Wednesday, January 1st , 1941
New Year’s Day! Wished communist acquaintance in Reading a Happy New Year (force of habit). He replied, “I am not wishing anyone a "happy" new near; the only thing I can wish them is courage.” More invasion prophecies, his time from Smuts, a general opinion that it will be sooner rather than later. Wonder if this is correct. Weather very uncertain for next three months and though initial invasion may be airborne must surely rely on sea transport for heavy stuff.
Well, whatever 1941 may be, 1940 will certainly be one of the great years of history and take its place with 1789, 1805, 1815, 1914, 1918 and so on,.
Another year, another deadly blow!
Another mighty empire overthrown!
And we are left, or shall be left, alone;
The last that dare to struggle with the foe.
[Wordsworth, Nov, 1806]
1940 has been compared with 1498, the year the Italy of the Renaissance was invaded by foreigners from beyond the Alps. France, the pillar and rallying point of European civilization, has been cut down at the root (metaphors a bit mixed!). The value for which France stood have suffered defeat in the country of their origin and centre of their influence. The Peace of Vienna is [illegible] down after the Peace of Versailles, pacts, treaties, agreements are all whirled away in the rubbish heap of Europe Germany is creating.
Hitler’s Revolution of Destruction, and the weapon of this destruction the air bombardment! Wherever the new hordes go across the face of Europe, self government, free speech and the Christian religion perish, the minds of men are enslaved and the intellect of the young is poisoned before it can develop. But what Abraham Lincoln said of America can be said now of Europe and the rest: the world cannot continue half slave and half free. There is not room for both, they cannot live side by side, one or the other must perish – in 1941 or if, if, if we can hold out, then in 1942, when the full weight of America’s industry will be turned against the enemies of democracy.
A year ago there was no rationing (yesterday the Food Controller warned us that we must eat more oatmeal and potatoes and less bread), the first army casualty list had not been issued, though the Finno-Russian war was raging; the Maginot Line was constantly in the news and so strong was the defensive fortification believed to be that many people doubted whether Hitler would ever throw his armies against it. Though air attacks on the Orkneys and Shetlands had been made, there had been no air raid on any British town, and many people were found to say that that there was an understanding that no attack would be made. We had made pamphlet raids in Germany. German U-boats were being sunk more rapidly than they were being replaced, and the threat to our shipping seemed under control. On the other side of the Channel and the Atlantic [coast] stood France and her navy. In the Mediterranean Italy was neutral, and neutral Norway, Denmark, Holland and Belgium stood stretched from the dunes of Dunkirk to the Arctic Circle.
Accounts from U.S.A. papers of new British aircraft types, the Hawker Tornado, 425 m.p.h., the Westland Whirlwind, 400 m.p.h., the Avro Manchester, about 325 m.p.h., We are supposed to have about 400 Tornadoes at present. The existing bombers, Wellingtons, Whisleys and Hampdens, have been re-engined and their speeds increased.
Thursday, Jan 2nd
Went up to London for the first time since August 26th. Not much damage to be seen from the train on the way up. Here and there, especially in Acton, homes were smashed by the side of the line. Paddington was normal and undamaged. It was a bitter, cold day, clear with an icy N.E. wind. I took a bus from Paddington to Aldwych, where the Strand buses stopped, then walked from there to Cheapside and the City. The roads had all been nearly cleared and pavements, except in one or two places, were free from debris. Traffic, but no buses, was running in the streets around St Paul’s itself.
From Ludgate Circus the smell of burning increased. St Martin’s still stood. The west side of Ludgate Hill a shell and the Cathedral entirely surrounded, with the exception of a shop or two, by burnt out hulks. In some cases hoses were still being played on the wreckage, but there was very little water in the streets. The Cathedral must have looked a magnificent sight ringed round with a wall of flame.
Cheapside was very badly burnt. I particularly noticed a Lyons tea shop. The whole front had gone, but the metal tables still stood in rows, coal black, and a large refrigerator was also coal black. It was possible to walk in the bombshell of a church near the Guildhall. On the latter a large Union Jack, rather grimy looking, still floated. The plane tree in Wood Street was still there. The effect of fire is very different from H.E., for though the roof tiles fall in, the outer shell generally stands. Where H.E. had fallen too, there were acres of rubble views through broken arches and tottering walls.
The firemen, yellow with smoke and exhaustion, looked like attendants in a new sort of Dante-esque inferno. The drab crowds in Cheapside, nearly all men, hardly spoke but stood about in groups. The engineers picked their way over the heaps of yellowish brick looking for dangerous parts to dynamite. The smell of burning pervaded everything. Small shops, their fronts smashed in, still had their goods lying under heaps of broken glass. At one place a queue of clerks had formed getting permits to enter the damaged areas to retrieve papers. At another point some men were removing a safe bodily.
The grass edge round the Cathedral was trampled to pulp by a thousand feet. I entered the west door and stood where I must have been on the evening of November 11th, 1918. The cathedral was neat and orderly after the rubbish outside and the air was free from fire smells. The debris had been cleared from in front of the reredos and the hole in the vault covered with a green tarpaulin. A good many panes were gone from the west windows. I went down to the crypt to see the Kennington bust of Lawrence (of Arabia) but the light was bad. Jellicoe, Beatty, Wellington, Nelson – the architects of victory! Coming out of the cathedral again the smoke met one’s nostrils like a kind of inverted and demonic incense.
On the way back I noticed glass lying in the streets of the Temple, so walked through some of the courts. H.E. bombs had fallen there in the night and the noise was like a kind of giant washing up of crockery as the glass was shoveled away.
At the Aldwych I got a bus to Piccadilly where I had lunch at the Corner House Brasserie. For 1s 6d I had a large plate of soup, more spaghetti au gratin than I could eat, a chocolate ice cream, rolls and margarine, and a cup of coffee. Lyons was very normal, the flower shop still looked gay, the cooked foods appetizing and the crowds still the same.
The West End was very different from the burnt out City. Destruction, where it had occurred, was complete, but it was sporadic. Every now and then there were gaps like missing teeth. Here pioneers were sometimes at work with light railways and cranes. Crawling over the craters, bent on their ant-like work and covered in dust, with their steel helmets they looked like some species of large insect whose nest had been disturbed. The nave of St James’s, Piccadilly, was a shell, the spire had gone, and the tower leaned drunkenly several feet out of the perpendicular.
Regent Street looked normal at first sight except that many of the smaller shops were closed and on closer inspection you saw that many windows in the great stone facades were like sockets without eyes. The window frames were gone and the curtains blowing ragged in the wind.
Tottenham Court Road was very badly damaged. There at one point no shops were open and few people except policemen were about. All over London the clocks had stopped. Sometimes they were faceless, but the great clock over the Law Courts was still going, though broken panes in the dial left black gaps. I thought of Madrid and Barcelona, with which London takes its place, and recalled the features of the destruction there so exactly reproduced here. They were the shape of things to come.
After lunch I went to see an exhibition of official war artists at the National Gallery. The devastation often provides subjects of a most surrealist kind. The twisting into all sorts of curious and contorted shapes of huge steel girders, as though a heap of ribbons had been tumbled from a work basket, had been recorded for posterity. There were few people there.
On instructions from Nora, I tried to get some dried fruit and several big stores, including Selfridges, but beyond currants and raisins they had nothing, not even prunes. Found a shop with some lemons in near Paddington, but when I asked for a couple was told I could only have one – for 2½d. Most of the West End shops shut at 4 or 4.30, so when I got to Paddington the 4.30 the train was packed with people getting home before the warning. Many carried steel helmets, but gas masks were fewer than a year ago.
