The Day We Went to War (17 page)

4.00pm, W
ORTHING

‘Worthing, being a safe zone, has had over 10,000 evacuees billeted on the inhabitants from London. On Saturday afternoon Schofield and I helped billet some Bermondsey blind people. We both felt how terrible it was that so much money, time and trouble was taken to help these poor, old, ill, blind people, while we send healthy, young, virile people to be killed.’ (Joan Strange)

4.00pm (5.00pm), P
OLAND

‘We couldn’t think of sleep last night, we felt too insecure. Death might lurk anywhere. We drove all the men out of their hovels at the point of the bayonet. To call them dwellings would be going too far. I was lucky enough to get the job of searching all the inhabitants for arms. At the end of the job I shuddered at my own fingers. After the search we shut all the men in a large barn and posted a strong guard. We found no weapons. The Pole is a cowardly fanatic. This sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it is none the less true.

‘The Pole’ homes are almost all filthy and utterly neglected. Open a door to search for weapons and you meet a solid wall of stench. One’s gas mask comes in useful when searching these houses. This afternoon the attack continued . . . in a nearby place twenty soldiers were murdered by the inhabitants. The order was given to set fire to all the villages. We are not putting up with any more nonsense from the Poles.’ (Corporal Wilhelm Krey, 13th Artillery Observation Battery, German Army)

4.15pm, E
LYSÉE
P
ALACE
, P
ARIS

Jean Zay, Daladier’s thirty-five-year-old education minister, announces his intention of resigning his cabinet post to rejoin his regiment. His colleague, the pugnacious Minister of Finance, Paul Reynaud, is dead set against the Italian proposal for a five-power conference. It was first mooted two days ago, and Count Ciano’s ’phone call to Bonnet an hour or so ago has breathed new life into it. Reynaud, in forthright language, tells the Council of Ministers, ‘If we go crawling to Rome on our knees, we’ll be docile sheep offering our necks to the butcher’s knife. For one of two things might happen: either we’ll be defeated without a war, or much worse, we shall have lost our honour without winning the peace. If there is still time left, the only way to avoid a slap on the face is to put up our fists instead of turning the cheek.’

4.15pm, 10 D
OWNING
S
TREET

Chamberlain and his ministers meet. They are told of the proposal from Mussolini for a five-power conference to try and settle the current crisis. But the British attitude is that there must be a withdrawal of German forces from Polish soil before any such conference can take place. This they are all agreed upon. The ministers also discuss a French proposal to postpone sending an ultimatum to the Germans for another forty-eight hours. The British chiefs of staff are firmly against such a delay. So too is Secretary of State for War Leslie Hore-Belisha, who thinks any delay ‘might result in breaking the unity of the country’ as ‘public opinion was against yielding an inch’. He also thinks that Italy is acting in collusion with Germany and that various troop movements lend support to this view. Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald agrees with the War Minister. Lord Halifax, however, still thinks the time limit should be extended to midnight on 3/4 September, ‘if this would facilitate consideration of a conference’. But he is in a minority of one. The Cabinet decide that the ultimatum should expire at midnight tonight.

4.30pm, L
IVERPOOL

The SS
Athenia
slips anchor and begins the hour-long run down the Mersey on the first stage of her 2,625-mile voyage to Canada. She is now carrying 1,102 passengers; 469 Canadians, 311 Americans, some 150 European refugees and the rest British and Irish citizens. Among the Europeans are thirty-four Germans, including a handful of Jews, escaping from persecution to seek a new life in North America. The
Athenia
is carrying a cargo of 880 tons, including 472 tons of bricks. There are also fifty pairs of curling stones and a batch of text-books for Toronto schoolchildren.

4.30pm, O
LYMPIA
E
XHIBITION
H
ALL
, K
ENSINGTON

Anti-Nazi German Jewish refugee Eugen Spier has just been arrested at his flat by two plain-clothes Scotland Yard officers and brought here by car. No charge has been made against him and no judicial warrant for his arrest has been issued. The police officers, who arrived at Spier’s flat just as he was writing to the Home Office to offer his services to the British Government, tell him that his arrest is ‘required under Royal Prerogative’. He is mystified as to why he has been arrested.

5.00pm, B
OLTON

A local dance-band leader tells an observer from Mass Observation, ‘I’ve been calm all week, but yesterday I listened to the news bulletin and I got a bad dose of the jitters. I read somewhere that they’re going to move London to Canada, and I can well believe it.’

5.00pm, N
ATIONAL
G
ALLERY
, T
RAFALGAR
S
QUARE

The last of the Gallery’s paintings have just left, evacuated to Aberystwyth. In view of the expected devastating air raid on London, Director Sir Kenneth Clark suggests to his remaining staff that it might be appropriate to go to St Paul’s. Two taxis are flagged down and the small party make their way to the Cathedral. On arrival,
they are greeted by a posse of vergers shouting, ‘All out! All out!’ Sir Kenneth tries to remonstrate with them. As war is almost upon us, he tells the vergers, many people will want to visit the Cathedral for prayer and solemn meditation. In a few hours St Paul’s itself may be destroyed by bombs. His words cut no ice. The vergers carry on shouting, ‘All out! All out!’ And it dawns on Sir Kenneth that they are not acting out panic. It is simply the Cathedral’s official closing time. ‘It would have been,’ Clark believes, ‘different in the Middle Ages.’

