Monday, Nov 2nd
Reading a book, Post D, an account of the London blitz....The Borough of Chelsea refused to prop up a basement post because if it collapsed the borough would be held responsible, but offered £7-10-0 towards private burial of wardens! "The worst part of the bombing, they all agreed, was the smell: the harsh, rank, raw smell. They tried to analyse it. Its basis certainly came from the torn, wounded, dismembered houses; from the gritty dust and disemboweled brickwork, masonry and joinery. But there was more to it than that. For several houses there was an acrid overtone from the high explosive which the bomb itself had contained., a fiery constituent of the smell. Almost invariably, too, there was the mean little stink of domestic gas, seeping up from the broken pipes and leads. But the whole smell of the smell was greater than the sum of its parts. It was the smell of violent death itself.” (From book, Post D, author unknown, 1941)
Thursday, Nov 5th, 8 a.m.
Just seen midnight communique in morning paper. A great victory in the desert. The enemy in full retreat. Rommel’s second in command dead, the head of the Afrika Corps captured, 200 tanks, 1,300 aircraft destroyed and the retreating columns battered and scattered by our air forces..... Retreat admitted in the German and Italian communiques, but of course "according to plan".
[Ed: This victory the second Battle of Alamein, but not so described in the Diary until later]
Tuesday, Nov 10th
A wonderful weekend. Following on victory over Rommel, and it is a victory this time, we heard on Sunday morning that an American and British army had landed in North Africa.... The chief ports and airfields from Morocco to Tunisia are in our hands or surrounded. The French at the ports put up a fight and there are rumours of big French naval losses, but the bulk of the troops are friendly and General Giraud, who escaped from the Germans, has arrived to take control of the French armies. As some one put it, we feel like a man who has just inherited £50 million. The speed, secrecy and skill with which this great venture was carried out promises well for the future. The war is not over, but the offensive has begun and the initiative is ours.
I spent the weekend in London (with M), which seems full of American voices, and heard the news of the landings from the newspapers near the Ritz. I saw a Russian film, The Defence of Leningrad, a grim, authentic record of the city’s suffering from the enemy and the very severe winter of 1941-42, and a film of the Navy called In Which We Serve- excellent.
Wednesday, Nov 11th
A more cheerful Armistice Day than for two or more years. The utter destruction of a large and powerful army of about 100,000 men, of which only a few thousand got away to Libya, has the true attributes of victory.
P.M. spoke yesterday at Lord Mayor’s Banquet. "Henceforth they will have to face in many theatres of the war that superiority in the air which they have so often used without mercy against others.... When I read of the coastal road crammed with fleeing German vehicles under the lasting attacks of the R.A.F., I could not but remember those roads of France and Flanders, crowded not with fighting men, but with helpless refugees, women and children, fleeing with their pitiful barrows and household goods, upon whom such merciless havoc was wrecked. I have, I trust, a humane disposition, but I must say I could not help feeling that what was happening, however grievous, was only justice claiming her rights.”
German and Italian losses in Egypt 59,000, ours 13,000...Church bells to be rung on Sunday in celebration. Last time they were rung was after Cambrai in the autumn of 1917.
Thursday, Nov 12th
Yesterday P.M. in statement to Parliament dwelt mainly on preparations for offensives in Egypt and N. Africa. The American tanks, Shermans, just coming from the American factories and in the hands of the American divisions for the first time, were taken back on the news of the fall of Tobruk and sent by sea to Egypt under American escort with a large number of 105mm guns. The loss of Tobruk delayed operations. We had to recreate and revivify our war-battered army and arm and place by its side a new army. He described how confidence in the Eighth Army in the High Command was restored by Alexander and Montgomery and the electrifying effect of the new men and equipment..... It was clear that the enemy was going to attack, and this he did on August 30th, the Second Battle of Alamein, but found himself faced with stern resistance and greatly increased artillery.He withdrew after about three days. We had to wait for our attack until the troops had been trained with the new weapons and there was a full moon. These conditions were satisfied on about October 23rd.
