What’s in it for me? A rollicking history of Churchill’s first year in power and the Blitz.
Winston Churchill couldn’t have come to power at a more pivotal moment in Britain’s history. Europe had watched with alarm as Hitler’s Germany ascended. The Nazis had built up a superior fighting force. And then they expanded, aggressively. First, they occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland. Then came Norway, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. If your government crossed the Führer, terrifying aerial bombardment was inevitable.
But Brits had one thing to comfort them: Germany was far away. Even the Germans’ new planes couldn’t haul thousand-pound bombs all the way to Britain. Of course, that would change if the Germans occupied France. But France had a powerful army and navy; its fall was unimaginable.
Less than a week into Churchill’s tenure as prime minister, the unimaginable became reality: Germany invaded France. Thus began a crisis that would turn Churchill into one of the twentieth century’s most influential figures.
In these blinks, you’ll learn
the trick Churchill knew from day one would win the war;
how a Nazi official took extreme measures to broker peace with the UK; and
how Churchill gave President Roosevelt one of the wildest strategy meetings of his life.
From day one, Churchill was clear on his goal: getting American help.
By May 1940, the writing was on the wall. The Nazi army had invaded France, Britain’s ally. War was coming to the British people, whether they liked it or not.
Churchill came to power after Parliament passed a vote of no confidence in Neville Chamberlain, who had tried to appease Hitler’s expansionist tendencies. It was a scary time for the UK. Any observer would have said that Britain had no chance against the massive Nazi war machine. But unlike Chamberlain – and essentially everyone else – Churchill was brazenly confident that Britain could win the coming war.
Now all Churchill had to do was convince his country and, just as importantly, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that the UK had a chance. Churchill knew he couldn’t win the war without the Americans.
The key message here is: From day one, Churchill was clear on his goal: getting American help.
For their part, the Americans weren’t at all interested in sending their young men, yet again, to the battlefields of Europe. The US government was also leery of working with Churchill. “Apparently,” said the secretary of the interior, “he is very unreliable under the influence of drink.”
It’s true that Churchill did things differently. For one thing, he favored working during his twice-daily bath. If the phone rang while he was in the bath, he would climb naked and dripping from the tub to retrieve it from his private secretary. At all hours, he would pad through the halls of the official residence in brilliantly flowered dressing gowns, stabbing a dead cigar in the air when he wanted to make a point.
The British people loved him, and he took their trust seriously. His first speech to the House of Commons demonstrated his signature oratory style: a sober appraisal of facts followed by reason for measured optimism. “I have nothing to offer,” he said, “but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”
Despite the grim state of affairs, his government was imbued with energy from day one. Everyone, from the lowest secretary to the highest minister, was pulling in the same direction – stop Germany from invading England, and win the war. Respectable civil servants could actually be seen running through the corridors to their appointments.
The new resolve Churchill brought to his office didn’t come a moment too soon. Things were about to get a lot worse.
A heroic grassroots rescue gave Britain the morale boost it needed for the fight ahead.
The picture was already gloomy enough with the Nazis battling the French on their home turf. But their forces seemed well matched. The French had a powerful military. And they had the Maginot Line, a physical barrier of fortifications that was said to be impenetrable.
But then the unimaginable happened. The Germans broke through the French line. Nazi forces poured into France, and Allied troops went into chaotic, scrambling retreat. The French president called Churchill. “We have been defeated,” he said. After a stunned silence, Churchill replied: “Surely it can’t have happened so soon?”
With the Nazis having established themselves in France, an invasion of Britain seemed imminent. But one matter was more pressing: the fate of hundreds of thousands of British troops still in France.
The key message here is: A heroic grassroots rescue gave Britain the morale boost it needed for the fight ahead.
The British Expeditionary Force retreated to the coastal French town of Dunkirk. The time for fighting was past. More exhausted, demoralized troops turned up every day, massing on the beach and gazing across the Channel toward a home they didn’t know if they’d ever see again. Nazi forces were in hot pursuit.
