Honour Restored (eBook)

Part One

A Great Victory

CHAPTER 1

The People

Those who have the least give the most

In September 1939 Britain faced up to the awful realisation that, in an attempt to save Poland from the Nazi invasion, together with the French nation we had declared war on Germany. Throughout the country on September 3rd at 11.15am we had all sat by our wireless sets to hear the solemn words from Mr Neville Chamberlain, our Prime Minister:

We were not certain what offensive military action we could take, but we all expected that very soon we would be bombed by the largest air force in the world. We already knew that our young men would be conscripted into one of the services. They would leave home, some not to return for a long time and some never to return. Although naturally everyone hated the thought of war, there was a kind of understandable inevitability about what was happening, with an acceptance that we were making the great sacrifice because the evil of German Nazi tyranny had to be fought and halted no matter what the cost.

Among the ordinary people of Britain there were very few dissenters and pacifists. The British Communist Party denounced and opposed the war as a capitalist war to benefit the arms manufacturers and they organised factory strikes. Later, in June 1941, within a very few days after the announcement that Germany had attacked Russia, the Communists then proclaimed that our war against Germany had changed and was now a war for democratic freedom. They then outlawed strikes.

There was no feeling of panic, but rather as happened later when France surrendered in June 1940, there was a feeling of a nation bonding together to fight the problem. This bonding stayed with the Country throughout the war and was a major factor in our continued determination to carry on the fight. Britain’s forces were already at readiness and air raid precautions had been prepared and were put into effect.

Many declarations of war have been challenged as being needless or even evil. I have never heard such statements made about the decision by Britain and France to take up arms against Nazi Germany, not even by the most ardent pacifist.

Even if we had not declared war against Germany, our Country would still have been in grave danger. It would have meant eventual acceptance of German Nazi domination over Europe with the ending of democracy. We would sooner have gone down fighting.

I believe that a crucial factor in this attitude was that prior to the war, the people in Britain could volunteer to take an active part in its defence. They could join the reserves of the Army, and the Royal Navy, and for young men there was a wonderful opportunity to train at weekends to become Volunteer Reserve pilots or aircrew. There was auxiliary training for the fire brigades, ambulance services and air raid defence in which women could also take a part. Above all we would be fighting to defend our own Country of which we were proud. It would be easy to refer to it as the ‘people’s war’.

Britain was to be the first country to prove that determined citizens cannot be bombed into surrender. The effect of the raids is first to make them angry, and then to make them even more determined to fight on. Another factor was that we had had time to make preparations for the war. Air raid shelters had been built, the blackout had been rehearsed, emergency services had been planned, and the Government had ensured that everyone, even the babies, had been supplied with a personal gas mask to be kept close at all times.

I think it is important to understand that, having with a heavy heart entered into a state of war in order to save the freedom of another country hundreds of miles away, our people believed in the cause and were united. But after this grand, sincere and defiant gesture, the Country began to pay the price. Our food was rationed. No one would go hungry but the standard two ounces of butter, four ounces of margarine, and a meat allocation equal to two chops per week would be incomprehensible to us today. People formed long queues for food that could not be obtained with a ration card, and vegetables soon became the staple diet.

I felt that the rigidly enforced blackout, especially in the winter, was one of the worst aspects of the war. It was depressing and dangerous. In our cities our young children were taken from their mothers and, equipped with their gas masks, a label on their coats, a sandwich for the unknown journey, and a bag or small case with pyjamas and personal possessions were entrained to some unknown family many miles away. The alternative was to keep them at home to risk the dangers of the air raids.

Clothes rationing followed and civilian travel was almost impossible. And then came the bombing. There was the awful stomach-sinking warning of the air raid sirens sounding the alarm, and eventually the wonderful and uplifting sound of the ‘all clear’ with the coming of dawn. I know that, with my two brothers in the fighting Services as well, the greatest trial for those waiting at home was the knowledge that a father, brother or son, hundreds or thousands of miles away, could be in great danger every day. The separation could last for months and years, and was only made bearable because a similar anguish was shared by so many friends and neighbours. The awful unspoken fear was of the arrival of the Post Office messenger boy with his yellow telegram to notify ‘missing in action’. There were no professional counsellors to give comfort to the bereaved.

The radio or ‘wireless’ was a vital link for all members of the nation, and the people listened to the ‘Nine o’clock’ news in the evening almost as a ritual. The numbers of enemy aircraft shot down in the day, which we know now were generally rather optimistic, were a great boost to morale.

The radio speeches of Winston Churchill, who had replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister, uplifted the nation, and are just as moving for me to hear today as they were then. Churchill led the nation, cajoled and encouraged our citizens, defied the enemy, moved us and was moved himself. At all times he gave the Nation the confidence that we would win through. A very great man.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth enjoyed a unique relationship with the people. It was a combination of great respect and affection. They toured the country and met the servicemen and women and visited the factories and hospitals. This increased the affection felt for them and led to a more personal relationship. They visited the bombed sites and met the injured and homeless. This was made even more personal when Buckingham Palace was bombed. Princess Elizabeth, their elder daughter and now our revered Queen for more than 50 years, joined the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) as a subaltern soon after she reached her 18th birthday. Princess Elizabeth served as an Army truck driver later in the war, confirming the growing and important role played by women as the war progressed.

Although cinemas and theatres and other places of entertainment were closed for a while, they were soon re-opened. In the summer of 1940 cricket was still played at Lords, and the Amateurs walked to the pitch down the Members’ steps from the pavilion and the Professionals came out from a side gate. The great social changes occasioned by major wars had not yet started.

In spite of the rationing, the heartrending evacuation of the children, and the misery of the blackout, followed by the night bombing, the aim of the population was always to carry on as usual, with the determination to get to work each day at all costs. Those who were there will remember the part played by the ever present British sense of humour in their dealing with these harsh conditions. Knowing and understanding such people confirms why the Battle of Britain must be called ‘A Great Victory’. In October 1940 I had planned to spend my day-off from the Squadron in London, and to stay the night at the Strand Palace Hotel right in the heart of the Metropolis. In the evening as I left Covent Garden Underground station, the nearest to the hotel, the night bombing had already started with explosions and anti-aircraft guns firing with shrapnel coming down. With several hundred yards to go I decided to make a run for it. As I arrived at high speed at the entrance of the hotel in my RAF officer’s uniform, a cheerful voice called up to me ‘Evening paper, Sir?’ I stopped in my tracks and saw a man sitting at the entrance, his regular ‘pitch’ probably for many years, carrying on with his life as usual without any protection, selling evening papers in the middle of an air raid. I was supposed to be one of our brave Spitfire pilots, and I felt ashamed. I bought a paper from him, thanked him, and then walked the last few paces into the hotel with rather more dignity than when I had arrived. How could I better typify the courage and refusal to be beaten by the ordinary people of our Country in 1940, than with this reminiscence of the defiance shown to the enemy?

The war for us in 1940 was inevitable, and to an extent, as a country we were emotionally and physically prepared for it. There was little panic and unless you were very rich there was nowhere to hide. Before the war my generation grew up accepting that hardship was a fact of life, and misfortune had to...