Time for Courage, 156–57.

  Number of troops evacuated and discussion of invasion threat: Evening war cabinet, May 30, 1940, 65/7, (40) 148.

  British party arrives at Villacoublay Aerodrome: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, 292–93.

  Churchill opened the . . . Supreme War Council with an announcement: Supreme War Council Minutes, May 31, 1940, 99/3. See also Gilbert, Finest Hour, 95–96; Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, 296–310; Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Hastings Ismay, 1
33; Reynaud, In the Thick of the Fight, 449–51.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: END OF THE AFFAIR

  The evacuation at Dunkirk: Eyewitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com.

  Destroyer Keith attacked, armless sailor: Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, 416–17.

  “polished way”: Gilbert, Their Finest Hour, 98.

  Spears threatens Pétain: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, 316.

  Number of men evacuated June 1, 1940: Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 47.

  “Maximum efforts must be made”: War Cab 65/7 (40) 151; Gilbert, Finest Hour, 99.

  “Bras dessus” pledge: Churchill, Finest Hour, 96–97.

  Lelong’s urgent cable to Paris: Montefiore, Dunkirk, 421.

  Churchill changes his mind about shutting down evacuation: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 448.

  Headlines in Berlin papers: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 390–91.

  “Ten million French people”: Koestler, The Scum of the Earth, 167.

  “Why ever have these poor things”: Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk, 419.

  “prepare the people”: Mass Observation, Some Notes for the Weekend, June 3, 1940.

  Invasion preparations: Allingham, The Oaken Heart, 208–9.

  “I forgot I was a middle-aged woman”: Last, Nella Last’s War, 54.

  German and British air losses over Dunkirk: Terraine, A Time for Courage, 157.

  “Wait and See”: Esnouf, British Government War Aims, 244–45.

  Elephant and whale: Colville, The Fringes of Power, 157.

  British aircraft production in the summer of 1940: Terraine, A Time for Courage, 191.

  Dowding can’t guarantee air superiority for more than forty-eight hours: Confidential Annex, June 3, 1940, 65/13, W.M. (40) 153.

  “We shall go on to the end”: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol 2, 56.

  Anthony Eden warns Britain has only two brigades of regular troops and a few territorial units for home defense: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, 146.

  “it will be the middle ages all over again”: Ibid., 165.

  listening to Big Ben chime: Ibid., 65.

  “It is the fault of your country”: Ibid., 100.

  Hélène de Portes directing traffic: Ibid., 190.

  French government abandoned Paris: Ibid., 202.

  Hélène de Portes again: Ibid., 196.

  Weygand again: Ibid., 124.

  Churchill on flight to Briare: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, 139–41.

  Meeting at Briare: Supreme War Council minutes, June 11, 1940, 99/3; Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Hastings Ismay, 136–41; Eden, The Reckoning, 114–17; Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, 140–71; Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 130–36; Reynaud, In the Thick of the Fight, 493–99.

  Spears and Pétain have a second talk: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, 83.

  De Gaulle had noticed a new current: Charles de Gaulle, The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle (New York: Da Capo, 1967), 64.

  Secret cable found in Héléne de Portes’s bed: Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, 195.

  Meeting at Tours: Supreme War Council Minutes, June 13, 1940, 99/3; Reynaud, In the Thick of the Fight, 494–500; De Gaulle, The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, 68; Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe, vol. 2, 202–10; Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Hastings Ismay, 143–45; Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 154–58.

  “My country is bleeding to death”: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 535–36.

  A visit to occupied Paris: Shirer, Berlin Diary, 412–18.

  Shirer drove up to Compiègne: Ibid., 419–24.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: LAND OF HOPE AND GLORY

  Discussion outside Hanlon’s: Mass Observation, Capitulation Talk in Worktown (code name for Bolton), June 18, 1940.

  “From the moment you woke up”: Calder, The People’s War, 111.

  Visit to a chemist’s shop: Mass Observation, Capitulation Talk in Worktown, June 18, 1940.

  Home Intelligence Committee: Esnouf, British Government War Aims, 273–74.

  Churchill sounded “drunk”: Mass Observation, Morale Today, June 19, 1940.

  Churchill’s secret session speech: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 378–80.

  “Nil”: Premier Papers, June 21, 1940, 3/179.