A rather grim day on the whole. Many of the people in buses and streets showed very clear signs of stress and fatigue.
Friday, Jan 3rd
Australians with tanks have penetrated the defences of Bardia [The attack against the Italian camps was launched by General O’Connor on December 9th]. There are supposed to be about 20,000 Italians in these positions.
The meat ration has been cut because the shops are wanted to take munitions to Libya. Passenger trains to be cut down for coal trains. Received a letter from the League of Nations Union saying they were sorry to hear the Henley branch was moribund. Contemplated sending a postcard: “What League of What Nations?”
Saturday, Jan 4th
Went to lunch with Roberts today – curate at Sonning. Discussed things in general and my experiences in London. Came to agreement that international air force desirable after war to put force behind international government and see international law has police power to back it.
Heard last night that Australians and tanks into Bardia perimeter from south west.
Optimistic broadcast from Wavell. “The year 1940 has shown that even long years of ease and prosperity, even that terrible slogan of safety first, have failed to sap the hard deep core of our natural courage. Make no mistake. We shall have a hard struggle ahead. We are fighting the most evil thing that has happened in this troubled world for many centuries – a gang of unscrupulous men who have corrupted the whole youth of a great nation and brought them up to believe in the doctrine of force, cruelty and lies.”
Listened to music hall tonight. Stainless Steven: If Hitler waits till the tide comes in at Southend he will have to come ashore in a bath chair. A new bomber ordered by Goering to be ready in a fortnight, sent over England, when they pulled the bomb release lever the designer, a foreman and five workmen fell out! Etc, etc.
Reading Times tonight saw they had a leader pointing out that there is no tradition of the sea that the captain should go down with his ship, but something invented by a sentimental novelist and taken over by sensational reporter! Captains in these days are worth more alive than dead.
Bought a maximum of four oranges today and two pounds of apples at 1/- a pound.
Sunday, January 5th
Bardia has fallen into our hands and resistance only continues in south east part of the perimeter. Grand news; another knock for Musso.
Monday, Jan 6th
History being made today, as in 1917 when President Wilson declared war on Germany. No declaration of war this time, but a speech by Roosevelt – just summarized over wireless – to Congress in Washington saying that all necessary munitions of war, ships, guns, tanks and aeroplanes will be sent to those countries defending their liberty against aggression, and no threats that this will be regarded as an unfriendly act or as against international law by Germany will stop them being sent. No money will be lent to be repaid, but when the war is over the loan can be repaid in goods where necessary.
Speech on wireless by Minister of Information tonight on victory in the desert. Mind went back to June 10th, when he spoke on day Italy declared war. Hope the curse of Garibaldi is working hard and will continue to work. Total Italian prisoners since offensive began 68,000. Casualties to Australians, who attacked from west when Italians led to believe the assault would be made from north, believed to be about 400. These are the real attributes of victory and the legerdemain which marks out the authentic military genius of a great commander.
Wednesday, January 8th
Heard that mobile forces near Tobruk and if garrison wants to get out it will have to fight for it. However, clear that Hitler will not let Mussolini be beaten. The German army is now unemployed and will be used as soon as possible to knock out the Greeks through Bulgaria. German divisions crossing the Brenner southward. Mussolini must have thought he was reviving the Roman Empire. What he has in fact revived is the Holy Roman Empire with German rules in Munich, Vienna and Rome.
School term began today. Took a leaf our of the communist’s book and wished the children courage and cheerfulness!
The shortage of ships makes interesting an account read today of record ship construction in the U.S.A. yards during the last war - launched in 27 days and fitted out after 37 days, another launched in 24 working days, and so on. The 60 ships building now in the U.S. are supposed to take about 12 months. Hope they will improve on this. For Roosevelt said: “We Americans are vitally interested in your defence of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, resources and organizing powers to give you strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you increasing numbers of ships, aeroplanes, tanks and guns. This is our purpose and our pledge” Will Americans be effective in time? Will it be, to quote the Duke, a damned close run thing?
Meat ration, owing to need for ships, to be varied from week to week. This week is for 1s 2d – making the family 4s 1d, as Hilary gets a half ration. It used to be 1s 9d, then 1s 6d, now 1s 2d. In some places last week there was no meat at all.
Friday, Jan 10th
Nora had a summons to go into the Berkshire Hospital for a blood transfusion. Not very keen on it myself as she has quite enough to do with Hilary, London, and no maid or charwoman without replacing lost blood, but she is determined to go.
Good article in Times on anomalies of billeting and evacuation. Pointed out the scandal of people from reception areas going to other areas they consider safer and filling up the hotels, doing nothing but knit and sleep, and when a bomb falls near trekking off and doing the same somewhere else. The scramble for safety makes it very difficult to accommodate genuine evacuees who have been bombed out of their homes, military, war workers, civil servants and so on, who have some good reason for being there. Town clerks are chary of saying town is full because local tradesmen don’t want to check the influx of visitors. Henley an example of the abuses on a small scale. A girl and mother, billeted with a T.B. host, quite unable to find accommodation anywhere else in town. Rather than risk infection, mother and child going back to danger area.
Bryant in today. Very low opinion of army as he sees it in R.E.s chemical warfare section; tests competitive between squads, and various methods reminiscent of school used to obtain advance information on questions. Says method of gas attack are those used by Germans in last war and still seem to be doing a large amount of senseless arms drill that we wasted our time on in 1914-1918.
Hilary, a bit down with cough and diphtheria injections, seems very anxious about fires. Has evidently picked up a good deal from snaps of adult conversation and other little boys. Got a stirrup pump up in the roof today and think it may be a good thing if I stage a fire in the garden and use pump to put it out. May give him confidence.
Widespread action last night and house shaken by bomb explosions. Barrage seems to be nearer than it used to be. Wycombe and Maidenhead visited apparently. Today the first big raid on the Pas de Calais since the Battle of Britain began. People in Kent saw our forces flying over to German aerodromes instead of the reverse process, which has been the rule since Dunkirk.
After dropping some bombs on Dublin, the Germans are now saying that a British invasion of Ireland is imminent. Usually this sort of statement precedes a German invasion. Our army in Ulster, it is true, are waiting for a German landing to be attempted in the south. A pilot we know of came down in Eire and is interned. The situation there is so difficult that his parents are not told where he is nor are they allowed to write to him.
P.M. in speech: “I have always taken the view that the fortunes of mankind in its tremendous journey are principally decided for good or evil – but mainly for good – by its great men and its greatest episodes. I therefore hail it as a most fortunate occurrence that at this awe striking climax in world affairs, there stands at the head of the American Republic a famous statesman, in whose heart there burns the fire of resistance to aggression and oppression and whose sympathies and nature make him the sincere and undoubted champion of justice and freedom and of the victims of doing wrong wherever they may dwell.”
Saturday, Jan 11th
Timothy Auty took me over to Oxford today. Though I had no particular business there, a free lift was not to be despised, so I went.. We arrived about eleven and I went to see the Women Home Students Library in the Woodstock Road. A woman, who as a girl had wanted to go to Oxford, gave the money which her husband left her on his death. She comes up to Oxford now and sees it. A pleasant story. It’s a nice library too!
I wondered as I looked though the bare plane trees of St Giles on this winter day whether I should see it as I saw it at the Jubilee (or was it the Coronation?) decorated for victory! After a very indifferent lunch at the George, went into the Union to write a letter to M., felt, as a life member, should soon be in the senile class of eccentrics and thought myself very old compared with the undergraduate in a scholar’s gown who came here to write letters in 1919! Still, however, a liberal supply of notepaper. Went into Blackwell’s, but too crowded to read comfortably.