5.00pm, A
RSENAL
F
OOTBALL
S
TADIUM
, H
IGHBURY

Daily Express
Editor Arthur Christiansen, finding nothing to do at the office, has come to see Arsenal play Sunderland. Arsenal thrash Sunderland five goals to two, with Ted Drake scoring four of their goals.

5.00pm, T
AKELEY

Moyra Charlton and her mother are at the village hall. All afternoon they have been busy buttering bread, slicing cake, and generally getting ready for the evacuees’ arrival. There has been no shortage of helpers and ‘people are willing and generous to the extreme’. But the Charltons keep getting conflicting reports as to when the evacuees will be arriving. Moyra and Mrs Charlton decide to have tea themselves. Just as they do, a rumour goes round that no children will be coming today. But at that very moment, two buses roll into the village with sixty-five children on board. They are fed and then allotted to homes in the village. Moyra is told that another 206 will be coming tomorrow. If they do come, she thinks, ‘we will have our work cut out’.

5.00pm (6.00pm), P
OLSKIE
R
ADIO
S
TATION
, W
ARSAW

Polish radio broadcasts a denial that the Germans have suspended military operations. This refutes the rumour that the Poles have heard is going round the French Chamber of Deputies, and which threatens to weaken France’s resolve to help Poland.

Pictures and empty frames lying on the floor, awaiting evacuation at the National Gallery. The last of the Gallery’s paintings left on the afternoon of 2 September 1939. During this time 3,453 commercial firms also left London.

A column of German tanks advancing in Poland. Six Panzer (armoured) Divisions, employing over 2,000 tanks, took part in the German invasion.

5.00pm (6.00pm), M
IELESZYN
, G
ERMAN
-P
OLISH
B
ORDER

In the main street of the small village, SS men first shoot and then bayonet sixty-year-old Tomasz Pasek. Moving on, they now force Jan Maczka, the village storekeeper, to open up his shop. He is then bayoneted to death.

6.00pm, F
RENCH
F
OREIGN
O
FFICE
, Q
UAI D’
O
RSAY
, P
ARIS

Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet receives Polish ambassador Juliusz Lukasiewicz. The emotionally pent-up diplomat demands to know when France will honour its obligations to his country. Bonnet comes up with the excuse that nothing can be done as yet. The evacuation of women and children from Paris has not been completed, he tells the Pole. ‘Do you then want the women and children of Paris to be massacred?’ Bonnet asks the ambassador. Lukasiewicz, only too aware that Polish towns and cities are already being bombed, protests indignantly. He tells Bonnet that the French air force and anti-aircraft defences are surely strong enough to protect Paris. Each hour’s delay is only helping the Germans in their invasion. Bonnet fobs off the ambassador with a promise to speed things up.

6.00pm, H
OUSE OF
C
OMMONS

MPs gather to hear Chamberlain make a statement. Every seat is occupied and many MPs have to stand. All the galleries are packed. But the Prime Minister fails to appear and MPs are told that he will now make his statement at 7.30pm. Many adjourn to the members’ bars for ‘Dutch courage’.

6.30pm (7.30pm), F
OREIGN
M
INISTRY
, R
OME

Count Ciano receives a ’phone call from the Foreign Office in London. The Italian foreign minister is told that Britain cannot agree to the five-power conference taking place unless German forces withdraw completely from Poland. In his diary, the Count writes, ‘the last glimmer of hope has died’. He also notes that Mussolini
is convinced of the need to remain neutral, but the Duce is not at all pleased about it. The Italian people, however, are ‘unequivocally happy’ that their country is not marching at Hitler’s side. And so too is Ciano himself.

7.00pm, B
RITISH
E
MBASSY
, P
ARIS

Ambassador Sir Eric Phipps is telephoned by Lord Halifax. The Foreign Secretary tells Sir Eric to circumvent Bonnet and see Daladier himself. He is to impress on the French premier the need to act quickly. Britain and France must be seen to be acting in concert. Sir Eric agrees to do so, but warns Halifax that the French will say any action is impossible until both their mobilisation and evacuation are completed.

7.30pm, T
HE
E
LYSÉE
P
ALACE
, P
ARIS

The Council of Ministers meet. They agree with Commander-in-Chief General Gamelin’s request for more time to complete mobilisation, but there is dissension among them. Some, like Paul Reynaud and the tough colonial minister Georges Mandel, are all for immediate and concerted action with the British. They deplore the ongoing disagreement with London over the timing of the ultimatum. Others, like the pro-Italian and fervent appeaser Minister of Public Works Anatole de Monzie think, ‘For once we can afford the luxury of being a step behind the British.’

7.30pm, SS
A
THENIA
, S
IXTY-TWO MILES OUT FROM
L
IVERPOOL

The liner is being blacked out as dinner is served. Passenger Barbara Bailey tells Chief Radio Officer D. Don that she thinks the liner is too crowded. ‘Don’t worry,’ he reassures her, ‘there’ll be a lifebelt for you.’

7.30pm,
THE
N
EW
T
HEATRE
, S
T
M
ARTIN’S
L
ANE
, L
ONDON

Chelsea teenager Joan Wyndham has heard the news that because of the danger of air raids, the Government is going to close all places of entertainment, so she has rushed here to get a gallery seat to see John Gielgud and Edith Evans in
The Importance of Being Earnest
. Joan thinks that the people in the streets seem quite cheerful. She is struck too by the fact that those in the gallery queue are all talking to each other, ‘which is very unusual for the English!’