Finest Years (14 page)

He inspired more equivocal sentiments in his ministers and service chiefs. They were obliged to endure his monologues, and sometimes rambling reminiscences, when it would have been more useful for him to heed their reports and – so they thought – their opinions. ‘
Winston feasts on the sound
of his adjectives,' wrote Charles Wilson, ‘he likes to use four or five words all with the same meaning as an old man shows you his orchids; not to show them off, but just because he loves them. The people in his stories do not come to life; they are interred in a great sepulchre of words…So it happens that his audience, tired by the long day, only wait for the chance to slip off to bed, leaving Winston still talking to those who have hesitated to get up and go.'

His changeability, sometimes on matters of the utmost gravity, exasperated those who themselves bore large responsibilities. Ian Jacob observed: ‘
No one could predict
what his mind would be on any problem.' It was galling for an exhausted general or administrator, denied the prime minister's powers of choosing his hours, to hear that Churchill could not discuss vital matters in the afternoon, because a note bearing the sacrosanct word ‘Resting' was pinned to
his bedroom door. Then the hapless officer or minister found himself summoned to do business at midnight or later.

The most damaging criticism of Churchill made by important people was that he was intolerant of evidence unless it conformed to his own instinct, and was sometimes wilfully irrational. Displays of supreme wisdom were interspersed with outbursts of childish petulance. Yet when the arguments were over, the shouting done, on important matters he usually deferred to reason. In much the same way, subordinates exasperated by his excesses in ‘normal' times – insofar as war admitted any – marvelled at the manner in which the prime minister rose to crisis. Bad news brought out the best in him. Disasters inspired responses which compelled recognition of his greatness. Few colleagues doubted his genius, and all admired his unswerving commitment to waging war. John Martin wrote of ‘
the ferment of ideas
, the persistence in flogging proposals, the goading of commanders to attack – these were all expressions of that blazing, explosive energy without which the vast machine, civilian as well as military, could not have been moved forward so steadily or steered through so many setbacks and difficulties'. Churchill conducted the affairs of his nation with a self-belief which was sometimes misplaced, but which offered an elixir of hope to those chronically troubled by rational fears. Amid Britain's sea of troubles, he represented a beacon of warmth and humanity, as well as of will and supreme courage, for which most of even the most exalted and sceptical of his fellow countrymen acknowledged gratitude.

A widespread illusion persists that in 1940 Churchill broadcast constantly to the British people. In reality he delivered only seven speeches through the BBC between May and December, roughly one a month. But the impact of these was enormous upon a nation which in those days clung to its radio receivers as storm-bound sailors once lashed themselves to the masts of their ships. There were no advancing British armies to follow on the map, no fleets reporting victories. Instead the prime minister's rolling periods, his invincible certainties in a world of raving tyrants, anchored his people and their island.

Few interventions of his own that summer were more significant than that which he made on 23 August, at the height of the perceived peril of German invasion. Britain's threadbare defences were further denuded by the dispatch to Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell's Middle East Command of 154 priceless tanks, to resist the anticipated Italian assault on Egypt. Besides the armour, forty-eight twenty-five-pounder guns, twenty Bofors, 500 Brens and 250 anti-tank rifles were sent. This was one of Churchill's most difficult decisions of the war. Eden and Dill deserve credit for urging it, at first in the face of the prime minister's doubts. It is impossible that they could have made such a commitment without a profound, almost perverse, belief that Hitler would not risk invasion – and perhaps also a recognition that Britain's defence rested overwhelmingly on the Royal Navy and RAF rather than the army.

It is not surprising that an ignorant civilian such as ‘Chips' Channon should have written on 16 September of expecting ‘
almost certain invasion
'. It is more remarkable that Britain's military commanders and intelligence chiefs shared this fear, supposing that a massive German descent might take place without warning. Amphibious operations, opposed landings where port facilities are unavailable, do not require mere mechanical transfers of troops from sea to shore. They rank among the most difficult and complex of all operations of war. Two years of planning and preparation were needed in advance of the return to France of Allied armies in June 1944. It is true that in the summer of 1940 Britain lay almost naked, while four years later Hitler's Atlantic Wall was formidably fortified and garrisoned. In 1940 Britain lacked the deep penetration of German wireless traffic which was attained later in the war, so that the chiefs of staff had only the patchiest picture of the Wehrmacht's movements on the Continent.

Nonetheless it remains extraordinary that, at every suitable tide until late autumn, Britain's commanders feared that a German army might arrive on the southern or eastern coast. The navy warned – though the prime minister disbelieved them – that the Germans might achieve a surprise landing of 100,000 men. The most significant enemy preparation for invasion was the assembly of 1,918 barges on the Dutch coast. Hitler's military planners envisaged putting ashore a first wave of three airborne regiments, nine divisions – and 125,000 horses

– between Ramsgate and Lyme Bay, a commitment for which available shipping was wholly inadequate. Another serious problem, never resolved, was that the Wehrmacht's desired initial dawn landing required an overnight Channel passage. It would be almost impossible to embark troops and concentrate barges without attracting British notice. The German fleet, never strong, had been gravely weakened by its losses in the Norwegian campaign. The defenders would be granted at least six hours of darkness in which to engage German
invasion convoys, free from Luftwaffe intervention. The Royal Navy deployed around twenty destroyers at Harwich, and a similar force at Portsmouth, together with powerful cruiser elements. Channel invasion convoys would have suffered shocking, probably fatal losses. Once daylight came, German pilots had shown themselves much more skilful than those of the RAF and Fleet Air Arm in delivering attacks on shipping. The defending warships would have been badly battered. But for a German amphibious armada, the risk of destruction was enormous. The Royal Navy, outnumbering the German fleet ten to one, provided that decisive deterrent to
Sealion
.