We passed Benson on the way, which seemed very well defended. It was not very obvious at first that the poles driven into the fields round were connected by wires. Until I noticed this, I thought they were rather far apart. Also there were signs that the escarpment overlooking the aerodrome was honey combed with m/g posts.
Timothy asked me if I had heard rumours circulating of impending attack by gas. Apparently there are large dumps at invasion ports and A.R.P. and soldiers have been issued with new anti-gas instructions, according to the rumour that is to say. She also told me that a new type of incendiary bomb is being used, which must be allowed to go for two minutes without interference as it explodes in this time and scatters fragments.
Story of Winston Churchill being asked some time ago to a Cabinet lunch to meet Ribbentrop. When a friend expressed surprise, he replied, “Well, I suppose they wanted to show him that if they couldn’t bark themselves, they kept a dog who could bark and might bite.”
Hear that men entering Bardia much troubled by attacks of very numerous and ferocious flees. These believed to be Mussolini’s secret weapon.
Had a story about General Sikorsky dining at Buckingham Palace. “Have you any children, General,” asked the Queen. “Alas, no, M’am. My wife is unbearable.” “Your language is so difficult,” intervened an aide, “The general means his wife is inconceivable.” “No, no,” said a staff officer, “The general means his wife is impregnable.”
A most interesting account of how an aeroplane was sent to the mountains of Abyssinia to find a British mission of which nothing had been heard for a long time. A message was sent in advance to the Colonel to tell him to prepare a landing ground if possible and to guide the aeroplane to it by signals from the nearest peak. At last they found it and made a perilous landing, to find the British officer surrounded by dusky “patriots”. The next day they went up to the source of the Blue Nile, where the new comer addressed a large meeting of chiefs and told them that Britain was coming to their aid. After the talk, the officers supped and were baptized by an Ethiopian bishop! A huge feast of lords and retainers followed. The mission was led to Abyssinia five months ago by a 60-year-old colonel carrying the seal of Haile Selassie. He and his followers hid in woods and caves. To the drone of Italian aeroplanes, the Colonel read the Emperor’s proclamation to the assembled crowds. They wanted a “sign”. The sign was given by bombing raids on Italian centers.
Wednesday, Jan 22nd
Speech on manpower by P.M. tonight. Factories laid down in 1939 will soon be coming into operation and army and air force will have to be combed for skilled workers to work them. Apparently we have an army of about 4,000,000 and little wastage compared with last war.
Thursday, Jan 23rd
A thaw has started and produced a low fog over the chilled and sodden ground….. Received a circular today with information about exploding incendiaries, so has taken 11 days to percolate since Timothy mentioned it.
The Daily Worker banned. I wonder they have been allowed to go on for so long with their anti-war stuff and leave-Hitler-to-the-German-communists nonsense. Carefully explained to me by communist friends in Reading that Hitler doesn’t matter, was only useful for stirring up discontent, e.g. rise in cost of living, and helping forward the revolution. When I suggested that if they thought Hitler could be left to get on with the conquest of England they were living in an unreal world, they replied that not at all, they were the people who were in touch with the problems of the workers and so living with REALITY. Now will no longer be able to hawk paper in streets. Like Othello, occupation gone.
Just been reading a communist paper called Labour Monthly. A lot about “People’s Convention” about to meet in London with six points, but no mention of what they are. Any stick used to beat Churchill and government even accused of giving away British Empire to U.S.A. This, in view of their aim to disrupt same, a bit thick!
Many signs point to German preparations for effort against Greece when weather improves…. Troops massing on Bulgarian frontier.
Tobruk has fallen with 15,000 prisoners, 200 guns, and three generals. Our casualties 500.
Would-be parent in this p.m. Air Force officer recently engaged in rescuing pilots by motor launches in North Sea. No opinion of job in boats used in rough weather. All right for Solent.
Friday, Jan 24th
Heard that one of our new battleships, Prince of Wales, went on mission in U.S.A. with Lord Halifax. Last heard of when launched by King in 1939. One of a squadron of five, Prince of Wales, Duke of York, Beatty, Jellicoe, each costing £8 million.
Saturday, Jan 25th
On A.R.P. 1 – 5 in afternoon with man who told me all his symptoms last summer. Still a non-stop talker if let, but occasionally tells a good story! Said Tubes in Marylebone never switched lights off, as it would cost more to put in switches than to leave them burning from 3 – 5 a.m. This apropos Town Hall cellar, Henley, down steps of which you fall on way to find light in control room passage. He suggested pilot light should be left burning there, so this solemnly debated by Town Council and rejected! I retaliated with night I went over and handle of Town Hall came off in my hand! Local government in backwoods of Oxfordshire.
Music hall tonight. “She sold herself for an onion and now she’s in a stew!”
Monday, Jan 27th
Heard from Molly today that Exmouth bombed and 15 people killed…. M’s birthday today. Found half a dozen snowdrops in the Chestnut Walk.
Wednesday, Jan 29th
Went to see The Great Dictator with M in Reading. It moves very rapidly from extreme slapstick to serious comment and some of its gags, though amusing, are stuck on rather obviously, but it has glorious moments, the Dictator Adenoid Hinkel holding the damp baby, posing for the artists, welcoming Napoleoni at the station, tearing the medals and ribbons off Field Marshal Herring, inspecting his inventions. From these it moves to the Jewish persecutions by storm troopers in the ghetto. Here it gets nearer to the bone, though this, too, is mixed with slapstick with frying pans and pots of paint, which takes the edge off. Finally the escaping Jewish barber is mistaken for the Dictator and makes a great speech to the conquered Austrians. This is a direct and moving appeal by Chaplin and ends the film. A moment before there has been some monkey business with the Dictator’s chair, but the link between the comic and the serious is well made in this case by the word hope – hope for the Jews, hope for the conquered and oppressed, hope for humanity.
Thursday, Jan 30th
New proclamation yesterday raising the age of registration for military service to 40. I am not sure whether I am included or not as 41 on Feb 12th. From The Times today conclude that if not called to register before birthday would not be included.
Foggy today and some bombing of London by aeroplanes diving through cloud. Caretaker gloomy about toilet rolls. Cost risen and with lodgers running to about £5 a term! And difficult to buy in quantity too, like everything else. Hilary very anxious to go to the zoo “when the war is over.”
Alarmist rumours from America of 18,000 planes ready for invasion….
Friday, Jan 31st
School now 350 instead of 200 and two staff away for most of last fortnight, so glad week has come to an end. Last night school bus to Caversham saw incendiaries falling and some boys got out and helped extinguish them.
Col. Knox, USA naval chief, said in the committee on the “lend and lease Bill” that the Germans were waiting for a fine spell and making careful weather observations. The crisis would come within the next 60 to 90 days, and there was every indication that the Germans would use gas. Wonder if I can get Hilary to wear his gas mask by playing “bombing” or some such war game. He has only had it on once and for a very short time, and didn’t like it much.
Saturday, Feb 1st
Went to Oxford to day in Miss Hunter’s car and had lunch with Rosalind Hill in Westfield College – at least lunch at Fullers, sherry and coffee in R’s room in Westfield. R parades as fire fighter with tin hat. Told me extraordinary story of college friend who became R.C, taught in convent school, exchanged to S. Africa, fell in love with a married anthropologist, lived with him on a Pacific island, had a baby there and adopted it to legitimatize it, then went back to Central Australia desert, where baby being brought up with yellow dog dingo. R, acting as representative in England, had to break news of baby’s arrival to mother, very proper, in London.
