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Home , August 1940, Hamburg, July 1940, June 1940, October 1940, September 1940

Harvey Β. Tress

Churchill, the First Raids, and : A New Interpretation

Supplementing the bombing of industrial targets in western begun in May, on 25 — two weeks prior to the start of the true Blitz — the British began a series of attacks on Berlin. The recently opened files and hitherto unused newspa- pers suggest that the British Government's official histories are sometimes helpful chiefly despite themselves and that Churchill's military contribution was larger, bet- ter, and subtler than has been known. We can be certain that the step in question was not casual, matter-of-course, or routine. For one thing, raids on enemy capitals, as in the case of those on Hanoi, are not undertaken or taken lightly. For another, the bombing of distant Berlin, entailing long exposure to mechanical, weather, and com- bat hazards, was likely to be relatively expensive. This series, which included some sizable efforts, occurred at a time of maximal need and when August's aggregate was costing no mean 15 per cent of the force1. Whatever is now thought about German intentions, in the summer of 1940 the leader- ship understandably believed that a fearful invasion could begin suddenly on almost any day and probably would before October. In his memoirs Churchill wrote: »As the month of June ground itself out, the sense of potential invasion at any moment grew upon us all.« According to a later chapter, »in there was growing talk and anxiety on the subject ... preparation to resist invasion was the supreme task before us all . . ,«2. And several early July entries in the diary of Sir Edmund Ironside, then commander in chief (C in C) of Army forces in , reflect the state of mind de- scribed on the thirteenth: »It is curious how one goes to bed wondering whether there will be an attack early the next morning.«3 On 3 July the Joint Intelligence Commit- tee of civilian and service agencies warned that a German invasion attempt could take place within two weeks4. And in the middle of July, Ultra (the captured machine, sim- ple computer, and team which were decyphering most German radio communica- tions) reportedly revealed that the Germans definitely were planning and preparing to invade Britain once the (RAF) had been rendered, in Hitler's words, »unable to deliver any significant attack against the German crossing«5. According to F. H. Hinsley's recent official history's radiointerception narrative, on 29 July German bombers were known to have been »forbidden to bomb harbour facil- ities in British Channel ports«, recalling »a similar restriction in relation to the French ports [imposed] in advance of the attack on «; in mid-August Ultra revealed that additional squadrons and »30 men with a perfect knowledge of English« were be- ing transferred to a German air commander specializing in close-support operations; »in the first days of September [decrypts] revealed that divebombers were about to as- semble at airfields near the Straits ...«6. According to Churchill a »great southward flow of invasion shipping began« on 1 September7. Illustrating the »striking« and »marked« change, official histories note that Ostend Harbor held eighteen barges on 31 August versus two hundred and sev- enty on 7 September®. On the seventh the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COS) warned that invasion might be imminent'. Churchill included most of September in a »period of extreme tension and vigilance«10. Admittedly, dangerous shipping concentrations were not apparent during most of the two weeks here in question; but Churchill, referring to June in his memoirs, described 65 MGM 2/82 the feeling of the times: Twice in two months we had been taken completely by surprise. The overrunning of and the breakthrough at Sedan, with all that followed from these, proved the deadly power of the German initiative. What else had they got ready — prepared and organised to the last inch? Would they suddenly pounce out of tne blue with new weapons, perfect planning, and overwhelming force .. .?n In July he warned the military that invasion fleets might be forming undetected in the Baltic, able to attack quickly through the Canal12. As for his view of an invasion's prospects, after the war Churchill »often wondered ... what would have happened if two hundred thousand German storm troops had actually established themselves ashore« u. Turning from the »supreme« concern to the antecedents of the first Berlin raid, on 20 July the Prime Minister wrote the Air Staff: »In case there is a raid on the centre of Government in , it seems very important to be able to return the compliment the next day upon Berlin.«14 Noteworthily, this does not smack of looking forward to an opportunity for an intrinsically worthwhile attack on specific strategic installations or a shaky population in Berlin. Ending a story not told in Churchill's memoirs, the official histories, or elsewhere, on 17 August the Air Staff instructed Bomber Command: »You are not... to carry out attack on Siemens works tonight. Operation is postponed indefinitely ...«15. I found no proof of this surmise in the files but, since the mentioned plant is in Berlin (below), Churchill probably had initiated the superseded order: he had expressed interest in the Berlin question and, anyway, bombing the enemy capital was obviously a matter of high policy. The order and the countermand (presumably also his) will profitably be placed in context below. According to the minutes, on 23 August the discussed British bombing not at alllé. But, as the official air historians — Sir Charles Kingsley Webster and No- ble Frankland — put it, on the night of the twenty-fourth »the first bombs fell on cen- tral London ...« ; the other two concerned official historians said little more about the number of bombs; one (Collier) noted dramatically that ten districts »suffered heav- ily« from »bombs intended for targets far away«, which some of »about a dozen« German bombers assigned targets »near the perimeter of the capital« dropped17. Sug- gestively, the London Times of the Monday following this Saturday night incident gives the best perspective and the only published casualty figures; according to a article, fatalities numbered »about four« and a Ministry of Home Security official, re- turned from a Sunday inspection, »said that the damage was very small indeed« (issue of 26 August, p. 4). The Sunday Times had known only that in the center »explosions [were] heard apparently in the east« (p. 1, »Late News«). Churchill's memoirs imply that German intentionality was widely assumed and spread responsibility for the response: The sporadic raiding of London towards the end of August was promptly answered by us in a retaliatory attack on Berlin. ... The War Cabinet were much in the mood to hit back, to raise the stakes, and to defy the enemy. I was sure they were right...18. Also saying nothing about the British attack's scale, the official air historians and Col- lier simply noted that the first bombing of Berlin followed that of London by one day; thereby, without identifying the makers of the British decision19, they implied that the sequence itself is self-explanatory. Shortly after remarking that »a political demand for retaliation« developed »as the bombing of British proceeded«, Butler an- nounced: »It was in reprisal for [the London incident] that a few [Ν. B.] British bombers were sent to Berlin the following night«. Insinuating in the next sentence that the Cabinet authorized the Berlin raid, he quoted without dating it a discussion which in fact took place on 29 August20! Obscuring the spirit of the 20 July note which none of them quoted, the official historians all stressed that specific military and industrial targets within Berlin were assigned21. The first War Cabinet meeting after the 24 August London incident took place on the twenty-sixth; discussion of neither the incident nor of a decision to respond was re- corded; the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) merely stated without recorded reaction: »We had despatched a large number of aircraft to bomb military targets in Ber- lin ...«22. In fact, I found no trace of prior Cabinet approval in the files, including in those of the Defence (sub-) Committee of the Cabinet23. Of course, the ministers may have met informally or been polled singly on the twenty-fifth. But no one said or wrote so and at the time they apparently acquiesced in a pretense that no real decision had been taken. As on the twenty-sixth talking as though the bombing of capitals was routine, on 29 August the Chief of the Air Staff simply informed the Cabinet: »The bombing of the Berlin targets on the previous night had been most successful.«24 And the 30 August weekly COS report to the Cabinet was explicit: »Longer nights have extended the range of night bombing operations which have followed the same lines as last week and included for the first time attacks on industrial targets on the out- skirts of Berlin.«25 The official historians and Churchill would have happily men- tioned the implied standing authorization or any other not irregular decision process.