The infantry had to clear a way for the tanks under cover of the barrage. On a six-mile front there was a 25mm gun every 23rd yard! A new corps of 40,000 men and including all the best tanks was created. It was this thunderbolt hurled through the gap that finished Rommel and his arrogant army.
By making a misleading statement about a second front in Europe in 1942, we had drawn and kept about 33 German divisions in the west and a third of the fighter and a large bomber air force. Our allies were not misled. The Russians were told we were making a landing, but could not promise to do so in 1942.
Monday, Nov 16th
We went yesterday to see Long Dene School and found the H.M. old boy of mine at Leatherhead. Think it would be a good school for Hilary 7 – 11, if finances permit.
Wednesday, Nov 18th
An American naval victory in the Solomon Islands, the first time battleships were in action in Pacific in a night action. The Japs lost a battleship, 3 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and five destroyers and eight transports; the Americans lost 2 light cruisers and six destroyers. The enemy were trying to capture Guadalcanal.
Saturday, Nov 21st
We shall not know what to make of all these victories! Not used to it. Victories in Egypt, Solomon Islands, New Guinea and now the Caucasus. Here the Grozny oil fields have been saved and the Germans have got no fuel from the small oil fields they have captured and have had to abandon 100 - 150 tanks and large quantities of stores.
Had lunch with M in Reading to-day. Necessary to book a table and then go at 12.30 to take it. 3/6 for an indifferent lunch – to-day venison on the menu and some unknown fish: I had the unknown fish! Only advantage is that once you have got in there is quiet and space. This in these days is worth paying for. As no car now, everything by train (chiefly) or bus. Am getting more used to this. Did we lead a too complicated life in the silly years 1930 – 1939 and waste money on inessentials? After the war will we go back to the pre-war standards or go on doing without some things that we have got used to doing without now?
Even the Lamas of Tibet have sent a message of congratulation on our victory in Egypt.
Tuesday, Nov 24th
More good news. The Russians have made a surprize attack and cut in behind Stalingrad from N. and S. It is not yet completely isolated, but they have reached an important railway station. German casualties about 23,000. It looks as if they must either retreat out of the salient or be cut off altogether.
Went to the cinema for the first time for about a year in Henley to see The Foreman Went to France about the collapse in 1940 – good in parts. Earlier in the day we had a talk from a woman who returned from unoccupied France in the summer. Last winter she spent in Grenoble: no fuel; food – five slices of bread, acorn coffee, vegetable soup and turnips. Described how they had a wireless in attic in the roof and posted a sentry downstairs while they listened to B.B.C. broadcasts, which were of course badly jammed.
Invited American Officer Commanding to send representative to Thanksgiving service on Thursday but refused for lack of time.
Thursday, Nov 26th
Kept Thanksgiving Day. Told the school: "To-day we join the people of the United States of America and American citizens in this country in giving thanks to God. We English people must have thankful hearts that our country has been spared the horrors of invasion and that our families have been saved from starvation and want.”
At Stalingrad the net of doom is closing and the Germans’ hope of escaping from the sack is dwindling....
Went to an excellent film, The Young Mr Pitt, to-night; Robert Donat as Mr P. Taking us from Chatham and the War of American Independence to Pitt’s Guildhall speech after Trafalgar. "England has saved herself by her exertions and will, I trust, save Europe by her example!" The close parallel with our own troubled times emphasized and in the audience’s mind the parallel between "the pilots who weathered the storm” – Pitt and Churchill. Curious to think that you are living history if you are Churchill. /"....... How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted o’er / In states unborn and accents yet unknown."
Friday, Nov 27th
Heard to-night that Hitler had invaded Toulon, giving as a reason that the French naval officer had given secret orders that an allied landing was not to be resisted. The French fleet lying off there had been scuttled by their crews. Some submarines were reported to have got away.