After lunch to W.E.A. district meeting, where heard a talk by professor of Greek at the university on “the Common School”, i.e., a school to which all, rich or poor, would go and from which merit, not money, would bring secondary education etc. Thinks the preparatory and private schools could be liquidated in six years, which would give the middle class time to get used to it. Public schools could be made really public or used for children who are better away from home!
Oxford very free from bombing so far, nothing even compared with Reading. Rosalind’s mother now quite bats, mixes up this war with last and gets very muddled with Italians, but has got the Germans right!
Sunday, Feb 2nd
Spent 9 – 1 at the A.R.P. offices with a Mr. Eumorphopoulus, younger brother of the collector of Chinese ceramics, rather decayed but an interesting man. Said it was an insult to your intelligence to be asked to vote for Sir Gifford Fox, sitting Conservative member - quite agree, it is! Discussed schools, sex education and modern art.
Tulips, hyacinths and daffodils all above the surface. Perhaps our fortunes, like the seasons, have turned the corner.
J.B. Priestley tonight on “communal feeding centers”, which he rightly said should be re-christened as soon as possible. Here existed a great chance to improve English cooking and diet, and if we come out of the war without the Gestapo and with new soups and salads we should have won a double victory.
Monday, Feb 3rd
Sometimes the days go quickly, at other times when you are waiting the weeks seem interminable. So it is now, in these weeks before the spring campaign on land, sea and air opens in the west. So it is that one tunes into the wireless, hoping to hear some news from France of French N. Africa. This silent struggle between Vichy and Hitler has gone on now for so long in its subterranean fashion that it seems like a game of chess where the players sit and sit, the significance of the moves cannot be followed, and nothing appears to be happening.
Wendell Wilkie, the defeated Republican candidate for the presidency of the U.S.A., has been touring England….. He is returning to America early without seeing De Valera, which seems a pity, not that he could have moved that monument to obstinacy and prejudice.
Wednesday, Feb 5th
A letter from old Leicester student, now R.A.F. officer, from a friend who had just joined the R.A.F. as a private in January. Contained some amusing passages: The flight sergeant was the angriest looking chap ever seen; even when he nodded to his fellow N.C.O.s he seemed to have reached the limits of human forbearance. He opened the door to the hut and looked at us with his baleful eye. “All you fellows have to be back in this hut by 9.20. I don’t mind whether you are in bed or not. I don’t care whether you are alive or dead or not, but I want one bloody body for each bloody bed.”
The tailoring was brilliant but erratic. I stood in front of a profound looking gentleman, who gazed at me intently for about three seconds. Then, without asking me any questions or taking any measurements, he rapidly wrote down my size in hats, boots, socks, shirts, collars, jackets, overcoats and trousers. Then I drew my uniform. The overcoat was marked suitable for man of 6ft 3 in, the jacket for 5ft 7 in. My hat was too large, my trousers so long that the man behind me kept falling over them. The shirt was too small, the collar too large, the boots quite impossible. However, there was no need for me to worry, as this was obviously regarded as just a preliminary skirmish, not to be taken seriously at all. The next day we went back and exchanged everything, much to the relief of a very small man whose overcoat was so gigantic that when he put it on he disappeared completely.
I was at Cardington for six days – days of endless queuing. We queued for meals, clothes, lectures, inoculations and pay. Sometime we queued to obtain a favourable position in another queue.
Specimen of N.C.O: “You march like a pack of pregnant earwigs. Stamp your feet, you sods. I could make a better noise by flapping my foreskin”
Lecture by officer: “Now then, chaps, don’t hang about the streets with girls. It looks so bad. Take ‘em into the woods. That’s what the woods are for. And don’t forget the early treatment centre just inside the gate.”
I have been most impressed with the human decency here. I have been treated with far greater consideration than I expected. The food is superb.
On guard duty: “Halt! Who goes there?”
“Friend!”
“Advance and be recognized!”
“If I advance any further, I shall be bloody well unrecognizable. Take that fucking bayonet out of my bollocks or I’ll come and knock your fucking head off!”
“Pass Friend.”
Most of his activities were punctuated by inspections for V.D. In this essential particular the Air Force most efficient.
Sunday, Feb 9th
Benghazi taken on Thursday…. Since the operation started seven battles have been fought in a 500 mile advance over country practically devoid of food or water….. General satisfaction that we can employ armoured and mechanized forces in a lightning war as effectively as the Germans.
Tuesday, Feb 11th
Governors today debated fire watching. Since big fires in City and Manchester, fire watching is fashionable. “Fall in, the fire parties!” Henley, however, is not in an area in which fire watching is compulsory. Nevertheless the governors are determined that something should be done about the school, and less something worse should befall I suggested that someone should sleep there. Not sleep, watch, said the chairman. Watch and pray, I might have answered!
Wednesday, Feb 12th
Birthday, now 41, so not included in the 1900 class for registration! Hilary gave me two packets of seeds. M spring flowers and carnations. Went over to Reading with M.H. [Marjorie Hunter] to Philharmonic concert, but could not get in.
Franco reported to be meeting Mussolini and speculation as to whether Franco is an intermediary for some sort of peace offer from British government….. Our troops welcomed in Benghazi…. Interview with Berganzoli, “Electric Whiskers”, general who escaped from Tobruk, Bardia and Derna. “We had no choice but to make an honourable surrender.” “I cannot believe,” said General Tellma, C in C, who subsequently died of wounds, “that the full strength of the British has got here so soon”, but they had.
Heard from M that Coventry in famous raid was located by wireless beam from Norway intersecting a beam from France. Sounds like an example of German ingenuity, but no means of telling if true.
Reading Darkness at Noon by man [Arnold Koestler] who was imprisoned by Franco, a novel of imprisonment and shooting of old guard leaders in Russia. Gave me the willies.
Thursday, Feb 13th
Chief news today serious danger of Japanese action in Pacific. Where don’t know, but alarm given by acting P.M. of Australian war cabinet. Japanese fleet rumored in Gulf of Siam. Bulgaria only a matter of days now before German troops move in. Convoy reported from German sources attacked by surface ships and many sunk – some truth in it, I expect – but no news from Admiralty. Evening paper with all these alarms and article on invasion, so not very cheerful reading….. Personally think the Balkans lost, as we are in no position to pull these states out of the German grasp…..
Friday, Feb 14th, St Valentine’s Day
Went into Reading today in search of eating apples but found none. Tried entirely without success to buy small oil heater. None to be had and so rare that tradesmen looked incredulous when I asked about them.
Query: If Churchill sent tanks, equipment, mechanized units to Mediterranean in defense of Egypt at a time when Britain was threatened with invasion last August and September, a risk that has been justified by Wavell’s brilliant victories, it must have been an act of faith in our impregnability (or a gamble!), does he now, six months later, rate the threat higher?
Query 1: Churchill said in a speech on Sunday, “Give us the tools and we will finish the job.” This to the U.S.A. He therefore does not envisage American military aid at any point in a continental war. As it seems unlikely that that we can in any case be more than one to two in troops, how does he propose to set about defeating Germany? By air power? By blockade? By “peninsular” attacks, e.g., Libya? Sicily? entrance to Baltic? Salonika?
M had some peculiar women in her library, “Women’s Mechanized Transport” they called themselves, all doled up and covered in medals, stars, and what not. They sat at a table with literature and photographs of royalty recruiting the best young women with motorcars!
