Erik Larson, “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of
Churchill, Family, And Defiance During The Blitz,” Crown NY (Kindle
version), 2020, 503 pp.
This book focuses on Churchill’s first year as prime
minister, May 10, 1940, to May 10, 1941.
A year that saw the British chased out of Europe (Dunkirk) and the defeat of the balance of Europe and the German air campaign as it evolved
through 1940-41, bombing London fifty-seven consecutive nights followed by an
additional six months more of night-raids on other cities as well as
London. Churchill from the start
understood that he could not win without the eventual participation of the
United States and remained undaunted despite a Gallup poll taken in the US in
May of 1940 that found 93 percent in the US opposed a declaration of war. When
the war in Europe began in 1939, the U.S. Army had only 174,000 men, equipped
with obsolete weapons, including Springfield rifles that dated to 1903.
When I began this book I was sure that “Vile” in the
title must refer to Hitler. While
Hitler surely checked all the boxes for the category, the title, in fact, comes
from a line in John Colville’s diary (Colville was an aide to Churchill) about the peculiar beauty of watching
bombs fall over London: “Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor
and human vileness.” Also, strangely
enough I found this book on Churchill’s leadership during this year inspiring,
particularly given the leadership the US now doesn’t have. The
Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction
and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting attack,
Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country together.
My Notes:
Location 655-662:
At seven-thirty AM, May 15, 1940,
Paul Reynaud, Premier of France, called Churchill: “We have been defeated.” Churchill said
nothing. “We are beaten,” Reynaud said. “We have lost the battle.” “Surely it
can’t have happened so soon?” Churchill said. Reynaud told him that the Germans
had broken the French line in the commune of Sedan, in the Ardennes, near the
French border with Belgium, and that tanks and armored cars were pouring
through the gap. The French army was large and skilled, the fortified Maginot
Line said to be impregnable. British strategic planning counted on France as a
partner, without which the BEF had no chance of prevailing.
Loc: 800: As
the British forces in Europe were being rapidly pushed towards Dunkirk (May 26 to June 4th,
1940) and the French forces were in chaos, the British prepared an analysis for
Churchill with recommendations should the French surrender and should most
British troops be captured. The paper
was obliquely titled “British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality.” One of the fundamental assumptions was that
the US would provide ‘full economic and financial support.’ Without this, the report noted, ‘we do not
think we could continue the war with any chance of success.’ It went on to
state that Britain's energies were to be concentrated on manufacturing fighter
planes. ‘The crux of the whole problem
is the air defense of this country.’
(The report forecasted that only a fragment of the British forces could
be evacuated from Dunkirk. Churchill
thought 50K at most; in fact, over 340K
were evacuated).
Location 963:
On May 24th, 1940, Hitler made a decision that would
influence the duration and character of the coming war. At noon, on the advice
of a trusted senior general, Hitler
ordered his armored divisions to halt their advance against the British at
Dunkirk. Hitler agreed with the
general’s recommendation that his tanks and crews be given a chance to regroup
before a planned advance to the south. German forces already had sustained
major losses in the so-called campaign in the west: 27,074 soldiers dead,
111,034 more wounded, and another 18,384 missing—a blow to the German public,
who had been led to expect a brief, tidy war. The halt order gave the British
a lifesaving pause.
Location 1068-1081:
On May 26th Churchill ordered the start of Operation Dynamo,
the evacuation of the British from Dunkirk.
Initially, the Admiralty had expected that at best 45,000 men would
escape Dunkirk; Churchill himself estimated a maximum of 50,000. The evacuation proved successful beyond
imagining, aided by Hitler’s pause order and by bad weather over the channel,
which thwarted the Luftwaffe. In the
end, 887 vessels carried out the Dunkirk evacuation, of which only a quarter
belonged to the Royal Navy. Another 91 were passenger ships, the rest an armada
of fishing boats, yachts, and other small craft. In all, 338,226 escaped.
Location 1122:
At the end of Churchill’s speech after the Dunkirk rescue, he declared:
… “We shall go on to the end,” he said,
in a crescendo of ferocity and confidence. “We shall fight in France, we shall
fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and
growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may
be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we
shall never surrender—”
Location 1158:
The escape from Dunkirk revealed that deterring a massive German
invasion force might be more difficult than British commanders had assumed,
especially if that force, like the evacuation fleet at Dunkirk, was composed of
many hundreds of small ships, barges, and speedboats. (This revelation added urgency to the request
that FDR provide 50 obsolete Destroyers to the British.)
Loc 1377: Beam Navigation: The German’s developed electronic
intersecting beams to guide aircraft bombers to targets at night. It appeared the accuracy to designated targets
was around 400 yards. It took some time
for the British to develop systems to thwart the accuracy of these beams. Even though Germany’s beam-navigation technology
had reduced the Luftwaffe’s dependence on moonlight, German pilots remained
wary of the new system and still preferred attacking in clear weather over a
landscape agleam with lunar light.
FRENCH FLEET: After France surrendered, Churchill cared most about the disposition of the French fleet. If it fell under Hitler’s
control, as seemed likely, it would change the balance of power on the high
seas, where Britain, at least for the time being still dominated the seas.