  American aid as of June 1940: Reynolds, The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance, 109. The figures Ismay presented to Churchill—192,600 rifles and 89 million rounds of ammunition—are somewhat smaller than those cited by Reynolds, but the difference between the two figures may be because they count American aid from different periods in the summer of 1940.

  American skepticism about Britain’s survival: Ibid., 111–15.

  Hans Thomsen and Hamilton Fish: Chargé d’affaires, German embassy, Washington to German Foreign Ministry, Most Urgent, Top Secret, Telegram no. 1150, June 12, 1940.

  British reaction to articles of French surrender: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 398.

  British attack on Mers-el-Kébir: P. M. H. Bell, France and Britain, 1940–1994: The Long Separation (London: Longmans, 1997), 19–25; Martin Thomas, “After Mers-el-Kébir: The Armed Neutrality of the Vichy French Navy, 1940–43,” English Historical Review 112, no. 447 (1997): 642–70; “Mers-el-Kébir: A Battle Between Friends,” 2003, www.militaryhistoryonline.com/; Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 201–5.

  Interview with André Jaffre, survivor of Mers-el-Kébir attack: Daily Mail, February 5, 2010.

  Reaction to attack on the French Fleet: Home Intelligence, July 4, 1940.

  “All regions express widespread approval”: Ibid., July 5, 1940.

  Mers-el-Kébir impresses Roosevelt: Gilbert, Finest Hour, 643–44.

  “The elimination of the French Navy”: Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 205.

  Halifax and the Swedish approach: Ponting, 1940, 113–16.

  he had come halfway to Churchill’s position: In an article in the July 28, 1940, Sunday Pictorial, the former prime minister wrote: “We first have to prove to Hitler’s satisfaction that this combination [of air, sea, and ground defenses] is invincible.” See also Taylor, Lloyd George, 378.

  Report of Charles Gardner: Calder, The People’s War, 143; Home Intelligence, July 15, 1940.

  Hitler reduces size of army: Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang, The Burning Blue: A New History of the Battle of Britain (London: Faber and Faber, 2011), 16.

  Hitler leaves invasion option open: Ibid., 268–69.

  Senior British military officials express doubts: Esnouf, British Government War Aims, 265; Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 283; Macleod and Kelly, Time Unguarded, 365; Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, 155.

  Profile of Dowding: Korda, With Wings Like Eagles, 132, 151–52; The Herald (Scotland), September 8, 2000.

  Commander of the Home Fleet refuses to take his ships south: Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Hastings Ismay, 188–89.

  Number of German and British fighters: Terraine, A Time for Courage, 170–81.

  Public ownership and views: The public’s growing ownership of the war and views on how it should be fought begins to become apparent in the mid-July morale reports of Home Intelligence. July 16: “Evidence suggests that . . . the public in raided areas are becoming acclimatized to air raids. Damage is accepted philosophically.” July 17: “Growing criticism of lack of details published about air raid casualties. General agreement that raid warnings should not be sounded for lone raiders. Widespread view that many local authorities are not providing facilities for collecting and separating waste.”

  “People laughed and jeered”: Home Intelligence, July 20, 1940.

  Lee and his view of Britain’s prospects: James Leutze, ed., The London Journal of General Raymond E. Lee, 1940–1941 (Boston: Little Brown, 1971), 36–38.

  Kennedy’s briefing to visiting military dignitaries: Ibid., 36–38.

  Lee visits Dowding at Fighter Command: Ibid., 30.

  First German attack of Eagle Day: Richard Collier, Eagle Day: The Battle of Britain (New York: Dutton, 1966), 81–83
.

  August 14, 1940, Eagle Day plus one: Ibid., 75; Terraine, A Time for Courage, 186.

  “Wipe” the RAF from the sky: Addison and Crang, The Burning Blue, 59.

  Attack of August 15, 1940: T. D. C. James, The Battle of Britain, vol. 2, The Air Defense of Britain (New York: Routledge, 2000), 85.

  attack on Tyneside: Collier, Eagle Day, 83–85.

  Second attack on Eastchurch: James, The Battle of Britain, 61, 86–87; Collier, Eagle Day, 86.

  attack on Croyden: James, The Battle of Britain, 91.

  Churchill and Ismay visit Fighter Command: Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Hastings Ismay, 180–83.

  Air war in late August and early September: James, The Battle of Britain, 100–130.

  Isaiah Berlin on Churchill: Isaiah Berlin, “Mr. Churchill,” The Atlantic, September 1949.

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  INDEX

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