Saturday, Feb 15th
Groundsman, like naval officers and Air Force, does not believe in invasion for, as he pointed out, from our experiences in 1917 invading troops will be very sick!
[Ed: Groundsman, Len Hayes, joined up while under age for the 1914 – 18 war and survived the trenches with nothing worse than a bullet that passed through his trouser pocket without touching him, or so I recollect his telling me].
Sunday, Feb 16th
The outline of Hitler’s spring offensive is growing clearer…. Russia incapable of action beyond diplomatic means… The offensive against Britain to have three areas of operation. 1) The Balkans, here Greece to be crushed by a drive to Salonika…. 2) In the Far East Japan to attack Dutch East Indies and Malaya and involve Gt Britain in war there. 3) Spain to be given more territory in Morocco as price of use of bases in western Mediterranean…. When these offensives have been launched, a fresh air attack is to be made on this country and attempts made to close the trade routes.
Reading an account by two British ambulance drivers with the French Red Cross called Drive to Bordeaux. “Only those in the army know the awful truth. For several days now there has been nothing but sporadic encounters in the East and West; most of the soldiers on the road had never even seen the Germans. The army of France had been defeated by panic among the civilian population which it was fighting to defend. It was the civilians who had met the enemy face to face, and in their flight taken to the road, sweeping back with them the troops who were advancing to their defence.”
Monday, Feb 17th
Half term, but nothing much to do. Still waiting for invasion of Bulgaria. Some advance copies of Oxford Pamphlets. One by old tutor E. L. Woodward on the Origins of the War. “The Germans acquiesced in national socialism because they could understand it. They could understand it because its appeal was thoroughly and typically German. Among the English speaking nations, Hitler and Goering have been recognized easily as pathological types….. To Germans, Hitler is a heaven-born hero and Goering an admirable and jolly kind of man….. These creatures have obtained popular acclamation in Germany because they represent the type of man which the average German tends to admire; their ideas have found acceptance because such ideas have not been foreign to the German tradition.”
Tuesday, Feb 18th
“An army of the doomed”. Description of (German) invading force by First Lord of the Admiralty in talk on work of navy during the last three months. Bombers are being shot down more frequently, some by fighters, some by A.A. fire. Another six in the past 24 hours.
Sat on Air Training Corps Committee tonight and appointed elderly ex-mercantile marine gent, Sir Something Matheson, as O.C. 64 but no one else available. Gave his views on discipline, which consisted of “reprimand, but no humiliation.” Hope he’ll do!
Reading Black Record, Sir Robert Vansittart’s B.B.C. talks on Germany. No redeeming features, according to him.
Thursday, Feb 20th
Big Australian force has arrived in Malaya. Japanese warships reported in Gulf of Siam. Questions being asked in H of C about 13 ships reported sunk in unprotected convoy off Madeira, but no information could be got from government…
Theatres as well as cinemas to be opened on Sundays. This a step forward provided day’s rest a week is safeguarded, as it is in this case. Not much to put in Diary lately – a lull!
Saturday, Feb 22nd
Writing waiting for breakfast in bed. It looks as though the Germans have brought off their usual success against smaller countries and have got the Balkans in the bag without fighting by threats and taking one at a time while reassuring the others. First Hungary, then Roumania, now Bulgaria and Yugoslavia…… They hope to do the same with Greece, and are reported to have offered her some kind of peace terms….
There have been riots at Les Halles in Paris, whereon the Germans have deprived the city of potatoes for 40 days.
Received an anonymous letter yesterday, which I suspect comes from the gardener’s cottage at the back, threatening to report me to the police for showing lights. Curious mentality, but quite typical of employees of wealthy in this neighbourhood.
Rosalind Hill over from Oxford. Discussed general effect of blast. In one place stripped off a lot of people’s clothes but did them no injury, in another drove dust into scalp and skin and clothes and found very difficult to get clean again. Women’s Voluntary Service did very badly with refugees in Oxford and general impression that although many willing individuals, organization poor and vitiated by snobbery and jealousy. Funny how little team spirit there seems to be among women and how much more snobbish, keep-it-among-our-set they are than men. Or are they? They seem to be.
Rosalind knows sister of man dropped by parachute in S. Italy. They made their way back to the sea and swam out and were taken off by motorboats apparently. He is safe.
Sunday, Feb 23rd
Yesterday, Hilary, Rosalind and I went down to feed the pigs One had just been killed and was being removed on a trolley. Hilary did not display much emotion. Today at tea he revealed casually that he had been present at the birth of a calf, he had seen it come out of its mummy’s tummy and Mrs. Storey had hooked its legs out with a stick and then its mummy had licked it! [Farm adjacent to the Grammar School playing fields in the valley below our house, kept at the time by Mr. and Mrs. Storey. I was a regular visitor].
Writer on figures for German air strength believes the fresh information indicates first line fighting strength is rather under 5,000, divided into long-range bombers, 1,500 to 1,600; fighters 1,500; dive bombers 750; and reconnaissance aircraft 450. American estimate of absolute total is 35,000; GB 25,000; rate of production per month: Germany 2,000, GB 1,650, U.S.A. 750, but U.S.A .estimated for July 1,600. The fighter situation is very favourable and if the bomber and coastal command can be improved we can gain the initiative.
This afternoon attended recruiting meeting for Air Training Corps at cinema. It had its funny side. About 120 boys of 16 – 18 attended. The sumptuous curtains parted and the grey and shimmering background cloth appeared to reveal the Mayor and Fire Committee seated on the only six chairs that could be raised from the manager’s office. Odd, very! One man had pink face and white hair, another white face and pink hair. They looked like models from a West End shop, or something out of Madame Tusauds. By the A.T.C. the Air Ministry hopes to cope with the enormous increases in air crews and technical staff that are required. They aim at an entry of 200,000 with pre-training through the A.T.C…. We had three short films… They contained some actual photographs of air combat and the German aeroplanes with bits falling off them taken by a gun camera….
As I was coming back from the cinema, I found the first primrose in the bank below the terrace. This cheered me up a lot as I had been feeling very depressed for the last few days.
Tuesday, Feb 25th
Noticed today that wallflowers were in bud. Some bombs fell yesterday morning during school, but distant; was discoursing to the Sixth Form on the German offensive in 1918, so very appropriate! An enormous four-engined bomber went over last night at sunset. It filled the sky with its droning. It was the first I had seen.
Hitler made a speech at the Munich beerhouse yesterday in which he threatened a tremendous submarine attack on trade routes in March and April.
Marjorie Barnes turned up yesterday on half term holiday. House destroyed in her road at Woodford before Christmas; eating chocolates at the time and said to mother as she heard bombs whistling down, I am going to have the one with the strawberry centre anyway!
Wednesday, Feb 26th
Went for walk on the Downs below Nettlebed with M and had tea under an overhanging straw stack and got covered in skeeters. Saw bullfinches as well as lots of planes from Benson. Some sun, but bitterly cold.
Thursday, Feb 27th
Benson aerodrome attacked by low-flying bomber in cloud and some aeroplanes on the ground destroyed. If yesterday, would have just coincided with our arrival on the Downs. Went down for telephone duty 5 – 9 with Dowager Boughey. Some time since I had met her. Told me she had been chucked out of the W.V.S. Hospital Supplies as commandant charged her with being “rattled” because during alert she sat on the stairs – and she a naval officer’s wife (not a widow as I had supposed). Her daughter, a naval nurse in Plymouth, had all the stoppings in her teeth shaken out by bombing. Plymouth itself without gas or electricity for three weeks in autumn.
