Their Finest Hour (43 page)

A month later, I was still pressing for retaliation; but one objection after another, moral and technical, obstructed it.

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air and C.A.S.

16.X.40.

I see it reported that last night a large number of land mines were dropped here, many of which have not yet gone off, and that great harm was done.

Let me have your proposals forthwith for effective retaliation upon Germany.

I am informed that it is quite possible to carry similar mines or large bombs to Germany, and that the squadrons wish to use them, but that the Air Ministry are refusing permission. I trust that due consideration will be given to my views and wishes. It is now about three weeks since I began pressing for similar treatment of German military objectives to that which they are meting out to us. Who is responsible for paralysing action?

It is difficult to compare the ordeal of the Londoners in the winter of 1940–41 with that of the Germans in the last three years of the war. In this latter phase the bombs were much more powerful and the raids far more intense. On the other hand, long preparation and German thoroughness had enabled a complete system of bomb-proof shelters to be built, into which all were forced to go by iron routine. When eventually we got into Germany, we found cities completely wrecked, but strong buildings standing up above the ground, and spacious subterranean galleries where the inhabitants slept night after night, although their houses and property were being destroyed all round. In many cases only the rubble-heaps were stirred. But in London, although the attack was less overpowering, the security arrangements were far less developed. Apart from the Tubes there were no really safe places. There were very few basements or cellars which could withstand a direct hit. Virtually the whole mass of the London population lived and slept in their homes or in their Anderson shelters under the fire of the enemy, taking their chance with British phlegm after a hard day’s work. Not one in a thousand had any protection except against blast and splinters. But there was as little psychological weakening as there was physical pestilence. Of course, if the bombs of 1943 had been applied to the London of 1940, we should have passed into conditions which might have pulverised all human organisation. However, everything happens in its turn and in its relation, and no one has a right to say that London, which was certainly unconquered, was not also unconquerable.

Little or nothing had been done before the war or during the passive period to provide bomb-proof strongholds from which the central government could be carried on. Elaborate plans had been made to move the seat of Government from London. Complete branches of many departments had already been moved to Harrogate, Bath, Cheltenham, and elsewhere. Accommodation had been requisitioned over a wide area, providing for all Ministers and important functionaries in the event of an evacuation of London. But now under the bombardment the desire and resolve of the Government and of Parliament to remain in London was unmistakable, and I shared this feeling to the full. I, like others, had often pictured the destruction becoming so overpowering that a general move and dispersal would have to be made. But under the impact of the event, all our reactions were in the contrary sense.

Prime Minister to Sir Edward Bridges, General Ismay or Colonel Jacob, and Private Office.

14.IX.40.

1. I have not at any time contemplated wholesale movement from London of black or yellow Civil Servants.
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Anything of this nature is so detrimental that it could only be forced upon us by Central London becoming practically uninhabitable. Moreover, new resorts of Civil Servants would soon be identified and harassed, and there is more shelter in London than anywhere else.

2. The movement of the high control from the Whitehall area to “Paddock” or other citadels stands on a different footing. We must make sure that the centre of Government functions harmoniously and vigorously. This would not be possible under conditions of almost continuous air raids. A movement to “Paddock” by échelons of the War Cabinet, War Cabinet Secretariat, Chiefs of the Staff Committee, and Home Forces G.H.Q. must now be planned, and may even begin in some minor respects. War Cabinet Ministers should visit their quarters in “Paddock” and be ready to move there at short notice. They should be encouraged to sleep there if they want quiet nights. Secrecy cannot be expected, but publicity must be forbidden.

We must expect that the Whitehall-Westminster area will be the subject of intensive air attack any time now. The German method is to make the disruption of the Central Government a vital prelude to any major assault upon the country. They have done this everywhere. They will certainly do it here, where the landscape can be so easily recognised, and the river and its high buildings afford a sure guide, both by day and night. We must forestall this disruption of the Central Government.

3. It is not necessary to move the Admiralty yet. They are well provided for. The Air Ministry should begin to get from one leg to the other. The War Office and Home Forces must have all their preparations made.

4. Pray concert forthwith all the necessary measures for moving not more than two or three hundred principal persons and their immediate assistants to the new quarters, and show how it should be done step by step. Let me have this by Sunday night, in order that I may put a well-thought-out scheme before the Cabinet on Monday. On Monday the Cabinet will meet either in the Cabinet Room or in the Central War Room, in accordance with the rules already prescribed.

* * * * *

On the line of sticking it out in London it was necessary to construct all kinds of strongholds under or above ground from which the Executive, with its thousands of officials, could carry out their duties. A citadel for the War Cabinet had already been prepared near Hampstead, with offices, bedrooms, and wire and fortified telephone communication. This was called “Paddock.” On September 29, I prescribed a dress rehearsal, so that everybody should know what to do if it got too hot. “I think it important that ‘Paddock’ should be broken in. Thursday next, therefore, the Cabinet will meet there. At the same time, other Departments should be encouraged to try a preliminary move of a skeleton staff. If possible, lunch should be provided for the Cabinet and those attending it.” We held a Cabinet meeting at “Paddock” far from the light of day, and each Minister was requested to inspect and satisfy himself about his sleeping and working apartments. We celebrated this occasion by a vivacious luncheon and then returned to Whitehall. This was the only time “Paddock” was ever used by Ministers. Over the War Room and offices in the basement of the Annexe we floated-in six feet of steel and concrete, and made elaborate arrangements for ventilation, water supply, and above all telephones. As these offices were far below the level of the Thames, only two hundred yards away, care had to be taken that those in them were not trapped by an inrush of water.

