The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (23 page)

T
HE ATTACKS ON
B
ERLIN DID
indeed enrage Hitler. On Saturday, August 31, he shed his prior reluctance and ordered his air chief, Göring, to begin preparations for an assault on London itself. The attack, Hitler instructed, was to reduce enemy morale while still maintaining focus on targets of strategic value. He did not, as yet, wish to cause “mass panic.” But Hitler understood as well as anyone that given the inherent inaccuracy of bombing, attacks against strategic targets within London would be tantamount to targeting civilian districts outright.

Two days later, Göring issued a directive to the Luftwaffe
.
Once again he envisioned a cataclysmic raid of such extraordinary proportion that Churchill would capitulate or be evicted from office. Göring craved revenge on the English for humiliating his air force, and was delighted at the prospect of unleashing the full power of his armada against the English capital. This time he would bring Britain to heel.

A
S
G
ÖRING READIED HIS
aerial onslaught, and preparations continued for the invasion of England, Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, grew increasingly concerned about the intensifying conflict. Thus far he had made no progress in fulfilling Hitler’s wish that he somehow bring about the collapse of Churchill’s government. That the two empires should clash struck Hess as fundamentally wrong.

On August 31, he met with a friend and mentor, Professor Karl Haushofer, a leading political scientist whose theories informed Hitler’s worldview but whose personal life placed him on precarious ground: His wife was half Jewish. To protect Haushofer’s two sons, Hess, despite his own hatred of Jews, had declared both to be “honorary Aryans.”

Hess and Haushofer spoke for nine hours, during which Hess alerted his friend to the increasing likelihood that Germany would invade England. The two discussed the idea of delivering a peace proposal to London through a British intermediary, someone with close connections among appeasement-minded members of Churchill’s government, with the goal of sparking a parliamentary rebellion against the prime minister.

Three days after this meeting, Professor Haushofer wrote a delicately worded letter to one of his sons, Albrecht, who was an important adviser to both Hitler and Hess, and an Anglophile who spoke perfect English. The elder Haushofer expressed his concerns about the looming invasion and asked his son if it might not be possible to arrange a meeting in a neutral location with an influential middleman to discuss ways of averting further conflict with England. He knew that his son had befriended a prominent Scotsman, the Duke of Hamilton, and now suggested approaching him.

It was important to act quickly. “
As you know,” Professor Haushofer wrote, “everything is so prepared for a very hard and severe attack on the island in question that the highest ranking person only has to press a button to set it off.”

I
N THE
U
NITED
S
TATES,
a final obstacle to the destroyers-for-bases deal was cleared when a lawyer with the State Department came up with a compromise that would let both Churchill and Roosevelt portray the arrangement in the manner each deemed most palatable to his countrymen.

The Newfoundland and Bermuda bases would be classified as a gift granted in acknowledgment of Britain’s “friendly and sympathetic interest in the national security of the United States.” Leases on the remaining bases would serve as payment for the destroyers, but no cash value would be assigned to any particular asset, thereby limiting each side’s ability to calculate comparative worth. It was clear enough that America was getting the better deal, without providing critics too easy an opportunity to demonstrate the disparity with hard numbers. And, indeed, the American press hailed it as a coup for the president, the kind of hard bargain that appealed to America’s sense of itself as a nation adept at doing things in a businesslike manner. As the Louisville
Courier-Journal
put it, “
We haven’t had a better bargain since the Indians sold Manhattan Island for $24 in wampum and a demi john of hard liquor.”

Britain’s ambassador, Lord Lothian, and U.S. secretary of state Cordell Hull signed the agreement on Monday, September 2. Two days later, the first eight destroyers were moored in Halifax Harbor, at which point their new British crews began to appreciate how much work was needed just to make them seaworthy, let alone battle-ready.
As one American officer put it, their hulls were barely thick enough “to keep out the water and small fish.”

For Churchill, however, the quality of the destroyers was to a large extent beside the point. As a navy man, he had to have known that the ships were too antique to be of much use. What mattered, rather, was that he had gotten Roosevelt’s attention, and perhaps nudged him a step closer to full involvement in the war. Just how much longer Roosevelt would be president, however, was an open question. The American presidential election was to take place two months hence, on November 5, and Churchill fervently hoped Roosevelt would win, but this outcome was by no means certain. A Gallup Poll released on September 3 showed that 51 percent of Americans favored Roosevelt in the upcoming election; 49 percent preferred Wendell Willkie. Given margins of error in polling, the two candidates were running neck and neck.