Location 1595-1897:
MONDAY, JUNE 17, “a certain eventuality” came to pass. France fell.
Churchill’s cabinet met at eleven A.M. and soon afterward learned that Marshal
Philippe Pétain, who that day replaced Reynaud as leader of France, had ordered
the French army to stop fighting. AT
6:36 P.M., SATURDAY, JUNE 22, the French signed an armistice with Hitler.
Britain was now officially alone.
Earlier that day, the Times of London had revealed the
terms of the French armistice, which
Germany had not yet formally disclosed. German forces would occupy the northern
and western tiers of France; the rest of the country would be administered by a
nominally free government based in Vichy, about two hundred miles south of
Paris. It was Article 8 that Churchill read most intently: “The German
Government solemnly declare that they have no intention of using for their own
purposes during the war the French Fleet stationed in ports under German
control except those units necessary for coast surveillance and minesweeping.”
It also called for all French ships operating outside French waters to return
to France, unless they were needed to protect French colonial holdings. The clause as later published by Germany
included this sentence: “The German Government further solemnly and expressly
declare that they do not intend to claim the French Fleet on the conclusion of
peace.”
Location 2142-2165:
Churchill gave the French fleet three
choices: to join England in fighting Germany and Italy; to sail to a
British port; or to sail to a French port in the West Indies where the ships
could be stripped of armament or transferred to the United States for
safekeeping. “If you refuse these fair offers,” Somerville’s message stated, “I
must with profound regret require you to sink your ships within six hours. The French refused. (The British attacked & sunk the ships).
Location 2183: So confident was Hitler that England would
negotiate, he demobilized forty Wehrmacht divisions—25 percent of his army.
HESS: Location 2299: In July 1940, Hitler met with his deputy,
Rudolf Hess, and told him of his frustration, conveying his “wish” that Hess
find a way of engineering the removal of Churchill as prime minister so as to
clear a path for negotiations with a presumably more pliable successor. As Hess
saw it, Hitler was assigning him the great mandate of securing peace in the
west.
Location 2937: Roosevelt
met with key members of his cabinet and told them he had reached a decision on
how he would transfer the fifty aging destroyers to England. He would use his
executive powers to authorize the ships-for-bases deal without seeking
congressional approval. Moreover, he would not tell Congress about it until the
deal became final.
Location 3038-3275:
when the Luftwaffe first began attacking England the target was the RAF,
not the cities. British intelligence
report for the week ended August 22 noted that fifty RAF fields had been
attacked in raids involving an average of seven hundred aircraft a day. The
report warned that if Germany succeeded in hobbling these defenses, an intense
bombing campaign was likely to follow, conducted by Germany’s long-range
bombing force, “which would then be free to operate by day without serious
opposition.” Then on the night of Saturday, August 24, 1941, came a navigational error
destined to change the nature of the entire war. A formation of German bombers lost its way.
Their intended targets were aircraft factories and an oil depot east of London,
over which the crews believed they were now flying. In fact, they were over
London itself. (This error resulted in
Britain retaliating on German cities and Germany retaliating).
All in all this change from military targets to civilians may have saved
Britain).
Location 3464: A
Gallup Poll released on September 3, 1940, showed that 51 percent of Americans
favored Roosevelt in the upcoming election; 49 percent preferred Wendell
Willkie.
Location 3515-3530:
German scientists developed a method to guide their bombers when bombing
England using beam navigation,” it 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. Although the system was
effective it demanded highly skilled and trained crews, the Luftwaffe formed a
special bomber group, KGr 100, to use it.
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.
Location 3899:
Only about 5% of Londoners used the Underground for shelter, though
popular myth would later convey the impression that all of London flocked to
the system’s deep subway stations. Most
were afraid of being buried. As many as 71
percent—just stayed in their homes, sometimes in their basements, often in
their beds. Churchill slept at 10 Downing Street. When the bombers came, much
to the consternation of Clementine he climbed to the roof to watch.
Location 4122:
The Luftwaffe was deploying increasing numbers of bombs known as
“parachute mines,” which drifted wherever the wind carried them. Loaded with
fifteen hundred pounds of high explosives, they could destroy everything and
everyone within a five-hundred-yard radius. Originally designed to destroy
ships.
Location 4151: Londoners
were surprised by their own resilience. “Finding we can take it is a great
relief to most of us,”
Location 4838:
Roosevelt was re-elected in the electoral college by a landslide: 449 to
82.
Location 4923-5161:
Fragments of intelligence from Bletchley Park—which Air Ministry
officials referred to only as “our special source”—suggested that Hitler might
have postponed his planned Operation Sea Lion (invasion of England). Yet the Luftwaffe continued to
pummel London with nightly raids, and now appeared to be expanding its range of
targets elsewhere in England. Clearly, something new was afoot, and the implications
were troubling. London had shown itself able to withstand nightly attack, but
how would the rest of the country fare, as more and more civilians were killed
or injured and bombed from their homes? The details of the Luftwaffe’s new
campaign were starting to come into focus. On Tuesday, November 12, 1940, intelligence
officers listened in as a newly captured German airman conversed with another
prisoner in a room fitted with a hidden microphone. “He believes,” the officers
reported, “that riots have broken out in London and that Buckingham Palace has
been stormed and that ‘Hermann’ ”—a reference to Luftwaffe chief Hermann
Göring—“thinks the psychological moment has come for a colossal raid to take
place between the 15th and the 20th of this month at the full moon and that
Coventry and Birmingham will be the towns attacked.” The attack would likely take place three days
hence, on Friday, November 15, when the moon was full and would involve up to
eighteen hundred German aircraft, The COVENTRY
RAID killed 568 civilians and seriously wounded another 865.