In fact, a specific decision had been made, and not by air marshals or heavenly bodies. The twenty-fifth of August was a day of confusion and crossed signals. A planned ef- fort to impress neutrals attending a trade fair near , to include heavy bombing of the Leuna synthetic oil plant fifteen miles from the and »diversionary attacks« within it26, was evidently scheduled for this day. In conjunction with other docu- ments, a cable bearing the signature of the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (DCAS) and headed 3:35 P.M. suggests that in the early morning hours Churchill requested an early attack on Berlin and that dovetailing was attempted : In confirmation of telephone conversation between C.A.S. and S.A.S.O. [Senior Air Staff Officer, deputy commander of Bomber Command] you will launch medium scale of attack on targets in the Leipzig area tonight 25/26th August ... Tomorrow night 26/27th August you will carry out heavy scale of attack on the following targets in the Berlin area ... The code numbers of the Siemens electrical equipment factory, a power plant, and Tempelhof airfield followed27. But an unusual document located in Bomber Com- mand's files, addressed Senior Air Staff Officer to C in C and dated 25 August, reads: With reference to Enclosure 69A [the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff telegram above] the following is a note of various conversations held in regard to attacks for the night of 25th/26th August et seq: At 0910 hours the Prime Minister spoke to the S.A.S.O. and said that as a result of bombing attack on London on the night of 24th/25th Au- gust, it was likely that the project which he had discussed with the C in C against tar- gets in the Berlin area would be implemented as soon as possible. ... an executive or- der ... would come through the . ... He stated that he considered it no use undertaking the operation half-heartedly and that pinpricks were useless on these occasions, and that a really heavy scale of attack was necessary28. This conversation is described similarly in a section of Bomber Command Headquar- ters' routine log most unusually placed in this file; according to the log, at an 11:40 A. M. meeting the Senior Air Staff Officer told the Chief of the Air Staff that Bomber Command that night was going to send 100 to 120 bombers against the three Berlin targets mentioned above (possibly plus a marshalling yard) and the Chief of the Air Staff »said that he approved of this programme«29. The executive order promised by Churchill apparently never arrived but the records of the telephone conversations ob- viously were filed to show that the Deputy Chief of the Air Staffs telegram had been superseded; after all, Berlin was bombed that night. Perhaps the telegram should be headed 3:35 A. M. Or perhaps, as merely formal confirmation of a call, it was han- died in a leisurely manner by aides. In any case, it suggests that at some point the Chief of the Air Staff tried to accommodate the Prime Minister without disrupting ex- isting plans at the last minute; but evidently Churchill was in a hurry. Although hin- dered by Butler and not helped by his colleagues or Churchill, we have learned how in the event eighty-one bombers30 came to be directed to Berlin in »retaliation« for the actions of less than a dozen. Discovering that so few German aircraft were involved makes one wonder why Churchill did not wait to see whether repetition would prove that the bombing had been intentional. After all, in June several British bombers had accidentally raided the area, killing seven and »severely« wounding about ten altogether in three Swiss locations; the Air Ministry communiqué for the night in question mentions raids in and Turin31. According to a Geneva »From Our Correspondent« dis- patch which the (London) Times printed on 29 June (p. 5d), the Swiss government had announced that the British government had officially admitted that British air- craft dispatched to northern had strayed in weather. The death toll was higher than the London incident's! The visibility and other circumstances of the two incidents no doubt differed. Still, the offending German bombs fell far fewer miles from military targets outside London than the 120 separating Geneva from , the closer of the Italian target . And while the British credited themselves with six more nights' attacks in Berlin or on its outskirts during the next two weeks (below), the articles in the Times covering up through 6 September tell the same story as the 30 August Chiefs of Staff Committee report does about the first half of the period : »The London district was raided during several nights of the current week, but the attacks appear to have been aimless and only on the night of 24th/25th August was any serious damage caused ...«32. Yet, on 26 August the Chief of the Air Staff telephoned the Senior Air Staff Officer to say that the »Prime Minister had pressed him« for several more attacks on Berlin and that one would probably be ordered for the night 27/28 August. Saying that not many bombers would find Berlin anyway, the Senior Air Staff Officer opposed allocation of more than thirty-six; but the Chief of the Air Staff, in personal contact with Church- ill, insisted on forty-eight33. And on 28 August the Senior Air Staff Officer wrote to the C in C: »D.C.A.S. telephoned S.A.S.O. ... and stated that... the C.A.S. after consultation with the Prime Minister had ruled that a large scale of attack should be laid on to Berlin, the main attacks being directed against the Siemens Works [code number]« Did Churchill insist on so much solely, or even primarily, as retaliation for so little? In turning to his emotions, it should be noted that in August German bombing — accord- ing to the Ministry of Home Security — killed about one thousand British civilians al- together35, a negligible number compared to prewar projections of tens and hundreds of thousands36 and evidence of German restraint. There is no evidence or probability that he had grown angrier since June, abruptly angrier by 25 August, angry enough to indulge in otherwise pointless bomber expenditures at a time when accumulation was thought militarily desirable (below) — in any case, western German cities, easier to find because closer, would have been more satisfying revenge targets. As for his strong sense of national honor, should the grazing of London have offended it sorely?