But on May 24, 1940, the British had a windfall. Hilter ordered his tanks and crews to halt after suffering serious losses in the initial invasion push. One Nazi general called it a fatal error.
For the shattered British troops, Hitler’s gaffe was a lifesaver.
On May 26, Churchill ordered the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk. He expected that 50,000 might survive, or about one in six. The rescue tally for the first day was just 7,700 – a dismal start even given the low expectations. But one by one, private fishing boats and yachts manned by civilians began appearing from across the Channel. All in all, 887 vessels came, only a quarter of which were British navy boats. Over 300,000 soldiers were rescued.
Churchill used this small victory to end all speculation that Britain would pursue peace with Hitler. “If this long island story of ours is to end at last,” he said, “let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”
The very next day, the Nazi air force – the Luftwaffe – began a new assault. Hitler had turned his eye to England.
With England bracing for invasion, aerial combat would decide the country’s fate.
In May 1940, it was widely accepted that Germany had the ability to bomb England to the point of surrender. Hitler’s brutal, ambitious, and energetic deputy Hermann Gӧring had built up the Luftwaffe from nothing. He had made it the most powerful air force in the world.
For one thing, it had four times the number of fighter planes as England. What’s more, its planes and bombs were just plain better. The Stuka plane looked like a giant, terrifying flying insect; it carried 4,000-pound explosives, nicknamed Satan bombs, that could destroy a city block.
Worst of all, the Germans had radio beam technology that allowed their fighters to bomb targets even in limited visibility. Britain’s air defenses didn’t work as well in those conditions, so its cities and towns were left vulnerable at night and in foggy or cloudy weather.
The key message here is: With England bracing for invasion, aerial combat would decide the country’s fate.
Britain’s political, economic, and cultural center – London – was assumed to be the main target. After one cabinet meeting, Churchill led his ministers out into the street and instructed them to look around. “I expect things will look a lot different in two or three weeks’ time,” he said.
Churchill knew that England’s defense depended on its capacity to produce its own fighter planes. On his first day in office, he created a Ministry of Aircraft Production. His old friend Lord Beaverbrook became the minister, and Churchill demanded nothing short of air mastery.
Beaverbrook didn’t let his old chum down. He worked day and night, with astonishing success. British plants began producing aircraft at a rate no one – least of all German intelligence – could have foreseen.
But the Germans continued their massive bombing campaign, going deep into the countryside. So far, they had avoided London. But intelligence reports showed that invasion was imminent. The capital collectively held its breath.
Yet, against all odds, the Royal Air Force fighter aces seemed to be holding their own. Dogfights became public spectacle. They were even broadcast on the radio, with announcers calling the plays as though they were football matches.
Hitler dragged his feet on releasing the full might of the Luftwaffe on England. He was still hoping for a peace deal that would forestall a costly invasion. After all, any sane man could see that Britain wasn’t going to win this war.
But Churchill wasn’t behaving like a sane man.
As aerial combat raged overhead, Churchill courted Roosevelt for naval support until he got what he wanted.
As France surrendered, Churchill sent one of the most important messages of his life – to Roosevelt. More was at stake, Churchill wrote, than France or Britain. A United States of Europe under Nazi rule was very much a possibility. He asked Roosevelt for destroyer ships, calling it a matter of life or death.
But Churchill had to walk a very fine line with Roosevelt. He had to communicate the gravity of the situation, but not make Britain’s fight seem like a lost cause.
The key message here is: As aerial combat raged overhead, Churchill courted Roosevelt for naval support until he got what he wanted.
At first, Roosevelt was wary of his British counterpart. Churchill was an unknown quantity, and Roosevelt didn’t trust him. He met Churchill’s first request for aid with a wish of good luck. Then Roosevelt demanded that the British fleet be turned over to the US if Britain were to be defeated.
In the skies over England, the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force, or the RAF, continued to fight, and Churchill kept sending Roosevelt daily telegrams. Despite the rapid production of RAF planes, the Luftwaffe still had better equipment. The Germans’ real advantage, though, was that they had more experienced pilots. Many had cut their teeth flying for Franco’s Nationalist party during the Spanish Civil War.