(Bombing of Coventry) and Counter-plan ‘Cold Water,’ ”
AIR 2/5238, in the National Archives of the United Kingdom. Ever since the
attack on Coventry, conspiracy-minded souls have sought to prove that Churchill knew all about
it but did nothing, in order to avoid revealing the secret of Bletchley Park.
However, the documentary record, declassified in 1971, makes it clear that
Churchill on that night had no idea Coventry was the target. Loc 9753.
Location 5356:
Roosevelt in his speech to Congress supporting Lend-Lease: “Suppose my
neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have got a length of garden hose four or
five hundred feet away: but, my Heaven, if he can take my garden hose and
connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him put out the fire. Now, what do I
do? I don’t say to him before that operation, ‘Neighbor, my garden hose cost me
$15; you have got to pay me $15 for using it.
Central to the idea for Lend-Lease was the idea that it was in the best
interests of the United States to provide Britain, or any ally, with all the
aid it needed, whether it could pay or not.
Location 5525-5533:
It was becoming more vital than ever to Hitler that Churchill somehow be
made to exit the war. On December 18, Hitler issued Directive No. 21, “Case
Barbarossa,” his formal order to his generals to begin planning for an invasion
of Russia. German forces were to be
ready by May 15, 1941. “It is of decisive importance,” the directive said,
“that our intention to attack should not be known.” During these preparations,
the Luftwaffe was to continue its attacks against England without restraint.
Location 5775:
RAIDS over London alone by the end of 1940 had killed 13,596 citizens and caused serious injury to another 18,378. And more was yet to come,
including the single worst raid of all.
Location 6220-6224:
Hopkins said to Churchill, I suppose you wish to know what I am going to
say to President Roosevelt on my return.” Hopkins then dropped his voice to a
near whisper and recited a passage from the Bible’s Book of Ruth: “Whither thou
goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my
people, and thy God my God.” Then, softly, he added: “Even to the end.”
Location 6402: FOR
CHURCHILL, THE FIRST WEEK of March 1941 was a tense one. The Lend-Lease Bill
still had not passed, and there were signs that support for its passage was
beginning to soften. The latest Gallup Poll showed that 55 percent of Americans
favored making the bill law, down from 58 percent in the poll that had preceded
it.
Location 7100: Hitler’s
Operation Retribution against Yugoslavia. Designed to send a message to any vassal
state that sought to resist—and also, perhaps, to show Londoners what lay ahead
for them —the aerial assault, which began on Palm Sunday, leveled the capital,
Belgrade, and killed seventeen thousand civilians.
Location 7413: ON
APRIL 24 AND 25 1941, seventeen thousand British troops fled Greece. The next
night, another nineteen thousand also evacuated. In Egypt, Rommel’s tanks continued
their advance. Within England, concern grew that maybe Britain was incapable of
taking the offensive and holding territory gained. This was the third major evacuation since Churchill had become prime
minister—first Norway, then Dunkirk, now Greece.
Location 8230:
Between September 7, 1940, when the first large-scale attack on central
London occurred, and Sunday morning, May 11, 1941, when the Blitz came to an
end, nearly 29,000 of its citizens were killed, and 28,556 seriously injured.
No other British city experienced such losses but throughout the United
Kingdom the total of civilian deaths in 1940 and 1941, including those in
London, reached 44,652, with another 52,370 injured. Of the dead, 5,626 were
children.
Location 8273:
With Pearl Harbor, Churchill worried, briefly, that Roosevelt would
focus only on the Japanese, but on December 11, Hitler declared war on America,
and America returned the favor.
Location 8335: Reversal
followed reversal, but by the end of
1942, the momentum of the war began to shift in the Allies’ favor. British
forces defeated Rommel in a series of desert battles known collectively as the
Battle of El Alamein. The U.S. Navy bested Japan at Midway. And Hitler’s
Russian campaign slogged to a halt in mud, ice, and blood. By 1944, after the
Allied invasions of Italy and France, the outcome seemed certain. The air war
against Britain would briefly flare back to life with the advent in 1944 of the
V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 rocket.
Addenda:
Erik Larson is the same author who wrote “The Devil in the White City” about a
killer at the Chicago World’s Fair and “Dead
Wake” describing the Lusitania’s sinking to prompt America’s entry into
World War I. He also wrote “In the Garden of the Beasts,” wherein an
accidental diplomat and his adventuress daughter explore Nazi Berlin. I have
read all of these and highly recommend them all: they are all very historical
although they read like novels.
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