As for domestic political pressure for retaliation, had Churchill not wanted to bomb Berlin he could have had the British press's editorial treatment of the London bomb- ing toned down37. And, notwithstanding newspaper fulminations and the incidental casualties, reportedly »little resentment... against the German pilots or people« had been manifest as of 20 August38. Furthermore, the Prime Minister was too strong at home for public desires to have forced him into militarily undesirable acts during the quickly climaxing invasion crisis. According to the polls, nine out of ten Britons ap- proved of his job performance that summer39. Raiding Berlin solely for personal polit- ical gain would have seemed to him vile and potentially self-defeating, and untimely as well: secure in office for the time being, he knew that the danger and dangerous- ness of landings would abate by the end of an invasionless September. While the rela- tively inflexible number of barges available and escortable limited the threat, the weather was worsening for sea crossings and infantry-weapon production and Ameri- can aid were enlarging British ground forces rapidly. As he could expect they would, by October the »Home Army and Home Guard had grown vastly more powerful« and the »equinoctial gales« had »stretched rough, capricious hands across the Chan- nel and the Narrow Seas« 40. This point militates also against long-run hopes for the air offensive's being relevant here: it would have been logical to wait a month. Concern about British public morale should not have swayed and, an absence of con- necting evidence confirms, did not sway him. Nothing indicates that Churchill was notably anxious about the spirit of the population living its »Finest Hour« and flock- ing to the Home Guard. In September he apparently expected the slogan »You can al- ways take one with you« to contribute to a »massacre ... on both sides grim and great« in the event of landings41. Hidden decay, if any, could not matter as much as the risked bombers before October, when a tactical need for them would be less likely and less extreme. Besides, smaller raids need not have meant less encouraging or much less convincing (at home) communiqués, vague and fanciful creations as will be seen. But the New Times' (NYT) front-page banner-headline treatment (»LONDON BOMBED IN 4 AREAS«) of the tiny initial accident suggests another possible expla- nation to eliminate if possible in this process (issue of 25 August). Corrective specifics were buried in a sensational dispatch. This handling was presumably typical of an American press corps still unfamiliar with genuinely heavy bombing and excited by the anti-aircraft , engine noise, and searchlight activity of even a tiny raid. In big front-page headlines, the paper continued embarrassingly to make it sound as though a »blitz« had already begun (issues of 26, 27, and 29 August and of 1, 5, 6, and 7 September); the editor was fond of the humiliating word »POUNDED«. This eliminated all danger of accusations of escalation against Brit- ain, but vital American aid was believed to depend in large part upon an image of pos- session of the will and ability to use the aid in prolonged and vigorous resistance42.