Still, the RAF fighter aces were managing to outgun the Luftwaffe. The Brits had home-court advantage; they also had radar technology. What’s more, they were fighting for survival. Each battle lost was one step closer to invasion, meaning an end to life as they knew it.
Hitler was outraged that the Luftwaffe was losing more planes than the RAF. He ordered a full assault by sea: Operation Sea Lion. It was scheduled for August 1940. But before it could begin, Hitler wrote, the RAF would have to be reduced “morally and physically.”
Meanwhile, Churchill never gave up asking Roosevelt for help, and he finally made a breakthrough. Roosevelt tasked his cabinet with finding a way to get some rusting old destroyers to the Brits without violating neutrality laws. The Secretary of the Navy had an idea: America would lend Churchill the destroyers in exchange for American access to British naval bases in the Atlantic.
Now, Roosevelt just had to get the plan, called Lend-Lease, through Congress. Senator Claude Pepper, a prominent Roosevelt ally, told the president it had no chance.
An accidental bombing of London started the next phase of the aerial war.
Luftwaffe commander Hermann Gӧring was getting some bad intel. Intelligence lead Beppo Schmid had convinced him that the RAF was already badly mauled. This contradicted reports from German pilots, who saw a different picture in combat. But the reports convinced Hitler to send the Luftwaffe on a major strike against the RAF. They called the operation Adlertag – Eagle Day.
It didn’t go well for the Nazis. The weather was so bad on the first day that Gӧring had to call off the operation almost right away. The planes that did make it over found a belligerent RAF defense – not at all what they had expected. The RAF had discovered that German Stuka planes were weakest when making dives, and they exploited this to great advantage. The RAF consistently shot down twice as many planes as it lost.
The key message here is: An accidental bombing of London started the next phase of the aerial war.
Churchill was jubilant at the German failure, but also puzzled. What was the meaning of such a massive raid that accomplished so little? Why weren’t the bombers heading straight for London, Britain’s beating heart?
After a few days of aerial combat, Churchill realized that the RAF itself was the target. With the RAF hobbled, the Nazis would have a clear path to a full-scale invasion unimpeded by bomb attacks.
Dread was rising in the UK. People watched the dogfights while lolling in the grass in uncannily beautiful summer weather, as shrapnel rained over the countryside. Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels took advantage of the strange mood, spreading propaganda to exacerbate the fear. Brits felt something big was about to happen; they dreaded moonlit nights because they gave more visibility to German bombers.
Despite the failure of Adlertag, Operation Sea Lion was still on the schedule, although it had now been pushed back by one month — to September 1940.
But on August 24, a navigational error changed the course of the war. A group of German bombers got lost and ended up over London. They released their bombs there, the first to hit the city.
It could have been a lot worse. Casualties were minimal, and Churchill finally had what he’d long desired: an excuse to take the offensive against Germany. He sent the first RAF fighters to Berlin the very next night.
German bombs made living in London a terrifying experience.
In retaliation for the attacks on Berlin, Hitler ordered the first intentional hit on London. Gӧring was delighted at the opportunity to punish Britain for humiliating the Luftwaffe. He came up with a plan called “the Destruction of London.” Goebbels predicted it would be the greatest catastrophe in human history.
Not everyone in Nazi command was happy about the clash between Britain and Germany. Take Hitler’s former first deputy, Rudolf Hess. He saw the Brits and Germans as racial allies. So he began trying to arrange a peace deal with Britain, via a backchannel.
But other Nazis were excited. Gӧring and his officers set up a picnic on a French cliff overlooking the Channel. When the first planes appeared overhead, Gӧring was ecstatic. Soon, the sky was filled with droning fighter jets heading directly for London.
The key message here is: German bombs made living in London a terrifying experience.
The German bombers came in three waves. The first comprised nearly a thousand aircraft. They carried a combination of high-explosive standard bombs, incendiary oil bombs, and bombs with time-delayed fuses designed to keep firefighting crews at bay.