Saturday, Nov 28th
A bad business at Toulon, though only the final result of the decision made in 1940 by the fascists in Reynaud’s cabinet. The fleet could not get out as there was a patrol of German submarines and Italian battleships outside, and on Thursday night German aeroplanes came over and dropped flares and magnetic mines in the channel and H.E. on the forts surrounding the base. At the same time German troops reached the docks. Explosion after explosion followed as the ships blew themselves up. In some cases the Germans were held off until scuttling operations were complete. Most of the captains lost their lives. Morning broke on a scene of devastation, for munitions dumps and oil tanks had been fired and the ships lay on their sides with smoke streaming from them. According to U.S. information there were 64 ships, including three battleships and four heavy and three light cruisers
De Gaulle broadcast last night. "In one brief instant captains, officers and ratings saw through the odious tissue of lies which since 1940 have hung before their eyes. In one brief instant they understood to what terrible end they had been led..... On to victory. There is no other road - there never was." The effect on France will be plainly to lift the scales from her people’s eyes. All will be equally beneath the German rule and the hateful fraud of Vichy will be swept away.
A tremendous brumming sound about 7 last night. Was woken to hear them returning, very low, about 2 o’clock.
Monday, Nov 30th
Last night P.M. made another appeal to Italy (they say ”Peace” is being chalked up in the public lavatories. When I was there in 1922 it was Viva Lenin!). Described N. Africa as a springboard for further offensives. Said he could not guarantee that more successes were not on the way! Remarked that it was possible that the war in Europe might not come to an end before the war in Asia. "I know of nothing which justifies the hope that the war will not be long and that bitter and bloody years do not lie ahead. The dawn of 1943 will soon loom before us and we must brace ourselves for the trials and problems of what must be a stern and terrible year.”
Of the Russian front: "180 German divisions, many of them reduced to little more than brigades by the slaughter and privations they have suffered, together with a host of miserable Italians, Rumanians and Hungarians - dragged from their homes by a maniac’s fantasy - all these, as they reel back from the fire and steel of avenging Russian armies, must prepare themselves with weakened forces and added pangs for a second dose of what they got last year. They have of course the consolation of knowing that they have been commanded and led not by the German General Staff but by Corporal Hitler himself."
However, days are not all slaughter and destruction. The new drug sulphapyrimide, known as M & B 693, has saved 10,000 lives in cases of (?ceretro)-spinal fever and 7 500 in [cases of] pneumonia in the last three years. 17,000 lives saved is something, if only a little compared with the casualties of war.
Tuesday, Nov 10th
A wonderful weekend. Following on victory over Rommel, and it is a victory this time, we heard on Sunday morning that an American and British army had landed in North Africa.... The chief ports and airfields from Morocco to Tunisia are in our hands or surrounded. The French at the ports put up a fight and there are rumours of big French naval losses, but the bulk of the troops are friendly and General Giraud, who escaped from the Germans, has arrived to take control of the French armies. As some one put it, we feel like a man who has just inherited £50 million. The speed, secrecy and skill with which this great venture was carried out promises well for the future. The war is not over, but the offensive has begun and the initiative is ours.
I spent the weekend in London (with M), which seems full of American voices, and heard the news of the landings from the newspapers near the Ritz. I saw a Russian film, The Defence of Leningrad, a grim, authentic record of the city’s suffering from the enemy and the very severe winter of 1941-42, and a film of the Navy called In Which We Serve- excellent.
Wednesday, Nov 11th
A more cheerful Armistice Day than for two or more years. The utter destruction of a large and powerful army of about 100,000 men, of which only a few thousand got away to Libya, has the true attributes of victory.