But in America, the tilt toward isolationism was gaining momentum and intensity. On September 4, a group of Yale Law students founded the America First Committee to oppose involvement in the war. The organization grew quickly, winning the energetic support of no less a celebrity than Charles Lindbergh, a national hero ever since his 1927 flight across the Atlantic. And Willkie, urged by Republican leaders to do whatever he could to pull ahead in the presidential election, was about to change strategy and make the war—and fear—the central issue in the campaign.

O
N
W
EDNESDAY,
S
EPTEMBER 4,
H
ITLER
stepped to the rostrum at the Berlin Sportpalast, where some years earlier he had made his first speech as chancellor of Germany. Now he prepared to speak to a huge audience of female social workers and nurses, ostensibly to honor the opening of the year’s War Winter Relief campaign—Kriegswinterhilfswerk
—
to raise money to provide food, heat, and clothing to impoverished Germans. He used the opportunity, however, to launch a tirade against Britain for its recent air attacks against Germany. “
Mr. Churchill,” he said, “is demonstrating his new brain child, the night air raid.”

Hitler decried such raids as being cowardly, unlike the daylight sorties conducted by the Luftwaffe. He told his audience that thus far he had tempered his reaction to the British raids, in hopes that Churchill would reconsider and halt them. “But Herr Churchill saw in this a sign of weakness,” Hitler said. “You will understand that we are now answering, night for night. And when the British air force drops two or three or four thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will in one night drop 150- 230- 300- or 400,000 kilograms.”

At this, wrote American correspondent William Shirer, a great roar rose from the crowd and forced Hitler to pause.

He waited for the clamor to subside, then said, “
When they declare that they will increase their attacks on our cities, then we will raze
their
cities to the ground.” He vowed to “stop the handiwork of these air pirates, so help us God.”

The women leapt to their feet, Shirer wrote in his diary, “and, their breasts heaving, screamed their approval.”

Hitler continued: “The hour will come when one of us will break, and it will not be National Socialist Germany.”

The crowd erupted in a deafening tumult, crying “NEVER! NEVER!”

“In England, they’re filled with curiosity and keep asking: ‘Why doesn’t he come?’ ” Hitler said, infusing every gesture with irony. “Be calm. Be calm. He’s coming! He’s coming!”

The laughter from the audience verged on the maniacal.

Churchill offered a bloody rejoinder: That night an RAF bomb fell on Berlin’s lovely main park, the Tiergarten, killing a policeman.

A
T
C
ARINHALL, IN THE
peaceful German countryside, Hermann Göring and his Luftwaffe commanders mapped out a concise, tersely worded plan of attack for “the destruction of London.”

The initial raid was scheduled to begin at six
P.M.,
followed by “the main attack” at six-forty. The purpose of the first raid was to draw RAF fighters into the air, so that by the time the main wave of bombers arrived, the British defenders would be running out of fuel and ammunition.

Three fleets of bombers, guarded by a large screen of fighters, would set out from three locations on the channel’s French coast and proceed on a straight-line course to London. The fighters would accompany the bombers all the way to the city and back. “In view of the fact that the fighters will be operating at the limit of their endurance,” the plan said, “it is essential that direct courses be flown and the attack completed in minimum time.” The plan called for maximum force, with aircraft flying at staggered altitudes. “The intention is to complete the operation in a single attack.”

With so many aircraft in the air, it was imperative that the pilots also know how to orchestrate their return. After dropping their bombs, the formations were to turn left and return along a course different from the one they had followed to England, to avoid colliding with bombers still making their approach.

“To achieve the necessary maximum effect it is essential that units fly as highly concentrated forces during approach, attack, and especially on return,” the plan said. “The main objective of the operation is to prove that the Luftwaffe can achieve this.”

The date was set for September 7, 1940, a Saturday.
Göring told Goebbels the war would be over in three weeks.

A
MONG THE BOMBER GROUPS
assigned to take part was a special unit called KGr 100, one of three groups known as “pathfinders.” Its crews were specialized in flying along Germany’s navigational beams, taking advantage of a technology even more advanced than the
Knickebein
system, which was proving problematic. The genius of
Knickebein
was its simplicity and the fact that it used familiar technology. Every German bomber pilot knew how to use ordinary Lorenz blind-landing equipment when approaching an airfield, and every bomber had the system aboard. To use
Knickebein,
pilots just had to fly higher and follow the central beam for longer distances. But something seemed to have gone amiss. Pilots reported mysterious beam distortions and lost signals, and were growing distrustful of the system. A major raid against Liverpool on the night of August 29 had been severely and mysteriously disrupted, with only about 40 percent of the dispatched bombers reaching their targets. It seemed likely that British intelligence had discovered the
Knickebein
secret.