Saturday, March 1st
Went to Rickmansworth today and had lunch with Con. Ruined house still there. She spent last weekend with a German artist [Ed: Martin Bloch, expressionist painter] now released from internment camp on Isle of Man. He had taken materials with him, but only allowed to paint indoors, and this permanently blacked out! Had a surfeit of salted herrings and painted a picture called The Miracle of [?]Hington in which herrings turned into mermaid-like women. Very upset that of all the people who passed their barbed wire fence, no one looked or waved. [Con] Had a letter from her uncle who remarked that we and the German bombers are like little children destroying one another’s toys. She gave me some melon and lemon tinned S. African jam. It tasted very good.
Wednesday, March 5th
From May 3rd to August 9th we are to have an extra hour of summertime. On June 1st sun will set at 10.21. Farmers much annoyed, but government argues better for war workers. Poor lookout for cows!
Reading another book about France, If I Laugh, describing a bicycle ride from Paris to Spanish frontier by Englishman and Englishwoman. They kept mainly to side roads and often managed to get beds; written with a fine eye for comic or farcical, and snappy backchat with officials of all kinds. Reached Bordeaux some days after English had left and only just managed to beat Germans to the Spanish frontier. Amusing account of dry trousers bought in Bordeaux. “The man wanted 25 francs, but I beat him down. I looked at the trousers and felt she had been right not to take them without a struggle. They were of a greyish colour and I can only describe the pattern as neo-basketwork. There was a slight patch in the neighbourhood of the left knee, and the legs seemed to have a slight bell-bottom effect. The mixture of cut and pattern suggested that their previous owner might have been an eccentric golfer with a love of the sea. They were spotlessly clean, but what I liked best of all was the lining inside the end of each leg: this was of silk, blue silk, dotted with tiny red cherries. The great thing was to get them on as quickly as possible before I lost my nerve!”
And if I laugh at any mortal thing
Tis that I may not weep
[Byron, Don Juan iv.iv]
There is going to be some conscription of property at last. Civil consumption is to be still further cut; hosiery, pottery, boots and shoe factories are to be closed and production concentrated on fewer firms; the workers from closed factories will be transferred to munitions. Glad I got some more clothes. We shall be wearing boiler suits before we are finished with Hitler.
Today Britain broke off relations with Bulgaria. The Turks now regard entry to war as practically certain and their entry only a matter of time. Hope their equipment and air force some good…..
Friday, March 7th
Successful raid on Lofoten Islands by specially trained body last Tuesday at dawn. Fish oil plants destroyed and air-ground in making finished off. Fish oil destined for Germany for glycerine and explosives; cod liver oil supplies there too. Some Norwegian volunteers taken off and food left for fishermen. The Germans taken completely by surprise. No naval opposition encountered and no casualties. About 200 prisoners brought back.
Today a black out firm arrived to black out – estimate only – the school, which, so they say, has been earmarked as rest centre for homeless in case of, query local bombing, query invasion. Committee knew nothing about this, but said they should be allowed to measure up.
Architect round to see roof on Monday and proposed to put in more trapdoors in place of our present ones and give us some ladders to get into roof space after incendiaries..
Timothy Auty in tonight, begins job with B.B.C. on Monday, hours 11 a.m. to midnight, work in a large basement into which all the languages of Europe crammed, little ventilation and much smoke. Said it reminded her of American newspaper rooms as shown in the films.
Fascism here already it seems. Actor refused employment by B.B.C because of association with People’s Convention. Hope there will be a good stink made about it and questions asked in Parliament.
Saturday, March 8th
School has been earmarked as one for homeless people from Reading. Asked if I will supervise and organize it in this capacity, replied yes, provided that old swine (this off the record) of a chairman agrees.
In Reading this afternoon; shops getting very low, flowers (mainly daffodils though English violets now obtainable) make a brave show, but the greengrocers lack colour with no lemons or oranges, and some of the small sweet shops have closed. The food shops now only display tins, and the cakes are degenerating and taste of soda. Had tea with M, cakes consisted of the anaemic soda tasting type, one covered with a small portion of plaster of Paris cream and the other with a minute portion of jam.
Curious war, this one, compared with the last. List of decorations for middle aged civilians of both sexes as common as awards for bravery in the army. A.R.P. wardens who crawl under wreckage to drag out people buried under rubble, men who mend the tops of gasholders that have been damaged, midwifes who bring children into the world in cellars, telephonists who operate telephone boards while the walls collapse around them, doctors who tunnel through rubbish to administer morphine.
Sunday, March 9th
On telephone duty 9 – 1 with rather nasty old man who hawked and spat at frequent intervals. The n. o. m. wore green corduroy trousers and, I thought at first, trouser clips, but on further examination no reason for the construction at the bottom appeared visible, so I think he must have worn tapes or press studs!
When I arrived the Raspberry Blancmange was there and stayed some time till he left for a lecture at Oxford. He was in good form. First he told the story of a London doctor who had to go round visiting shelters. Among other jobs he had to deal with confinements. Putting his head in at the door of one he asked, “Any pregnant women here?” “Give us a chance, guv’ner”, answered a cockney voice, “We’ve only been here 20 minutes.” He then passed on to describe a public execution in Singapore in 1915 and ended with an account of how, owing to the spread of venereal disease in the Straits Settlements, the bishops succeeded in closing the brothels. He was sent on a mission to Japan to inspect the brothels there. He went with a police inspector, who taking him to one declared, “This is the most up-to-date brothel in the city: it has beds.” The proprietress asked him if he would like to see the staff. Fifteen yen is rather a lot, he said. As, yes, she replied, but for that you get bacon and egg for breakfast.
Sister of airman interned in Ireland in to lunch. He was piloting a bomber in the coastal command when something went wrong and they had to bale out. There were three of them and one man landed on a rock where he stayed all night. They were unlucky enough to land in Donegal, just the Free State side of the border, and imagined they were in Northern Ireland. Now at the Curragh in jug with the Germans – all boys together. Doesn’t get letters apparently, and also no money. Some of them tried to escape, but did not get far.
Tuesday, March 11th
“Dug for Victory" in school gardens this afternoon and felt extremely stiff. Very queer chaps the Germans. Now say our raid on Lofoten Islands “unfair”. Unfair! What impertinence!
Shipping losses again. Hitler’s spring attack seems to have started and 29 ships were sunk last week, 20 British, 8 allied and 1 neutral. This is the third-largest weekly total since the war began. Papers full of speculation about extent of American help now Lease & Lend Bill passed by big majority of Senate. Naval torpedo craft and submarine chasers supposed to be first supplies and then foodstuffs.
Awkward situation in France. Occupied France is short of wheat and harvest of course last summer poor. Germans have given back a little of what they stole and now Admiral Darlan contrasts their attitude with the British blockade and says that if G.B. will not allow food ships through he will convoy them with cruisers!
André Maurois, biographer and creator of Colonel Bramble, has left England and gone to America, where he has joined the Vichy supporters and has written a book calculated to make relations between Englishmen and Frenchmen even more difficult.
Wednesday, March 12th
Dug for victory again this afternoon and felt stiffer still. Very cold indeed and icy wind. Gland [tubercular] on Hilary’s neck has begun discharging.
George Dunn mentioned in London Gazette for bravery in rescuing a fireman from a wrecked A.T.S. canteen. His mother copied the official letter and sent it to me. The Police Commissioner for the Metropolis sends his name to the Home Secretary, the Home Secretary draws the attention of His Majesty, His Majesty graciously orders etc.