Unsurprisingly therefore, while three of the Air Ministry Berlin communiqués were tempered by references to visibility problems and uncertainties, all impressively boasted of direct hits, big , and/or secondary explosions at targets »in« Berlin or on its »outskirts«; »strong forces« and »heavily bombed« targets were mentioned; oil stocks, aircraft factories, airfields, marshalling yards, the Siemens electrical equip- ment plant, and power stations were reported bombed (references below). The NYT s London dispatches based on these releases (and on supplied pilot accounts) sympa- thetically tended to lend them credibility, never cautioning readers about or question- ing them; in some, vivid descriptions were volunteered, such as »destructive gusts of bombs« (issue of 1 September). In some of the many communiqué-based prominent front-page headlines about Berlin raids, the identity of the sole source was not men- tioned (e.g., issue of 8 September). And in the 1 September »News of the Week in Re- view« section, Percival Knauth, the paper's regular Berlin correspondent, promotion- ally reported that Berliners felt »profound shock«. On 7 September an editorial de- clared: »Correspondents in Berlin have been impressed, and rightly so, by the psycho- logical havoc ... these bombs seem to have exploded the [Nazi] myth that Berlin was invulnerable«. But playing down the bombing of London would have been a cheaper defense of ap- pearances than bombing Berlin. Furthermore, by the first Berlin raid only the details of the crucial destroyer deal remained to be settled, and the last in the series in ques- tion followed the announcement by days (see sources cited regarding aid). Other ar- rangements for aid would matter only if there were a long run, only if Berlin losses did not tip the scales in Germany's favor on the beaches. And even if Roosevelt's pro- British steps were thought to need vindication for his sake, October would have been a safer time for pre-election brave and impressive gestures. In any case, Churchill can- not have expected the Berlin-raids propaganda to boost British prestige much, to be widely believed in the . Ignored by the official historians, neutral reports dispatched from Germany before and after 25 August militate powerfully against po- litical, emotional, and the most obvious military possible explanations. Tracing the Prime Minister's views, perceptions, and data inflow shows that he could not and did not expect significant prestige dividends, direct military effects, or revenge from the Berlin series before or during it. To him bomb damage in German cities, including in Berlin, seemed unlikely to dimin- ish noticeably the immediate invasion threat, to matter much in the short run; tactical bombing of troop fleets and bridgeheads looked like a generally more worthwhile way to expend scarce bomber resources. On 3 July he sent Secretary of State for Air Sir Archibald Sinclair and the Chief of the Air Staff this note, headed »Action this Day« : »I hear from every side of the need for throwing your main emphasis on bomb- ing the ships and barges in all the ports under German control.«43 His War Cabinet immediately seconded this demand for a tactical defensive campaign44. And despite what he saw as the first »heavy« air attack on Britain on 10 July, on the eleventh he sent Sinclair this extremely significant note: Generally speaking, the losses in the Bomber force seem unduly heavy. ... At the present time a very heavy price may be paid (a) for information by reconnaissance of the conditions in the German ports and German-controlled ports and river mouths, (b) for the bombing of barges or assemblies of ships thus detected. Apart from this, the long-range bombing of Germany should be conducted with a desire to save the machines ana personnel as much as possible while keeping up a steady attack. It is most important to build up the numbers of the Bomber force, which are very low at the present time45. Similarly, in a 15 July minute to the Vice Chief of the Air Staff (VCAS), he said of ongoing efforts to damage the Kiel : »Nothing could be more important than this, as it prevents any movement of prepared shipping and barges from the Baltic for invasion purposes.«46 And, according to the minutes, the Chief of the Air Staff's attribution of bombing pri- ority to potential invasion shipping at the 18 July Cabinet meeting did not occasion even discussion of a change47. Churchill's attitude suggests that he did not believe (1) that an oil campaign could opportunely immobilize much of the threatening German land, sea, and air forces or (2) that an aircraft-industry campaign could have much ef- fect on the air struggle upon whose outcome the importance of the shipping was known to depend. According to the official air historians, it »was obvious to most of those in authority« that only if »the could now establish air superiority over Britain« would »the invasion of England ... become a feasible operation of war«48. It had to eliminate the fighters able to cover the warships protecting the coast. Judging from his recollections, the Prime Minister felt that »« was Germany's »vital need« for landings49. His implicit skepticism about the effectiveness of Bomber Command's current strate- gic bombing is not surprising. On 7 July the AfYTpublished an (AP) dispatch from Berlin reporting on a Government-arranged neutral press tour of the Ruhr and Rhine valleys; it stated that »in the cities visited there was no evidence of actual damage to a military objective« and that »the factories which the correspond- ents were shown seemed to be working steadily«. A 14 July »News of the Week in Re- view« article with a Berlin date-line accentuated the fact that travel restrictions, se- crecy, and military censorship affected neutrals' reports; but it said nothing to cast doubt upon volitional, affirmative statements such as this one: »Neutrals who have re- cently driven through the entire Ruhr district report that there is no evidence of the effects on large industrial plants there ...« And Churchill's 15 July remark about the Kiel Canal to the Vice Chief of the Air Staff suggests an inkling of Bomber Com- mand's accuracy problems: »I heard that you had dropped a number of bombs into this area, but that they did no good.«50 On 4 August the NYT inconspicuously printed news of a neutral correspondents' guided tour of parts of frequently attacked , whose port the British had al- leged was in »virtual ruins«51. According to one dispatch, the party »could see no trace« of bomb damage in the inland areas visited; it continued: »A visit to the harbor and shipping centers also showed these to be intact, it was said.« While emphasizing that much of the city and port had not been seen, an AP Hamburg participant's ac- count gave the same facts. On 6 August the New York paper reported unobtrusively that neutral correspondents who had »extensively« toured a reportedly battered in- dustrial complex had observed only slight damage which did not affect production.

Presumably, a hopeful Prime Minister would have inquired about the neutral press, and in any case Churchill knew about the Hamburg tour. If the references to it in the 5 and 6 August issues of the London Times, which he »carefully scrutinised« every day52, were news to him, he either demanded full information or already had no illu- sions. In the first, the paper's New York correspondent vaguely described the ac- counts, dismissing the tour as guided. Contradicting this, in the second the »Aero- nautical Correspondent« implied that the visit had consisted entirely of observation from a church distant from the bombed harbor areas and oil facilities. And on 5 August the Prime Minister sent the Chiefs of Staff Committee a Minute en- titled »Defence Against Invasion« in which the help of a strong Bomber Command was taken for granted and the priority of discovered shipping concentrations was re- newed: »Our first line of defence against invasion must as ever be the enemy's ports.« He indicated that this meant »resolute attacks with all our forces available and suit- able upon any concentrations of enemy shipping«. If an attempt materialized, ap- proaching fleets, landing troops, bridgeheads, and supply ships were to be bombed53.