P.M. spoke yesterday at Lord Mayor’s Banquet. "Henceforth they will have to face in many theatres of the war that superiority in the air which they have so often used without mercy against others.... When I read of the coastal road crammed with fleeing German vehicles under the lasting attacks of the R.A.F., I could not but remember those roads of France and Flanders, crowded not with fighting men, but with helpless refugees, women and children, fleeing with their pitiful barrows and household goods, upon whom such merciless havoc was wrecked. I have, I trust, a humane disposition, but I must say I could not help feeling that what was happening, however grievous, was only justice claiming her rights.”
German and Italian losses in Egypt 59,000, ours 13,000...Church bells to be rung on Sunday in celebration. Last time they were rung was after Cambrai in the autumn of 1917.
Thursday, Nov 12th
Yesterday P.M. in statement to Parliament dwelt mainly on preparations for offensives in Egypt and N. Africa. The American tanks, Shermans, just coming from the American factories and in the hands of the American divisions for the first time, were taken back on the news of the fall of Tobruk and sent by sea to Egypt under American escort with a large number of 105mm guns. The loss of Tobruk delayed operations. We had to recreate and revivify our war-battered army and arm and place by its side a new army. He described how confidence in the Eighth Army in the High Command was restored by Alexander and Montgomery and the electrifying effect of the new men and equipment..... It was clear that the enemy was going to attack, and this he did on August 30th, the Second Battle of Alamein, but found himself faced with stern resistance and greatly increased artillery.He withdrew after about three days. We had to wait for our attack until the troops had been trained with the new weapons and there was a full moon. These conditions were satisfied on about October 23rd.
The infantry had to clear a way for the tanks under cover of the barrage. On a six-mile front there was a 25mm gun every 23rd yard! A new corps of 40,000 men and including all the best tanks was created. It was this thunderbolt hurled through the gap that finished Rommel and his arrogant army.
By making a misleading statement about a second front in Europe in 1942, we had drawn and kept about 33 German divisions in the west and a third of the fighter and a large bomber air force. Our allies were not misled. The Russians were told we were making a landing, but could not promise to do so in 1942.
Monday, Nov 16th
We went yesterday to see Long Dene School and found the H.M. old boy of mine at Leatherhead. Think it would be a good school for Hilary 7 – 11, if finances permit.
Wednesday, Nov 18th
An American naval victory in the Solomon Islands, the first time battleships were in action in Pacific in a night action. The Japs lost a battleship, 3 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and five destroyers and eight transports; the Americans lost 2 light cruisers and six destroyers. The enemy were trying to capture Guadalcanal.
Saturday, Nov 21st
We shall not know what to make of all these victories! Not used to it. Victories in Egypt, Solomon Islands, New Guinea and now the Caucasus. Here the Grozny oil fields have been saved and the Germans have got no fuel from the small oil fields they have captured and have had to abandon 100 - 150 tanks and large quantities of stores.
Had lunch with M in Reading to-day. Necessary to book a table and then go at 12.30 to take it. 3/6 for an indifferent lunch – to-day venison on the menu and some unknown fish: I had the unknown fish! Only advantage is that once you have got in there is quiet and space. This in these days is worth paying for. As no car now, everything by train (chiefly) or bus. Am getting more used to this. Did we lead a too complicated life in the silly years 1930 – 1939 and waste money on inessentials? After the war will we go back to the pre-war standards or go on doing without some things that we have got used to doing without now?
Even the Lamas of Tibet have sent a message of congratulation on our victory in Egypt.
Tuesday, Nov 24th
More good news. The Russians have made a surprize attack and cut in behind Stalingrad from N. and S. It is not yet completely isolated, but they have reached an important railway station. German casualties about 23,000. It looks as if they must either retreat out of the salient or be cut off altogether.
Went to the cinema for the first time for about a year in Henley to see The Foreman Went to France about the collapse in 1940 – good in parts. Earlier in the day we had a talk from a woman who returned from unoccupied France in the summer. Last winter she spent in Grenoble: no fuel; food – five slices of bread, acorn coffee, vegetable soup and turnips. Described how they had a wireless in attic in the roof and posted a sentry downstairs while they listened to B.B.C. broadcasts, which were of course badly jammed.
