Britain in the Early Years of World War Two

War underway

In May 1940, Hitler's armies swept through western Europe, knocking Britain's allies out of the war with bewildering speed and leaving the British Expeditionary Force horribly exposed. Hitler now dominated most of mainland Europe, and he was threatening to bomb and invade the British isles. The Soviet Union was allied to Germany; neutral America could offer little practical help.

All around the world, Britain's defeat or capitulation was expected within weeks. In London many, perhaps most, saw little hope against German ambitions. Some government ministers consider that the time had come to talk peace with Nazi Germany. One even bought suicide pills for himself and his wife.

Having retreated back through France, thousands of soldiers of the British army found themselves near to Dunkirk, with their backs to the English Channel. While some units were routed, others took part in a savage fighting retreat towards the coast, with many sacrificing their lives as their comrades fought for the time to organise a proper evacuation.

Peter Vaux, 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Tank Regiment  © One participant, Peter Vaux, has told of the brutality of the battle of Arras - the British army's one major counter attack on the all-conquering German Panzer columns. After his tank regiment was devastated all around him, he got lost behind enemy lines. He was captured, then escaped after killing a German officer.

Back home Churchill swept into power as a last-chance leader. Many, even within his own cabinet, were convinced that he was a disastrous choice. Nevertheless Churchill galvanised and inspired the nation and the armed forces, battling against lethargy and defeatism in his cabinet and in the country. He sought American help, but found Washington sceptical about Britain's prospects.

The Home Guard was formed as part of the frantic preparations for the expected German onslaught. Many ordinary people rushed to join it, and many British civilians feared imminent gas and bombing attacks. People who are now adults tell of the excitement they felt as children, when the call came to donate railings and saucepans - which piled up on street corners - to provide iron for armaments, or when pillboxes (cement defences for the Home Guard to use when resisting the expected German invasion) were put up in suburban parks.

Other people waited anxiously for news from the front. Many were unfortunate enough to receive telegrams carrying news of the capture or death of their loved ones.

International opinion predicted the imminent collapse of Britain's will to fight - supposing that the British would be cowed by the threat of invasion, by U-boat blockade or by terror bombing from the huge German airforce. King George VI called for a national day of prayer.

Dunkirk

Supermarine Spitfire  © By 26 May 1940, the troops of the British Expeditionary Force, which had been sent to defend Belgium, were besieged on the beaches around Dunkirk. Downing Street ordered a daring rescue bid to save the 338,000 stranded soldiers. The result was a rag-tag flotilla of more than 800 civilian fishing boats, barges and paddle steamers, along with 220 naval vessels, crossing the English Channel.

Troops and civilians struggled to rescue men from the beaches of Dunkirk , under fire from German bombers - some continuing in their efforts until their own ships were bombed, and they became in need of rescue themselves.

While the Navy threw itself into the Dunkirk evacuation, with manic courage and self-sacrifice under the intense bombardment, the British Army, bravely assisted by the French, defended its perimeter trenches and canals to the last round. They were eventually, however, forced to abandon most of their modern equipment on the beaches of Dunkirk.

The thousands of small boats somehow managed to turn a disaster into a strange kind of triumph. Churchill seized on the salvation of a third of a million men to declare that, whatever Hitler and the rest of the world might think, his country would never surrender. Churchill also triumphed over those in his cabinet who thought the time had come to talk peace, insisting that Britain could transform everything with a glorious show of defiance.

Through June and July the national mood was at its darkest. The shattered soldiers returning from Dunkirk, and those who saw them return, could see little hope, and the country anxiously awaited invasion, while witnessing the first serious air battles over the coast.

The only solution would perhaps have been the instant intervention of America - but Roosevelt could not and would not help - he knew the American people, those who elected him, were strongly against intervention in European affairs.

According to an American cabinet minister: 'The President said that he supposed that Churchill was the best man that England had, even if he was drunk half of his time. Apparently Churchill was very unreliable under the influence of drink.' American journalists, including Whitelaw Reid, arrived to cover the expected invasion of Britain, and Whitelaw wrote of his shock at the poor state of British defences. However, impressed by the fighting spirit he witnessed, he decided that Britain did have a chance against Hitler, after all.

Battle of Britain

The German strategy was to intimidate Britain into surrender. Hitler's invasion plans were part of this, but he feared the power of the Royal Navy and hoped that an invasion would not be necessary. Instead he planned to destroy the Royal Air Force - assuming that the British would finally see sense and agree to his peace terms. If not, then their cities would be defenceless against his bomber fleets.

By July, the RAF was busily preparing to meet the Luftwaffe over Britain. The sinking of the troop ship Lancastria, with the loss of 3,500 lives in the oil-fouled water, was judged a threat to national morale and was covered up by the government. But slowly a new mood did emerge. Aircraft factories broke production records, and a brand-new air defence system was improvised by a mixture of eccentric boffins and a bright young staff of mostly female technicians.