Foreign journalists did not induce alone this implied renewal of the 11 July note's em- phasis on accumulating bombers for tactical use in an invasion crisis. In mid-July the Cabinet's expert, advisory oil committee had asserted (in the words of the official air historians' paraphrase) that »large stocks of aviation spirit in the West meant that no immediate effect could be produced on the activities of the Luftwaffe« and that »suffi- cient damage could not be done in a short time to prevent an invasion of Eng- land .. ,«54. Since intelligence reached similar conclusions just days before the first Berlin raid55, Churchill probably was not told differently earlier in August and did not turn to the capital for its (minor) oil installations. Furthermore, the official estimates evidently indicated that Britain was being greatly outbombed through August56 and he knew that she was easily uncrippled. From mid- through late August the Minister of Aircraft Production assured his colleagues that enemy bombing was having »some« or a »perceptible« but not a »serious« effect on his results57'. Whatever his hopes for the long run, the pre-Blitz neutral dispatches (above and be- low) forbade Churchill to hope, before or after 25 August, for timely, worthwhile supply, morale, or prestige effects on the immediate invasion threat. Since the NYT never reported anything resembling panic or defeatism from Germany, common sense hardly allowed (an in any case never-professed) hope of demoralizing enough Berlin- ers badly and quickly enough to improve September's prospects on the Channel. As has been seen, numerous damaging hits on valuable installations were claimed in the communiqués and fleets as large as eighty-one and forty-eight aircraft were in fact dispatched; accounts of and secondary explosions, often at fairly central points, abounded; most noteworthily, the (indeed repeatedly assigned) Sie- mens plant was supposedly repeatedly damaged, the oil in massive storage tanks ig- nited, and the (also definitely assigned) Tempelhof airfield struck58. None of the neu- tral dispatches printed in either Times substantially supported any militarily significant claim ! Most were inconclusively disappointing, not mentioning major fires, secondary explosions, or severe damage of any sort; the reportedly attempted raid of 4/5 Sep- tember apparently did not even prompt an alert in Berlin; in three other raids anti-air- craft fire, engine noise, and/or distant bomb explosions were heard in the center of the city, but evidently no fires or damage were observed there59. And in the 30 August Times, quoted the Berlin correspondent of a Swedish newspaper regarding the results to date: »Newspaper representatives were taken to ... the Tempelhof aerodrome [and] the Siemens factories to demonstrate that no damage had been caused to these military objectives«. In the 31 August NYT, Knauth wrote of the favored Siemens plant: »Foreign newspaper correspondents had an op- portunity to view the damage and found it slight.« Despite a tour of much of the city, as did a similar Associated Press dispatch printed in the same issue, he told of no hits more significant than those on a lumber yard and a shed at Siemens. And even in his quoted 1 September »News of the Week in Review« section »profound shock« article, Knauth observed: »The British raids on Germany can scarcely be described as mass attacks ... They have not caused any serious demoralization.« Having tried in the issue of 3 September to explain away these accounts as mislead- ingly summarized by himself, in the issue of 4 September the New York correspond- ent of the London Times wrote:

It is not clear whether British bombings in Germany and in German-occupied coun- tries are largely concealed from neutral correspondents or whether the correspond- ents are not permitted to say anything about them. If there were no British news about the bombings one might easily suppose that they were only effective in wreck- ing an occasional farm or apartment house ...