* * * * *

October came in raw and rough. But it seemed that London was adapting itself to the new peculiar conditions of existence or death. Even in some directions there was an easement.

Transport into and out of the Whitehall area became an outstanding problem, with the frequently repeated daily raids, the rush hour, and the breakdowns on the railways. I cast about for some solution.

Prime Minister to Sir Horace Wilson.

12.X.40.

About a fortnight ago I directed that the talk about four days a week for Civil Servants should stop, because I feared the effect in the factories of such an announcement. I am, however, now coming round to the idea of a five-day week, sleeping in for four nights (and where possible feeding in), and three nights and two days away at home. This, of course, would apply only to people who work in London and live in the suburbs. I see such queues at the bus stops, and no doubt it is going to become increasingly difficult to get in and out of London quickly. Each Department should work out a scheme to suit their own and their staff’s convenience. The same amount of work must be crowded into the five days as is now done. Efforts should also be made to stagger the hours of arrival and departure, so as to get as many away as possible before the rush hour and spread the traffic over the day.

Let me have your views on this, together with proposals for action in a circular to Departments.

Nothing came of this plan, which broke down under detailed examination.

* * * * *

The retirement of Mr. Chamberlain, enforced by grave illness, led to important Ministerial changes. Mr. Herbert Morrison had been an efficient and vigorous Minister of Supply, and Sir John Anderson had faced the Blitz of London with firm and competent management. By the early days of October, the continuous attack on the largest city in the world was so severe and raised so many problems of a social and political character in its vast harassed population that I thought it would be a help to have a long-trained Parliamentarian at the Home Office, which was now also the Ministry of Home Security. London was bearing the brunt. Herbert Morrison was a Londoner, versed in every aspect of metropolitan administration. He had unrivalled experience of London government, having been leader of the County Council, and in many ways the principal figure in its affairs. At the same time I needed John Anderson, whose work at the Home Office had been excellent, as Lord President of the Council in the wider sphere of the Home Affairs Committee, to which an immense mass of business was referred, with great relief to the Cabinet. This also lightened my own burden and enabled me to concentrate upon the military conduct of the war, in which my colleagues seemed increasingly disposed to give me latitude.

I therefore invited these two high Ministers to change their offices. It was no bed of roses which I offered Herbert Morrison. These pages certainly cannot attempt to describe the problems of London government, when often night after night ten or twenty thousand people were made homeless, and when nothing but the ceaseless vigil of the citizens as fire guards on the roofs prevented uncontrollable conflagrations; when hospitals filled with mutilated men and women were themselves struck by the enemy’s bombs; when hundreds of thousands of weary people crowded together in unsafe and insanitary shelters; when communications by road and rail were ceaselessly broken down; when drains were smashed and light, power, and gas paralysed; and when, nevertheless, the whole fighting, toiling life of London had to go forward, and nearly a million people be moved in and out for their work every night and morning. We did not know how long it would last. We had no reason to suppose that it would not go on getting worse. When I made the proposal to Mr. Morrison, he knew too much about it to treat it lightly. He asked for a few hours’ consideration; but in a short time he returned and said he would be proud to shoulder the job. I highly approved his manly decision.

In Mr. Chamberlain’s day a Civil Defence Committee of the Cabinet had already been set up. This met regularly every morning to review the whole situation. In order to make sure that the new Home Secretary was armed with all the powers of State, I also held a weekly meeting, usually on Fridays, of all authorities concerned. The topics discussed were often far from pleasant.

* * * * *

Quite soon after the Ministerial movements, a change in the enemy’s method affected our general policy. Till now the hostile attack had been confined almost exclusively to high-explosive bombs; but with the full moon of October 15, when the heaviest attack of the month fell upon us, about 480 German aircraft dropped 386 tons of high-explosive and in addition 70,000 incendiary bombs. Hitherto we had encouraged the Londoners to take cover, and every effort was being made to improve their protection. But now “To the basements” must be replaced by “To the roofs.” It fell to the new Minister of Home Security to institute this policy. An organisation of fire-watchers and fire-services on a gigantic scale and covering the whole of London (apart from measures taken in provincial cities) was rapidly brought into being. At first the fire-watchers were volunteers; but the numbers required were so great, and the feeling that every man should take his turn upon the roster so strong, that fire-watching soon became compulsory. This form of service had a bracing and buoyant effect upon all classes. Women pressed forward to take their share. Large-scale systems of training were developed to teach the fire-watchers how to deal with the various kinds of incendiaries which were used against us. Many became adept, and thousands of fires were extinguished before they took hold. The experience of remaining on the roof night after night under fire, with no protection but a tin hat, soon became habitual.

* * * * *

Mr. Morrison presently decided to consolidate the fourteen hundred local fire brigades into a single National Fire Service, and to supplement this with a great fire guard of civilians trained and working in their spare time. The fire guard, like the roof-watchers, was at first recruited on a voluntary basis, but like them it became by general consent compulsory. The National Fire Service gave us the advantages of greater mobility, a universal standard of training and equipment, and formally recognised ranks. The other Civil Defence forces produced regional columns ready at a minute’s notice to go anywhere. The name Civil Defence Service was substituted for the pre-war title of Air-Raid Precautions (A.R.P.). Good uniforms were provided for large numbers, and they became conscious of being a fourth arm of the Crown. In all this work Herbert Morrison was ably assisted by a brave woman whose death we have lately mourned, Ellen Wilkinson. She was out and about in the shelters at all hours of the day and night and took a prominent part in the organisation of the fire guard. The Women’s Voluntary Services, under the inspiring leadership of Lady Reading, also played an invaluable part.