Happily, another technology, this one even more advanced, remained as secret as ever, as best anyone could tell.
German scientists had developed another method of beam navigation, called
X-Verfahren,
or “X-system,” that was much more precise but also much more complicated. It, too, relied on the transmission of Lorenz-like dash and dot signals, but instead of just one intersecting beam, it incorporated three, these much narrower, and thought to be harder for RAF listeners to detect. The first beam to cross the bomber’s course was merely a warning signal, meant to alert its wireless operator that a second, more crucial intersection was coming soon. Upon hearing that second signal, a crew member turned on a mechanism that calibrated the plane’s exact ground speed. Soon afterward the bomber crossed a third, and final, intersecting beam, at which point the crew started a timer that controlled the plane’s bomb-release mechanisms so that the plane would disgorge its bombs at exactly the moment necessary to hit the target.

The system was effective, but because it demanded highly skilled and trained crews, the Luftwaffe formed a special bomber group, KGr 100, to use it. For the system to work, the aircraft had to fly precisely on course, at a steady speed and at the calibrated altitude, until it reached its target, leaving it vulnerable to attack. This made for some hair-raising moments, but bombers using the system flew at very high altitudes to pick up the beam, well beyond the range of searchlights and barrage balloons, and had little risk, at least at night, of being intercepted by RAF fighters. The group’s aircraft were painted matte black on every surface to make them all the more difficult to locate in darkness; this also imparted an aura of menace. Trials at a test range on a lake near Frankfurt found that crews could place bombs within a hundred yards of a target. As early as December 1939, the group had made three test flights to London with no bombs aboard.

Over time the Luftwaffe developed a new tactic to take advantage of KGr 100’s special abilities. The group’s bombers would take the lead during raids, arriving first to mark targets by dropping a mix of incendiary and high-explosive bombs that ignited immense fires to guide the pilots following behind. The glow was visible even through clouds.
The group’s zone of operations was expanded to include London.

O
N
F
RIDAY EVENING,
S
EPTEMBER 6,
Churchill left 10 Downing for Chequers, where, after his usual nap, he had dinner with Pug Ismay and his two top generals, John Dill, chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Alan Brooke, commander in chief of Home Forces.

Dinner began at nine. The talk centered on the potential for invasion, and there was much to discuss. Intercepted signals and reconnaissance photos suggested that concrete preparations for an invasion had begun and were rapidly progressing. That weekend, British intelligence counted 270 barges at the Belgian port city of Ostend, where just a week earlier there had been only 18. One hundred barges arrived at Flushing (Vlissingen) on Holland’s North Sea coast. Reconnaissance aircraft spotted many more vessels converging on channel ports. Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee assessed that the coming days—in particular, September 8 through 10—would present a combination of moon and tide that would be especially conducive to an amphibious landing. On top of this came reports of increased bombing activity. That day alone, three hundred long-range bombers accompanied by four hundred fighters attacked targets in Kent and the Thames Estuary.

The conversation became animated. “
PM warmed up and was most entertaining for rest of evening,” Brooke wrote in his diary. “First of all he placed himself in the position of Hitler and attacked these isles while I defended them. He then revised the whole of the Air Raid Warning system and gave us his proposals to criticize. Finally at 1:45
A.M.
we got off to bed!”

In his diary the next day Brooke wrote, “All reports look like invasion getting nearer.” For him, as the general in charge of defending Britain from attack, the tension was great. “I do not think I can remember any time in the whole of my career when my responsibilities weighed heavier on me than they did during those days of the impending invasion,” he wrote later. The survival of Britain would rest on his preparations and his ability to direct his forces, despite what he knew to be their shortcomings in training and armament. All this, he wrote, “made the prospect of the impending conflict a burden that was almost unbearable at times.” Compounding this was the fact that he felt he could not reveal his inner concerns. Like Churchill, he understood the power and importance of outward appearance. He wrote, “There was not a soul to whom one could disclose one’s inward anxieties without risking the calamitous effects of lack of confidence, demoralization, doubts, and all those insidious workings which undermine the power of resistance.”

On that Saturday, September 7, the question before Brooke and the chiefs of staff was whether to issue the official alert, code-named “Cromwell,” that would indicate that invasion was imminent and require Brooke to mobilize his forces.