The actual texts did not allow one to hope that many oil-tank infernos or direct hits on the Siemens plant had been concealed. And the friendly NYT, which hid the Berlin dispatches under tiny and misleading headlines, by unhelpful silence implicitly admit- ted the insignificance of the censorship and the volitional genuineness of the positively negative statements (if the case had been different, the reporters could have informed the editors through embassy communications, going to , or the like). At least after the first few failures, Churchill inferably was not bombing Berlin to de- prive the Germans of oil or electrical equipment. (Indeed, to my knowledge, he never even claimed within the Government to be doing so.) He may not have known that the air marshals felt that nothing in Berlin was »of importance« to the oil or aircraft situation60. But what immediate importance can he have attached to distant local air- fields, power plants, and railways, and why did he never specify what he wanted as- signed? Besides, this Admiralty veteran — surely aware of the cumulative nature at night of navigational errors61 — surely knew that Berlin (as Butler matter-of-factly put it) »was too far away to make a satisfactory target«62 at the time. Moreover, on 20 July the C in C of Bomber Command (Charles Portal) had told him that until Sep- tember »the nights would not be long enough to enable the heavies to be employed satisfactorily« against Berlin63. According to a concurrent Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (ACAS; Robert Saundby), on 25 August »the night was scarcely long enough to allow the aircraft to go and return in darkness«64. So the Prime Minister knew that they did not have the time to search available in the case of oil or aircraft precision targets farther west. Furthermore, the crucial moonlight was lacking throughout the substantial series of raids (full moon 17 August). Churchill probably insisted on »a really heavy« initial attack and sizable follow-ups in order to ensure that some bomb- ers would actually reach the city. Nothing and nobody, incidentally, has suggested that interest in tying down a few anti-aircraft guns or fighters explains this anxious- ness any better than emotions, politics, or damage ambitions do. Fortunately for historians, something profoundly affecting the vital air struggle coin- cided with the London incident. In the week which ended on 17 August, 134 of Fight- er Command's aircraft had been lost at a time when about five times that number were available for operations65; about one hundred more being severely damaged, »the rate of casualties exceeded the rate of production« as the Cabinet was told (by well over one hundred aircraft)66; and meanwhile the pool of available trained fighter pilots was shrinking rapidly67. On 16 August, however, the Chiefs of Staff Committee informed the Cabinet that air defense installations had not yet been seriously dam- aged68. Actually, Churchill recalled, up to 18 August the Germans bombed chiefly convoys and »those seaside towns marked as objectives for the forthcoming inva- sion«69. And a cloudy week of reduced German bombing followed70, during which Fighter Command suffered many fewer casualties and grew slightly71. But 24 August began two weeks of what Churchill (like many others) considered »crucial days« on which the enemy »continually applied powerful forces .. .«72. Worse, on that day they began hitting hard inland »vital sector aerodromes which di- rected our fighters ... If these were knocked out it would ruin the secret way in which our fighters could be guided to their targets.«73 Plotting of information flowing by field telephone wires from binoculars-equipped observers and stations meant strong ambushes instead of uneven fights and wasted sorties; in his memoirs Churchill explained the system vividly74. According to an official historian writing unofficially, »the danger was that efficiency might be impaired where damage to operations rooms and landlines forced sector commanders to fall back on stand-by arrangements« 75. In Churchill's opinion, if more of the »operations rooms or [their] telephone communi- cations« had been »damaged« than were, »the whole intricate organisation of Fighter Command might have broken down«. Through 6 September, he indicated, the Ger- mans tried »to break down the day fighter defence of the capital« this way76. For a fortnight, according to an official history, »continued attacks on sector-stations re- mained the biggest danger«77. About them, there was »intense« or »much anxiety« within Fighter Command78. Furthermore, on 29 August the Minister of Aircraft Production told the Cabinet that »the recent heavy air fighting had made considerable inroads on . .. reserves of air- craft ...«75. During this fortnight, in which Fighter Command had about seven hun- dred planes »serviceable and available [with pilots] for operation«, its stocks (size un- known) shrank about two hundred; and over two hundred pilots had to be replaced by inexperienced and in some cases incompletely trained ones80. An immersed Churchill anxiously »pored« over the figures and visited beset airfields during this »period ( to )« in which events, he felt, »seriously drained the strength of Fighter Command as a whole«. He believed that in this »life-and-death struggle« for domination of the air over London and the Channel »the scales had tilted against Fighter Command«81. Retrospectively, the C in C of that command and the official air historians declared that Britain's victory »margin« had been »nar- row« ®2. Noteworthily, on 4 September Hitler publicly threatened angrily to begin »razing« and to »rub out« British cities in retaliation for any further attacks on German ones83. The cited newspaper issues indicate that bombers were dispatched to Berlin that night and that some bombs fell in the center of the city the night after the next. The Blitz began the following day, on 7 September. Portal's (C in C of Bomber Command) of- ficial biographer and the then-Assistant Chief of the Air Staff Saundby connected these events84, and Hitler's response must have seemed likely at the time: he was known for bloodthirstiness more than for forbearance; it could be hoped that he did not know how close the campaign in progress was to defeating Fighter Command; and his more than political obsession with appearances, his excitability, and his tem- per could be expected to blind him to the value of the ungratifying bombing of air- fields. Besides meaning less bombing elsewhere, the strategically relatively harmless bombing of London called for less fighter defensive effort (particularly since, in this era of few night fighters, its night component was large and growing from the first). The sector- stations and airfields got relief, fighter casualty rates declined, fighter reserves grew, and the turned85. In his memoirs Churchill recalled that the first weeks of the Blitz were »in effect for us a breathing space of which we had the utmost need«. He indicated that its start was seen as a plus at the time: »It was therefore with a sense of relief that Fighter Command felt the German attack turn on to London on ...« He left no doubt about which type of target he preferred the Ger- mans to attack: Far more important to us than the protection of London from terror-bombing was the functioning and articulation of these airfields and the squadrons working from them. ... We never thought of the struggle in terms of the defence of London or any other place, but only who won in the air86.

Considering that Churchill (and later the official historians) probably feared a Pearl Harbor-type hostile revisionism, he was rather frank and helpful in this and other pas- sages (below). Home-morale and prestige considerations have been more or less eliminated as mo- tives, and for what military reason would he have wanted, in earlier quoted words, »to defy the enemy«? Below this remark he wrote that he »believed that nothing im- pressed or disturbed Hitler so much as his realisation of British wrath and will- power« 87. What was the military value of disturbing Hitler? Surely bombing Berlin would be an expensive way to deprive him of peace of mind or sleep! Can he have hoped that a few bombs would deter Hitler from invading Britain? Saundby, who may have talked with Churchill at the time and certainly spoke with colleagues who had, wrote that when the Germans found Britain's jugular vein on 24 August »the Prime Minister decided to play a bold card«88. When I interviewed him, he confirmed my interpretation of this remark89. Churchill evidently assumed that the enemy was planning to begin »violent and con- tinuous bombing of the capital« after defeating Fighter Command in any case; a premature blitz appeared less dangerous and less bloody in two ways: bombers har- assed in daylight or attacking at night would have trouble destroying densely popu- lated central areas of the city, let alone the interspersed specific objectives whose im- pairment would facilitate landing and conquest; an invasion would mean a »massacre ... on both sides grim and great« and possibly an (ordered) devastating fight over »every inch of« London90. To my knowledge, nothing not mentioned here in the literature injures my argu- ment91. Also lending my view credibility, in Lord Beaverbrook, a War Cabinet member close to Churchill, reportedly said that the British had »to play on« what they knew »of the Fuehrer's temperament«. The month and context are differ- ent, but the psychology and principle are those to which I attribute the Berlin attacks: »Our hopes rest upon inciting him to lunatic actions. He must see the insults offered his supermen .. .«92. Unlike the official retaliation story, the approach can explain everything neatly. The ambivalence of 17 August (withdrawn order) became the haste of 25 Au- gust as the air crisis went from serious to acute. Churchill ostensibly jumped to visibly unjustified conclusions about the intentionality of the London incident because the sooner Berlin was bombed, the sooner London really would be. Despite London's near exemption and the discouraging news from Germany, Berlin was aimed at six more times in the next two weeks while Hitler's anger grew into threats and then ac- tion — even as shipping threateningly concentrated after 1 September. Since the risked bombers were likely to matter before further American aid could, winning American sympathy for a battered London almost certainly was not a major goal of the precipitation plan. As seen, a real fear of invasion and defeat intensified the anxiousness to win the close, fighter Battle of Britain. Given these fears, what else but air victory was worth the sacrifice of some of the bombers upon which Churchill was counting to reduce fleets and bridgeheads to manageable proportions?