The first sirens sounded just before 5:00 p.m. They lasted through the night. Four hundred people were killed and 1,600 injured. Churchill made sure he was seen touring the wreckage of the East End the next day. People had planted paper Union Jacks in the rubble. Churchill wept; the people loved him for it. “We can take it!” someone shouted. “Give it ‘em back.”
The planes came back that night, and the next. Everyone agreed that the worst part of these first days was that the anxiety, bombs, and sirens meant nobody slept. Churchill watched the raids from the roof of 10 Downing St. with his ever-present cigar.
Even the king and queen had a near miss. A bomber seemed to intentionally target Buckingham Palace. The queen, for one, was glad. At least now she could look the hardest-hit Londoners in the face.
But through all this, the RAF kept hitting back. A key battle happened on September 24, just one month after the first bombs fell on London. The RAF shot down 183 German fighters and lost under 40. It became known as the Battle of Britain Day.
The Luftwaffe had stung Britain. But Hitler understood that it had failed to destroy it. Still, Gӧring and Hitler didn’t give up. They doubled down.
The terror of imminent invasion had eased, but the bombardment was worse than ever.
As the weather cooled, a German invasion became a bit less likely. Referring to Hitler, Churchill wrote: “The gent has taken off his clothes and put on his bathing suit, but the water is getting colder and there is an autumn nip in the air.”
Sure enough, Hitler had further postponed Operation Sea Lion; the RAF was too much of a threat. He was eager for a project he felt he could win, so he turned east. He’d long dreamed of defeating Russian Bolshevism. Hitler thought it would be easy, especially compared to a cross-Channel invasion of Britain. He cast aside his misgivings about a two-front war. He called his new plan Operation Barbarossa.
The key message here is: The terror of imminent invasion had eased, but the bombardment was worse than ever.
Gӧring’s aerial onslaught continued. In November, he brought hellfire down on the Midlands town of Coventry, an industrial manufacturing powerhouse. The Luftwaffe dropped 500 tons of high explosives and 20,000 incendiary devices. They killed more than 500 people and destroyed over 2,200 buildings.
As Coventry licked its wounds, Britain slipped into a deep financial crisis. Churchill would need to reach out, yet again, to Roosevelt. He emphasized that whether or not England endured would impact America’s future too. Britain needed food and military matériel. This, he argued, was the minimum necessary action to achieve their common purpose.
In Coventry, London, and many other cities, Brits who had lost their homes to German bombs were living in crowded and miserable shelters. Churchill’s wife, Clementine, toured several of them; she confirmed conditions were abysmal. Lice were rampant, space was almost nonexistent, and the latrines were positively Dickensian. Worst of all, there was no place to make tea.
After the bombing of Coventry, the Germans couldn’t believe Churchill’s resilience. Goebbels called Churchill’s failure to surrender a war crime. Hitler was working feverishly on Operation Barbarossa, which needed to launch soon, before Russia could build up its defenses.
As Coventry burned, Rudolf Hess was worried because he hadn’t received a reply in his backchannel peace negotiations. He decided to take matters into his own hands – literally. He could fly a plane as well as any pilot. He would fly to Scotland and deliver the message himself.
Roosevelt finally began responding to Churchill’s overtures – and not a moment too soon.
Meanwhile, Churchill continued courting the Americans. Roosevelt received Churchill’s latest missive while on a fishing holiday in the Caribbean. He took several days to think about it, then made up his mind: he would act, in earnest.
In his Christmastime address to Americans – one of his famous “Fireside Chats” – Roosevelt demonstrated his commitment to the British cause. He used the word “Nazi” for the first time. If Britain were defeated, he said, America would be living at the point of a gun.
The next day, perhaps to blunt the effect of Roosevelt’s speech, the Luftwaffe let loose on London’s financial district. The inferno that resulted was dubbed the Second Great Fire of London, the first having been in 1666. By the end of 1940, German raids over London had killed over 13,000 citizens.
The key message here is: Roosevelt finally began responding to Churchill’s overtures – and not a moment too soon.
While chastened by the death and destruction, Churchill was also philosophical. The bombing had come at the perfect time to win American sympathy. Good news was also at hand. Roosevelt was sending his personal friend Harry Hopkins to London, to report back on the situation.