The British, however, with the almost sole exception of the prime minister, perceived all the perils on their own side. Dill, the CIGS, seemed ‘
like all the other soldiers
…very worried and anxious about the invasion, feeling that the troops are not trained and may not be steady'. Brooke, as C-in-C Home Forces, wrote on 2 July of ‘
the nakedness of our defences
'. The Royal Navy was apprehensive that if German landings began, it might not receive adequate support from the RAF. Admiral Sir Ernle Drax, C-in-C Nore, expressed himself ‘
not satisfied that…the co-operation
of our fighters was assured'.

The service chiefs were justified in fearing the outcome if German forces secured a beachhead. Alan Brooke believed, probably rightly, that if invaders got ashore, Churchill would seek to take personal command of the ground battle – with disastrous consequences. In the absence of a landing, of course, the prime minister was able to perform his extraordinary moral function. The British generals' fears of an unheralded assault reflected the trauma which defeat in France had inflicted upon them. It distorted their judgement about the limits of the possible, even for Hitler's Wehrmacht. Churchill, by contrast, was always doubtful about whether the enemy would come. He grasped the key issue: that invasion would represent a far greater gamble than Germany's 10 May attack in the West. Operation
Sealion
could not partially succeed. It must achieve fulfilment, or fail absolutely. Given Hitler's mastery of the Continent, and the impotence of the British Army, he had no need to stake everything upon such a throw.

But the prime minister was committed body and soul to prosecution of the war. In the summer and autumn of 1940, preparing a defence against invasion was not merely essential, it represented almost the only military activity of which Britain was capable. It was
vital to incite the British people. If they were allowed to lapse into passivity, staring fearfully at the array of German might, allconquering beyond the Channel, who could say whether their will for defiance would persist? One of Churchill's great achievements in those months was to convince every man and woman in the country that they had roles to play in the greatest drama in their history, even if the practical utility of their actions and preparations was often pathetically small. Young Lt. Robert Hichens of the Royal Navy wrote: ‘
I feel an immense joy
at being British, the only people who have stood up to the air war blackmail.'

Between 24 August and 6 September the Luftwaffe launched 600 sorties a day. British civilians were now dying in hundreds. Devastation mounted remorselessly. Yet 7 September marked the turning point of the Battle of Britain. Goering switched his attacks from the RAF's airfields to the city of London. A sterile debate persists about whether Britain or Germany first provoked attacks on each other's cities.
On 25 August
, following civilian casualties caused by Luftwaffe bombs falling on Croydon, Churchill personally ordered that the RAF's Bomber Command should retaliate against Berlin. Some senior RAF officers resisted, on the grounds that such an attack, by the forces available, could make little impact and would probably incite the Germans to much more damaging action against British urban areas. Churchill overruled them, saying: ‘They had bombed London, whether on purpose or not, and the British people and London especially should know that we could hit back. It would be good for the morale of us all.' Some fifty British bombers were dispatched to Berlin, and a few bombs fell on the city. Though the material damage was negligible, the Nazi leadership was indeed moved to urge a devastating response against London, though this would assuredly have come anyway.

On the night of 7 September, 200 Luftwaffe aircraft raided the capital. Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, commanding 11 Group, wrote on 8 September: ‘It was burning all down the river. It was a horrid sight. But I looked down and said: “Thank God for that.”' Next day, Churchill visited the capital's stricken East End. He saw misery and
destruction, but knew how vastly these were to be preferred in Bethnal Green and Hackney than at Biggin Hill airfield or the south coast radar sites. The Germans had made a decisive strategic error. Thereafter, urban centres of Britain paid a heavy price for the Luftwaffe's raids, first by day and then by night. Daylight fighting continued over southern England until the end of October. But never again was Fighter Command's survival in doubt. In a broadcast on 11 September, Churchill told the British people that the German air force had ‘failed conspicuously' to gain air mastery over southern England. As for invasion, ‘We cannot be sure that they will try at all.' But the danger persisted, and every precaution must be taken.

On 12 September, when the prime minister visited Dungeness and North Foreland on the Kent coast with the C-in-C Home Forces, Alan Brooke wrote: ‘His popularity is astounding, everywhere crowds rush up and cheer him wildly.' US general Raymond Lee perceived an improvement of temper even among the governing class, formerly so sceptical of Britain's prospects. He wrote in his diary on 15 September: ‘
Thank God…the defeatist opinions
expressed after Dunkirk are now no longer prevalent.' On 17 September, Churchill told the Commons that in future its sessions should not be advertised beforehand: ‘We ought not to flatter ourselves by imagining that we are irreplaceable,' he said, addressing his fellow MPs in masterly language which suggested that he was confiding in a band of brothers, ‘but at the same time it cannot be denied that two or three hundred by-elections would be a quite needless complication of our affairs at this particular juncture.'

Once more, he asserted serene confidence: ‘I feel as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that we shall be victorious.' He harangued Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare, with what that assiduous diarist described as his ‘
usual vigorous rhetorical
good sense', pacing up and down his room the while: ‘This is a workman's war…The public will stand everything except optimism…The nation is finding the war not so unpleasant as it expected…The air attacks are doing much less damage than was expected before the war began…Don't be like the knight in the story who was so slow in
buckling on his armour that the tourney was over before he rode into the ring.'