Some bombs were put in the luggage of our minister in Sofia and they exploded in the Pera Hotel in Constantinople and killed several people and wounded 22 others. Tonight I listened to Lord Haw Haw’s version. “When the time came for the British Legation to leave, they did not know what to do about the infernal machines, with which they had been carrying on a campaign of terrorism in Bulgaria. They could not leave them behind. They could not let them off there because of the noise! They were therefore forced to pack them. Unfortunately, when they fell into the hands of those less expert than the legation staff, to wit the Turkish porters in the Pera Hotel, they went off.”
Reading a good book on China, Through China’s Wall, by Graham Peck. An excellent description of the Mongol yurts and their inhabitants, who neither wash nor wipe. On the other hand every Mongol is in a sense his own closet, for by swirling out his robes before squatting he forms a makeshift tent. By noon, the plane (at a race) was dotted with decorously squatting individuals of both sexes!
Post women may now, if they wish, be supplied with trousers as an official issue instead of skirts.
Saturday, March 15th
This has been a week of raiding…. The Midlands, Merseyside, Clydeside all attacked…. Week important as showing that we are beginning to get a higher ratio of night bombers down. The losses per month have been: Sept 32; Oct 32; Nov 24; Dec 10; Jan 16; Feb 16; March to date 37.
This week the Italians have started an offensive against the Albanian front, but at the end of the fifth day the Greeks have repelled all attacks and claim to have killed 15,000 Italians…. The enemy suffered heavy losses at the hands of our air force. Germans very quiet so far in Balkans…. Help to Greece probably depends on shipping available for transport of troops from Libya. …. Moral effect of help to Greece would be very great throughout Europe… Hope Greece will not be another Norway and join the number of small countries we have failed to protect.
Sunday, March 16th
“This inspiring act of Faith.” Churchill on the Lease & Lend Bill…. What a long we have come since I started this Diary when I heard of the Belgian capitulation. Now we have as an ally a power with three fifths of the world’s industry and I hope thereby the assurance of victory.
Men 41 - 45 to be registered for possible industrial work, so shall have to register after all, and women of 20 and 21 for munitions.
Jam now to be rationed to half a pound a month. Miss Hunter, wishing to make marmalade and having somehow procured oranges, borrowed six pounds of bee sugar, to be paid back weekly from the ration.. Today she brought the first instalment with a half pound of marmalade, which I opened at supper and ate about a week’s supply straight off. We have reached the stage now when our food is sufficiently restricted to make us talk about food and what we would like to have – chops, grilled kidneys, cream cheese etc. My honey is in short supply, too, as I have only about 15lb left and shall not be able to take any off before the end of June. Must hope for a good early crop.
The paper today contains extracts from an invasion pamphlet on what to do; generally to stay put and carry on, leave the roads clear for troops. Spent afternoon at A.R. P. offices. Only signs of war were troops lounging about, occasional army lorries and obliteration of all signs to show this was Henley-on-Thames. Wondered if I returned from 1937 to visit 1941, this indication would be sufficient to make it clear we were at war. Think probably yes, as always felt war inevitable and had no faith in “the common people of all countries don’t want it” school of argument.
Canada now fourth largest air power. The balance is shifting westwards. Might as well be on an island, a desert island, I remarked when talking about food as a subject of conversation. You are! said Nora. Seems likely that I shall be living on a very small island off a very minor continent, Europe, when the war is over, since we called the New World to redress the balance of the old.
Wednesday, March 19th
Milk to be reduced by one seventh from the beginning of April to leave more available for cheese and canning.
The enemy still striking at ports, Liverpool, Hull, Clyde, Bristol. In the raids on Merseyside on March 12th and 13th about 500 people killed and same number injured and on the Clyde on the 13th and 14th about 500 killed and 800 injured.
Listened to recording of speeches by P.M. and new American ambassador, Mr. Winant, at an official luncheon. “At such a moment, and under such an ordeal, the words of the President and the people of the United States come to us like a draught of life and they tell us by an ocean-borne trumpet that we are no longer alone. We know that other hearts in millions and scores of millions beat with ours; that other voices proclaim the cause for which we stand; other strong hands wield the hammers and shape the weapons we need; other clear and gleaming eyes are fixed in hard conviction upon the tyrannies that must and shall be destroyed.”
Went into Reading yesterday without gas mask – large number of people have ceased to carry them – forgetting that there was to be a gas exercise with tear gas in the coming week. Nora had been in the previous day with Hilary without one! However, it did not take place between 3.30 and 5.30, so all was well.
Reading an account of an artillery officer, Gun Buster, on retreat to Dunkirk. When billeting, he went into a deserted cottage where the writings of 1918 were still on the walls and tins of the same year in the cupboards.
Dalton, a Labour minister, told the other day how in the days before Munich, Beňes had said to him, “Where England is, there is victory.” Until now he had been too ashamed to repeat the remark.
Thursday, March 10th
House choir competition today judged by Mr. and Mrs. Bennett. Ran much behind schedule and did not finish till 1.20, but great fun. Leslie Bennet insisted on conducting the house choirs together, while his wife sung the descant to the set song – Brother James. After lunch Mrs. Bennet gave two of the conductors a lesson on conducting. The standard of piano playing in the individual competition was high, but the competition was won by Peggy Rogers, an evacuee from Bromley, both of whose parents were killed in a raid, with a cello solo.
Old boy, Mountjoy, turned up for tea, has just got his commission. Before he went to his officer’s training unit in Wales, he was near Birmingham. When the Coventry raid was over he went with others every day to do demolition work. He said the scale of the raid took us by surprise. They could not keep their kit on the pegs for the vibration of the bombers. The A.A. guns fired till their barrels were red hot and ammunition exhausted, then the bombers did just what they liked. An attempt was made to bring in more ammunition from B’ham by motor, but the leading car was blown up by a direct hit and the Germans, realizing what was happening, dive bombed the rest. The A.F.S. and first aid parties were machine gunned once the A.A. guns were silent.
Saturday, March 22nd
Some correspondence in the papers about race horses versus chickens as claimants for oats. Both sides heated – apparently oats for one horse will keep about 125 chickens. The more temperate horse apologists admit that only a small number of present stock are worth keeping. Why keep them then? Financial interest in racing and social prestige of horse I suppose the answer.
However, the forces of enlightenment have had a success on the home front. The B.B.C. have revised their decision about not employing left wing performers and conscientious objectors who are not in key technical positions are not to be harried. This being contrary to the wishes of the general public, as the P.M. put it. So this little attempt to introduce the Nazi principle that if you don’t hold my views, I’ll make it impossible for you to get a living, has been stopped (for the time being).
Finished reading Gunbuster’s Return via Dunkirk. Interesting to see how slow the men on the spot were to realize their position. I took my new map sheet without paying much attention. We were already on the corner of my last sheet, so I had expected I’d soon get a new issue. Suddenly, glancing down at it, I noticed that a great proportion of the new sheet was occupied by the sea. Another look showed me a strip of coast, and the principal name on this strip was Dunkirk. It was the first time the word had struck me with any particular significance.
One of the gunners under pressure of savage dive bombing: And to think I once paid a shilling to see the Hendon Air Pageant…. All the men thought is was exceedingly kind of the King to send a few nice words. But it really wasn’t necessary. Hour of peril? Oh, no, things weren’t as bad as that.