1 Bomber Command entered and left August with about 500 »aircraft available for operations«. Winston S. Churchill: Their Finest Hour. New York 1962, pp. 615—16 (officially supplied - dix). Similarly lumping medium and heavy bombers, the official air historians report that in Au- gust Bomber Command lost 63 in night raids and 18 in day raids. Sir Charles Kingsley Webster and Noble Frankland: The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939—1945. Vol. 1—4. Lon- don 1961 ( — History of the Second World War. Military Series. Ed. by Sir James Butler.), here vol. 4, pp. 431, 434 (app. 40). According to a recent, archives-based book on the medium bombers, their numbers grew from 180 to 218 in August while 36 of them were lost. Michael J. F. Bowyer: 2 Group R. A. F.: A Complete History, 1936—1945. London 1974, pp. 118— 19, 454 (app. 7). Thus 45 heavy bombers were lost in action, of about 300; evidently at this time none of them had tactical (then chiefly coastal) assignments. See Basil Collier: The Defence of the United Kingdom. London 1957, pp. 141, 224—25. Consider his figures in conjunction with Air 2/4474, Item 78A, and Air 14/809, Item 8A (like all archival references below, Public Record Of- fice, London). Also see Cab. 66/10, WP (40) 307 dated , 1940, 200; Cab. 66/10, WP (40) 317 dated , 1940, 248—49; Cab. 66/11, WP (40) 334 dated , 1940, 50-51, 54; Cab. 66/11, WP (40)346 dated , 1940, 102-103; Air 2/4475, Item 17A. Concentrations of invasion shipping theoretically had priority (below), but no threatening ones were discovered in August (below). 2 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 148, 244. 3 Field Marshal Sir Edmund Ironside: The Ironside Diaries, 1937—1940. Ed.: Colonel Roderick Macleod and Denis Kelly. London 1962, pp. 377, 380—84. 4 James R. M. Butler: Grand Strategy. Vol. 2. London 1957, p. 268; F. H. Hinsley: British Intelli- gence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations. Vol. 1. New York 1979, pp. 173-74. 5 F. W. Winterbotham : The Ultra Secret. New York 1975, p. 68 ; William Stevenson : A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War. New York 1977, p. 121 (direct quotation); Jósef Garlihski: Intercept: The Secrets of the Enigma War. London 1979, p. 82; Ronald Lewin: Ultra Goes to War. New York 1978, pp. 82, 91. 6 Hinsley: British Intelligence ... (see Fn. 4), pp. 183—84. For more ominous August revelations cf. Lewin: Ultra Goes to War (see Fn. 5), pp. 92—93. 7 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 252—53, 262. 8 Collier: The Defence of the United Kingdom (see Fn. 1), pp. 222, 225; Hinsley: British Intelli- gence ... (see Fn. 4), p. 184. 9 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 265; Butler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, p. 288; Hinsley: British Intelligence ... (see Fn. 4), p. 185. 10 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 253-54, 389-90, 395. 11 Ibid., p. 139. For the incidence of such feelings from May through August cf. Hinsley: British In- telligence ... (see Fn. 4), pp. 165—68, 172, 183. 12 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 551 (note from Prime Minister to General Ismay for Vice Chief of the Air Staff dated , 1940. Cf. Hinsley: British Intelligence ... (see Fn. 4), pp. 172-76. 1} Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 238. 14 Air 19/458, note from Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air and Chief of the Air Staff dated , 1940. 15 Air 14/775, Item61A. It Cab. 65/8, WM (40)233 of 23 August, 1940, entire. 17 Webster/Frank] and : The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany (see Fn. 1), vol. 1, p. 152; But- ler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, p. 410; Collier: The Defence of the United Kingdom (see Fn. 1), pp. 207-208. 18 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 293.

19 Webster/Frankland: The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany (see Fn. 1), vol. 1, p. 152; Col- lier: The Defence of the United Kingdom (see Fn. 1), p. 234.

20 Butler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, p. 410; Cab. 65/8, ΨΜ (40)236 of 29 August, 1940, 223.

21 Collier: The Defence of the United Kingdom (see Fn. 1), p. 234; Webster/Frankland: The Strate- gic Air Offensive against Germany (see Fn. 1), vol. 1, p. 215; Butler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, p. 410. 22 Cab. 65/8, WM (40)234 of 26 August, 1940, 215. 23 Cab. 69. 24 Cab. 65/8, WM (40)236 of 29 August, 1940, 223. 25 Cab. 66/11, WP (40)346 dated August 30, 1940, 102-103. 26 Air 2/4475, Item 15A. 27 Ibid., Item 16A (also Air 14/775, Item 69A). 28 Air 14/775, Item 70. 29 Ibid., Item 71A. 30 Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby: Air Bombardment. New York 1961, p. 96. 31 The Times (London), 13 , 5f and 6d; , 13 June 1940, 3; ibid., 28 June 1940, 12; Air 14/249, Items 36, 37, and 38A (dated from 22 June to 27 June). 32 Cab. 66/11, WP (40)346 dated August 30, 1940, 102-103. 33 Air 14/775, Item 72A (note SASO to C in C dated ). 34 Ibid, (note SASO to C in C dated ). 35 The Times (London), 6 , 4c. 36 Martin Gilbert: Winston S. Churchill. Vol. 5. London 1976, pp. 573, 772; Webster/Frankland: The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany (see Fn. 1), vol. 1, p. 89; Robin Higham: The Mili- tary Intellectuals in Britain: 1918—1939. New Brunswick 1966, p. 187; George H. Quester: De- terrence before Hiroshima. New York 1966, p. 61; Richard M. Titmuss: Problems of Social Pol- icy. London 1950, pp. 12, 16-22, 325. 37 See the extravagant accusations in The Times (London) of 26, 27, and 28 August. Tom Harrisson: What is Public Opinion? In: Political Quarterly 11 (1940) 376—77. He cites