As if to underline the national determination to fight on, Churchill ordered a deadly assault on the French Navy - which he feared was about to fall into Hitler's hands. America, at last, was impressed. If the RAF could perform equally well in the air battle to come, then maybe there was hope.

Everything now hinged on the war in the air. The Battle of Britain commenced - three weeks of intense combat in the skies over southern England, a war between the world's greatest airforce - Germany's - and the outnumbered fighter squadrons of the RAF. But, aided by its revolutionary radar-assisted control system, British Fighter Command managed to avoid the fate of the Luftwaffe's previous opponents.

With the help of some judicious propaganda, the RAF's young pilots were transformed into national and international heroes. Many of them were convinced they would die on their first mission, and sadly, some did, but others became top Spitfire aces, thrilled to see how their actions inspired the civilians all around them, supporting and cheering them on.

Civilian experience

Child evacuee Bess Cummings  © Children, not understanding the deadly nature of the war, thrilled to the dogfights over their heads, and traded spent bullet and shrapnel collections in school playgrounds. Many of those children remember to this day how excited they were by the air war, and tell of the sight of destroyed planes and bodies.

Impressed by the RAF and by the determination of the ordinary people they met, American news reporters like Whitelaw Reid begin to change their country's mind about Britain - as Churchill had predicted. Britain at war seemed almost glamorous - as it struggled in its blacked-out defiance against the enemy.

Across the country a new kind of patriotism emerged - not the King and Empire talk of 1914, but something more classless, democratic and forward-looking. Such hope and solidarity was about to be tested to the limit, however, as Hitler, frustrated by the failure of the British to yield, ordered an entirely new kind of warfare to begin - the mass bombing of cities.

Many people who were alive at the time recall the amazing determination to keep going that could be seen in the RAF at the time, as well as in the British people as a whole.

Finest hour

Edith Heap  © Germany launched the world's first sustained bombing offensive against a major European city in the months of September and November, 1940. It was a moment that the world has dreaded for decades.

London was hammered from the air for a week, whilst Fighter Command failed to make much impression on the new German bombing tactics. Londoners responded to the barrage with a stirring mixture of heroics, horror, despair - and above all anger. Anger at the authorities for their many blunders and insensitivities - and especially for their inability to provide adequate shelters from the raids - but also, more markedly, anger at the enemy.

After many died in makeshift and unsuitable shelters, London's tube stations were stormed by angry crowds seeking decent air raid protection. Despite this, on a visit to the East End, people came out on the streets to cheer Churchill.

Revenge for Londoners came after a week - when the RAF swept down on a major German raid, and shot down dozens of enemy bombers. After this, Hitler concluded that Britain would not be defeated in 1940, and he decided instead to slowly starve her into submission, through the use of an ever-tightening U-boat blockade, whilst her cities were bombed flat in a now widening 'Night Blitz'.

The bombing continued - with harrowing scenes in shattered basements, and improvised mortuaries having to be created, often inside drained swimming pools.

At sea, the punishing U-boat campaign continued, and the war in the Atlantic was cruel and unrelenting. Convoys were ordered not to stop for men in the water. The navy was reduced to using converted passenger ships as convoy protection. The shocking near-annihilation of Coventry, in November 1940, drove home the point of continuing sacrifice and sorrow. As city after city was blitzed, there was some dismay, a little looting but, overall, a remarkable stoicism and sense of community.

And the sacrifice was seen to be worthwhile. Across occupied Europe Britain's continued defiance and the daily voice of the BBC offered a glimmer of light and hope for the future. The experience of a WAAF Radar plotter, Edith Heap, in that November was all too typical of the sacrifice demanded of those who struggled to keep Britain in the war. Six weeks after she had met, fallen in love with, and become engaged to Hurricane pilot Denis Wissler (a time she remembers as the happiest of her life), she heard, over the operations room tannoy where she worked, the air battle that was to take his life.

Her story, and her fiancé's sacrifice, emphasises the price that had to be paid, and the debt that is still owed, to those who suffered and fought through Britain's 'finest hour'.

Thanks to such people, and many others, over the following six gruelling months, Britain did not capitulate and was not defeated, keeping alive the hope of freedom for those already suffering under Nazi occupation. A nation's darkest hour became its finest.

Find out more

Books

Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk by Len Deighton (Vintage/Ebury, 1996)

War Walks 2: From the Battle of Hastings to the Blitz by Richard Holmes (BBC Consumer Publishing, 1998)

Dunkirk, 1940 by Patrick Wilson (Pen & Sword Books 1999)

Places to visit

The Royal British Legion has a Special Tours Department which arranges group visits to war cemeteries, memorials and campaign areas worldwide, including the beaches of Dunkirk.

The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, Cottage by the Lake, Hook Shore, Warsash, Hants. SO31 9HF. The Association aims to perpetuate the spirit and memory of the Dunkirk Little Ships.