Invited American Officer Commanding to send representative to Thanksgiving service on Thursday but refused for lack of time.
Thursday, Nov 26th
Kept Thanksgiving Day. Told the school: "To-day we join the people of the United States of America and American citizens in this country in giving thanks to God. We English people must have thankful hearts that our country has been spared the horrors of invasion and that our families have been saved from starvation and want.”
At Stalingrad the net of doom is closing and the Germans’ hope of escaping from the sack is dwindling....
Went to an excellent film, The Young Mr Pitt, to-night; Robert Donat as Mr P. Taking us from Chatham and the War of American Independence to Pitt’s Guildhall speech after Trafalgar. "England has saved herself by her exertions and will, I trust, save Europe by her example!" The close parallel with our own troubled times emphasized and in the audience’s mind the parallel between "the pilots who weathered the storm” – Pitt and Churchill. Curious to think that you are living history if you are Churchill. /"....... How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted o’er / In states unborn and accents yet unknown."
Friday, Nov 27th
Heard to-night that Hitler had invaded Toulon, giving as a reason that the French naval officer had given secret orders that an allied landing was not to be resisted. The French fleet lying off there had been scuttled by their crews. Some submarines were reported to have got away.
Saturday, Nov 28th
A bad business at Toulon, though only the final result of the decision made in 1940 by the fascists in Reynaud’s cabinet. The fleet could not get out as there was a patrol of German submarines and Italian battleships outside, and on Thursday night German aeroplanes came over and dropped flares and magnetic mines in the channel and H.E. on the forts surrounding the base. At the same time German troops reached the docks. Explosion after explosion followed as the ships blew themselves up. In some cases the Germans were held off until scuttling operations were complete. Most of the captains lost their lives. Morning broke on a scene of devastation, for munitions dumps and oil tanks had been fired and the ships lay on their sides with smoke streaming from them. According to U.S. information there were 64 ships, including three battleships and four heavy and three light cruisers
De Gaulle broadcast last night. "In one brief instant captains, officers and ratings saw through the odious tissue of lies which since 1940 have hung before their eyes. In one brief instant they understood to what terrible end they had been led..... On to victory. There is no other road - there never was." The effect on France will be plainly to lift the scales from her people’s eyes. All will be equally beneath the German rule and the hateful fraud of Vichy will be swept away.
A tremendous brumming sound about 7 last night. Was woken to hear them returning, very low, about 2 o’clock.
Monday, Nov 30th
Last night P.M. made another appeal to Italy (they say ”Peace” is being chalked up in the public lavatories. When I was there in 1922 it was Viva Lenin!). Described N. Africa as a springboard for further offensives. Said he could not guarantee that more successes were not on the way! Remarked that it was possible that the war in Europe might not come to an end before the war in Asia. "I know of nothing which justifies the hope that the war will not be long and that bitter and bloody years do not lie ahead. The dawn of 1943 will soon loom before us and we must brace ourselves for the trials and problems of what must be a stern and terrible year.”
Of the Russian front: "180 German divisions, many of them reduced to little more than brigades by the slaughter and privations they have suffered, together with a host of miserable Italians, Rumanians and Hungarians - dragged from their homes by a maniac’s fantasy - all these, as they reel back from the fire and steel of avenging Russian armies, must prepare themselves with weakened forces and added pangs for a second dose of what they got last year. They have of course the consolation of knowing that they have been commanded and led not by the German General Staff but by Corporal Hitler himself."
However, days are not all slaughter and destruction. The new drug sulphapyrimide, known as M & B 693, has saved 10,000 lives in cases of (?ceretro)-spinal fever and 7 500 in [cases of] pneumonia in the last three years. 17,000 lives saved is something, if only a little compared with the casualties of war.
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