The entire countryside was a-flutter with white. From everywhere people lived there flapped a white flag. They were, of course, the tokens of surrender, which the inhabitants were on a great hurry to display by the time the Germans arrived. The troop commander listened patiently to the Belgian farmer, then said: My advice to you is, take in the washing: it may rain tonight!
“I’m going to find out what’s happening in the world,” said B. “Do you know they’ve been praying for us in England?” he said. “Why not?” I replied. “You don’t understand,” he said impatiently, “This is a big thing, archbishops and all that. A National Day of Prayer, they called it.” “Prayers for our safety? We’re not in any danger! Or are we?” He did not reply and we stared at one another…..
The work of destruction. First the radiators drained and the engines set running to seize them up. A couple of hefty blows with the pick axe to finish off the radiators. After this the tyres are deflated and they are cut and slashed to ribbons. All the glass is smashed and the steering wheels broken. When the engines have stopped, the sledge hammers get to work, smashing the plugs, magneto and carburettor…..
We now traveled for a mile beside the canal leading to Dunkirk. The retreat had now developed into a vast hike. Thousands and thousands of men walking in twos and threes towards the sea, terribly fatigued and worn and dusty, but calm, steady, cheerful. Not the slightest sign of hurry or panic. It looked exactly like the end of a mammoth hike after a tiring hot day. Here was the British army, preserving its morale even after it had ceased to be an army…..
It was even o’clock. The great pall of smoke spread wide a hundred feet over the town (Dunkirk) like Death’s hovering wing. Underneath, the top of the skeletons of wrecked buildings and churches were silhouetted in black against the strip of lilac evening sky sandwiched between the horizon and the lower edge of the dark, threatening wing. Among these silhouettes huge fires raged, the long tongues of orange flame leaping high into the air. Looked at as a refuge, a sanctuary, a gate of escape, it was anything but inviting. We seemed to be heading straight for a holocaust, far worse than anything we had witnessed so far. You had the impression that the last ordeal awaiting you was ordeal by fire.
“It’ll be healthier on the beach," said the major. A group of dead and dying soldiers on the path in front of us quickened our desire to quit the promenade. Stepping over the bodies, we marched down the slope onto the dark beach.
Down on the beach you immediately felt yourself surrounded by a deadly evil atmosphere. A horrible stench of blood and mutilated flesh pervaded the place. There was no escape from it. Not a breath of air was blowing to dissipate the appalling odour from the dead bodies that had been lying on the sand, in some cases, for several days. We might have been walking through a slaughter house. The darkness which hid some of the sights of horror from our eyes seemed to thicken this dreadful stench. It created the impression that death was hovering around, very near at hand…. No assistance that availed anything could be given to these dying men. The living themselves had nothing to offer them. They just passed forward to the dead, hoping that the same fate would not be theirs….. Occasionally a man in one of the plodding groups would fall with a groan.
“I am not comfortable in my mind,” Boyd muttered to me as we proceeded along.
Wonder after reading this if the beaches of Dunkirk will ever be free of ghosts. Will children paddle and men and women bathe and play on the sand in June and the horror fade from memory?
I went over to Roberts, curate at Sonning, and remembered what I had said about Day of Prayer last year. Put paid to the Belgians. This year put paid to the Yugoslavs!
Timothy came in. After a fortnight as a news editor at the B.B.C. she feels thoroughly exhausted, but is now an official and can say, “There are two pieces of news this week, and I can’t tell you either.”
Sunday, March 23nd
A.R.P. duty 9 – 1. Did some corrections and wrote letters. Comic relief provided by nasty old man, who tried to light fire with damp wood in most incompetent manner. Noted 17 warnings in 22 days. Then had two yellows and finally a red. Transferred our junk to Town Hall to find control room padlock would not open for two or three minutes. Typical of how things work in Henley-on-Thames.
Tuesday, March 25th
Yugoslavia appears to be going down t’ plug ‘ole. The ministers have signed on the dotted line in Vienna, according to the evening news bulletin. Today is Greek Independence Day, to be celebrated, one feels, while the going is good.
Thursday, March 27th
Since writing the above, the situation has undergone one rapid and unexpected (on my part) change. At 2.30 last night the pro-Axis government [of Yugoslavia] was overthrown, the Regent and his wife fled, and the young Prince Peter became king and a pro-British general formed a government. The P.M. announced the news: “I have great news for the whole country. Early this morning the Yugoslav nation found its soul…”
This afternoon the Divisional Inspector tore a large hole in the seat of his pants while sitting on a chair in my room. These comic situations have a habit of happening to me. He removed them, put on some of mine (though he was quite prepared to sit in his combinations) while his were mended in the needlework class.
Saturday, March 29th
Reading Vera Britain’s life of Winifred Holtby, Testament of Friendship. Very good indeed. Winifred Holtby on Virginia Woolf: There are moments of revelation which compensate for the chaos, the discomfort, the toil of living. The crown of life is neither happiness nor annihilation; it is understanding. The artist’s intuitive vision; the thinker’s slow, laborious approach to truth; the knowledge that comes to the raw girl, to the unawakened woman – this is life, this is love. These are the moments in which all the disorder of life assumes a pattern; we see; we understand; and immediately the intolerable burden becomes tolerable; we stand for a moment on the tops of that great mountain from the summit of which we can see the truth, and thus enjoy the greatest felicity of which we are capable.
Sunday, March 30th
More good news last night. A naval encounter with the Italian fleet in the Ionian Sea. They scattered, but some were held and brought to action. A battleship damaged and a cruiser sunk….News was scanty still, except that we learnt that our forces suffered no losses.
Air raid casualties now 29,000 killed. Reading Winifred Holtby’s life came across nearly the same figure: the women and children who died in British concentration camps during the Boer War.
A pamphlet has been issued describing the air battles of last summer. The Germans had a plan to the stages of which they stuck methodically in spite of the tremendous losses in pilots and planes. First the coastal shipping ports, and the coast air bases, then the fighter aerodromes in land and then London…. The great battle of Sept 15th took place in a cube 80 x 40 x 5 miles in which between noon and 12.30 between 150 and 200 individual fights took place. It was on this day that the P.M. spent the morning in one of the operations rooms of No 11 Group watching the course of the battle as it was plotted on the table map.
[Ed. It was not correct that the Germans stuck to a pre-arranged plan, as later entries in the Diary testify; the decision to stop attacking the aerodromes and instead to bomb London, which stopped the drain on RAF pilots, was a serious German error]. Meat ration to be reduced to a shilling. Before I went out to A.R.P. duty at 9 o’clock today, Hilary reminded me that there was a joint (a small half leg) for dinner. Wonder if should keep rabbits, but Nora not anxious to eat tame rabbits.
Monday, March 31st
Today we gave up the idea we were toying with to hatch chicks as we cannot get any mash or grain for them. The only thing we can do is to go on with the old hens until they cease to lay. My mind has been directed to geese, as they are supposed to be able to live off the land. There is plenty of land her to live on! Also there is the question of rabbits.
A great naval victory over the Italians about 100 miles west of Crete…Apparently another cruiser may be sunk and another destroyer also. The Italians up to their previous form as in the darkness they fired on each other…. The three cruisers sunk were 10,000 tons with 8 inch guns…. The cruisers were discovered by our aircraft and as soon as they had been observed they moved off westwards. They were attacked by aircraft and their speed reduced, so that by nightfall our forces had overtaken them. …The battleships, with their 15 inch guns, came into action against the cruisers, so it was a massacre. “Not a pleasant sight,” as Admiral Cunningham said to reporters on his return.
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