Hopkins was untidy and frail from a bout with stomach cancer, but he was charming, empathetic, and sharply intelligent. He and Churchill liked each other immediately.
Eager to make the right impression, Churchill hardly let Hopkins out of his sight. Churchill paraded the exhausted Hopkins around volunteer centers. Hopkins tried to hide in the crowds, but Churchill called him back to his side every time. He used Hopkins to show his British audiences that the Americans were listening, and that they cared. He assured Hopkins that he wasn’t asking the US to go to war – although of course that was Churchill’s fervent wish.
Hopkins was impressed with the courage of the British people, and with Churchill. Churchill asked Hopkins what he would be reporting back to Roosevelt. Hopkins quoted the Bible: “Whither thou goest I will go.” Churchill wept. Finally, Hopkins told Roosevelt that Britain needed America’s help, desperately and urgently.
Meanwhile, Hitler was fed up with the dogged British resistance. Eager to clear the way for Operation Barbarossa, he ordered Gӧring to finish the RAF off once and for all. The goal was to weaken English forces, but also to give the illusion that an invasion was imminent, so as to push Churchill to surrender.
As the Americans got more involved, bad news kept coming across the Channel.
Hopkins called Churchill at the Prime Ministerial country house on March 11, 1941. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Plan had passed in the US Congress. It gave Britain access to American destroyers and provided crucial symbolic support.
This put Churchill in a celebratory mood. He put on his favorite outfit, a baby blue one-piece romper of his own design, and played military marches on the gramophone. Brandishing a big-game rifle, he executed a series of rifle drills and bayonet maneuvers. He looked like a fierce, pale blue Easter egg gone to war. Onlookers wondered what Hitler would have made of this demonstration of skill at arms.
His jubilant mood wouldn’t last, though. With each new day came another air raid. Churchill brought a new US emissary, William Averell Harriman, up to the roof to witness one. As they watched, he quoted the British poet Tennyson: “Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew.”
The key message here is: As the Americans got more involved, bad news kept coming across the Channel.
The air war would continue. That much was obvious to Churchill. What’s more, it posed a political hazard. How much longer could Londoners take it?
Bad news from foreign theaters was coming fast. Nazi General Erwin “The Desert Fox” Rommel was pummeling British troops in North Africa and the Middle East. Things were also going badly in the Balkans, where Bulgaria had joined the Axis. Churchill was glum. He became increasingly dependent on Harriman and the American support he represented.
Through April, hundreds of bombs fell over London. Amid the foreign and domestic crises, Parliament called for a debate on the war situation. Churchill, overreacting, called for a referendum on his government as a whole. After a bad start to the debate, he ultimately made yet another stirring speech and passed the vote with flying colors.
But more bad news was on the horizon, in the form of German Stukas. Hitler’s aides had convinced him to order an attack on London using every available aircraft.
They came on May 10, shortly before 11:00 p.m. They seemed intent on destroying London and killing Churchill. For the next six hours, over 500 bombers swarmed the skies of London, dropping thousands of bombs. Westminster Hall caught on fire, as did the British Museum. A bomb sliced through the tower housing Big Ben. All of London seemed to be on fire.
The raid was the worst of the war. Over 1,400 people were killed – a record for a single night – and 12,000 more Londoners were now homeless.
The worst bombing of the Blitz coincided with one of its strangest events.
While hundreds of aircraft massed over the channel, Rudolf Hess, the third-ranking Nazi official, was still convinced he could broker a peace deal with the UK. It took him four attempts to fly to Scotland. After memorizing maps, consulting his horoscope, and carefully packing his extensive collection of medical paraphernalia, he set off in a German plane. He gave his deputy letters to be delivered to his wife and Hitler.
Five hours later, Hess was almost out of fuel and lost over Scotland. He bailed out of his plane into a farmer’s field. Then, he waited patiently to be taken into police custody. He declined the farmer’s offer of tea, but accepted a glass of water.
The key message here is: The worst bombing of the Blitz coincided with one of its strangest events.
Major Donald, an officer based in Glasgow, went out to meet the prisoner. Hess said he had a vital secret message for the Duke of Hamilton, a Scottish lord he’d identified as being potentially receptive to a peace agreement.
Donald couldn’t believe his eyes. Here before him in a country Scottish prison was the third-ranking Nazi official, who had flown solo from Germany to deliver a secret message. Donald had to do some convincing of his superior officers, but ultimately the message reached the duke. Hess got his meeting the next morning.
Needless to say, Britain wasn’t interested in Hess’s offer of peace negotiations. Churchill locked Hess up in the Tower of London, the city’s infamous eleventh-century dungeon.
When Hitler read Hess’s letter explaining what he had done, it sparked one of his famous Wutausbrüche, or tantrums. He sent Hess’s assistants, and even his astrologer, to a concentration camp.
The affair captivated the public on both sides of the Atlantic, including Roosevelt himself. The American president reasoned that fascination by the episode would be healthy for the war effort. Churchill happily allowed the newspapers to continue trying to puzzle out the episode. Questions abounded, and – this being Britain – puns. One newspaper ran the headline “Your Hess is as good as mine.”
At one London gentlemen’s club, the name “Hess” was said so much that the s sound reverberated strangely – “like a basketful of snakes,” according to one American onlooker.
Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa ended the threat of invasion and became a critical turning point in the war.
The bombing deeply affected London, but the city endured. Between September 7, 1940 and May 11, 1941, nearly 29,000 Londoners were killed and over 28,000 seriously injured. Throughout the UK, the death toll was over 44,000, including 5,000 children.
But no bombers came the night after May 11, or the night after that. The raids began to die down. In May, throughout the UK, German raids killed over 5,600 people. By December, the monthly death toll was down to 37. Churchill and the British people had convinced Hitler they weren’t going to give up easily.
The key message here is: Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa ended the threat of invasion and became a critical turning point in the war.
In June, 1941, Operation Barbarossa opened up a second front in the war. This went directly against the advice Hitler had given in his memoir Mein Kampf.
Hitler thought Barbarossa would last only three weeks. But the Soviet army was stronger than anyone expected. During the 1945 Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials, including Gӧring, it emerged that only the distraction of Operation Barbarossa had stopped the Germans from invading England.
A few weeks before Christmas, Churchill was once again in a grumpy mood at the Prime Ministerial country house. He was listening to the BBC with his family. When the announcer revealed that Japan had attacked America’s principal Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor, Churchill’s mood changed instantly. He nearly ran from the room, saying “We shall declare war on Japan!” He did so the next day, right after Roosevelt.
From then on, Churchill was no longer grumpy – not really. The war was no longer one of desperation. With the US involved, the Allies would win; it was only a matter of when. Churchill’s doctor said it almost looked like he was having fun. To be Prime Minister of Britain, leading the country through a great war, was beyond his greatest dreams.
He certainly seemed to enjoy himself on a state visit to the White House later that December. At one point, Roosevelt entered Churchill’s room to find him stark naked, holding a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other. “You see, Mr. President,” Churchill said, “I have nothing to hide.” He slung a towel over his shoulder and strode around the room naked for the next hour. All the while, he conversed with Roosevelt, now and then refilling the president’s glass.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks:
Through the first year of Churchill’s leadership, he inspired the nation to find courage in what seemed like an impossible situation. And, by launching a brutal offensive of charm and flattery on US President Roosevelt, he secured the American support that proved vital to ultimate victory.
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What to read next: This Blessed Plot, by Hugo Young
You’ve just learned how the UK played a decisive role in defending Europe from rising fascism in the early days of World War II. On the back of Churchill’s courageous and inspiring leadership, among others, the European project of the later twentieth century was given life.
The belief that Britain, under Churchill, won the Second World War gave rise to much of the politics that followed for the rest of the century. But ultimately, Churchill did as much to undermine the project of European unity as he did to shore it up. The Guardian’s senior political commentator, Hugo Young, examines this complex duality that remains so prescient today in This Blessed Plot.