38 »very detailed investigations« conducted by Mass Observation, an organization with leftist and in- ternationalist leanings. Hadley Cantril: Public Opinion: 1935—1946. Princeton, N.J. 1951, p. 106 (British Institute of

39 Public Opinion, July survey); George H. Gallup: The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935—1971. Vol. 1. New York 1972, p. 236 (Gallup survey, August). Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 424. Cf. Lewin: Ultra Goes to War (see Fn. 5), p. 82.

40 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 238. 412 The 20 July Berlin note and the Leipzig trade-fair plan evince general interest in prestige. Also cf. Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 102, 123, 195-96, 205, 219—20; Butler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, pp. 341—43; Stevenson: A Man Called Intrepid (see Fn. 5), pp. 80, 115, 120-21, 148; Patrick Cosgrave: Churchill at War. Vol. 1: Alone 1939-1940. London 1974, pp. 215, 220—21. With specific regard to the destroyers-for-bases deal cf. Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 342—56; The New York Times, 4 September 1940, 1; Roosevelt and Church- ill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence. Ed.: Francis L. Loewenheim, Harold D. Langley, and Manfred Jonas. New York 1975, pp. 94—99, 104—14; Sir Llewellyn Woodward: British Foreign Policy in the Second World War. London 1962, pp. 78—88. 43 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 227. 44 Cab. 65/14, annex to WM (40)192 of 3 July, 1940, 13. 45 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 275, 549. 46 Ibid, p. 551. 47 Cab. 65/14, annex to WM (40)207 of 18 July, 1940, 45. 48 Webster/Frankland: The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany (see Fn. 1), vol. 1, p. 147. 49 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 240, 273-75, 283. Also cf. Hinsley: British Intelli- gence ... (see Fn. 4), p. 183. 50 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 551. 51 The New York Times, 3 August 1940, 1 (AP London dispatch). 52 Sir John Wheeler-Bennett (Ed.): Action This Day: Working with Churchill. London 1968, p. 143 (reminiscences of a former private secretary). 53 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 248—49 (pars. 1—5). 54 Webster/Frankland: The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany (see Fn. 1), vol. 1, p. 289 (espe- cially Fn. 2); Cab. 66/9, WP (40)266 dated , 1940. Also cf. Hinsley: British Intelligence ... (see Fn. 4), pp. 240-41. 55 Cab. 80/16, COS (40)647 dated , 1940, pars. 7, 38; Butler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, p. 343. 56 Air 14/1230, Item 8B (prepared in the Ministry of Home Security in November 1943). According to this chart, more than six times as many tons of bombs fell on England as fell on Germany dur- ing the months of July, August, and September together. Despite the fact that the German attack intensified in September, this immense ratio allows one to suppose that the (unfound) August esti- mates were as suggested. 57 Cab. 65/8, WM (40)229 of 16 August 1940, 196; Cab. 65/8, WM (40)236 of 29 August, 1940, 223; A. J. P. Taylor: Beaverbrook. London 1972, p. 447. 58 See The Times (London) of 27 and 30 August and of 2, 5, 6, and 9 September (Monday issues covered two nights, the earlier one only in the form of an article). 59 See especially The Times (London) of 26 August (United Press) and The New York Times of 26'August (C. Brook ), 29 August (Percival Knauth), 30 August (Peters), 31 August (Knauth), 1 September (AP; p. 19), 2 September (Knauth), and 4 September (Knauth). to Air 2/4475, Item 25A, par. 12; reprinted in Webster/Frankland: The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany (see Fn. 1), vol. 4, app. 8, pp. 124—27. ti Ibid., vol. 1, p. 204. 62 Butler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, p. 410. 63 Air 14/1930, Note from Director of Home Operations to Private Secretary of CAS dated , 1940. 64 Saundby: Air Bombardment (see Fn. 30), p. 96. 65 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 290, 616 (tables). 66 Air 6/60, Items 19 and 26; Cab. 65/8, WM (40)229 of 16 August, 1940, 196 (Minister of Aircraft Production). 67 Allen Andrews: The Air Marshals. London 1970, p. 126. 68 Cab. 66/10, WP (40)317 dated August 16, 1940, 248-49. 69 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 275. 70 Basil Collier: A History of Air Power. New York 1974, p. 169. 71 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 290, 616 (tables); Air 6/60, Item 29. 72 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 275, 283; Collier: A History of Air Power (see Fn. 70), p. 169; Winterbotham: The Ultra Secret (see Fn. 5), p. 84; Cosgrave: Churchill at War (see Fn. 42), vol. 1, p. 299. 73 Winterbotham: The Ultra Secret (see Fn. 5), p. 84. 74 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 285—88. 75 Collier: A History of Air Power (see Fn. 70), p. 170. 76 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 283. 77 Collier: The Defence of the United Kingdom (see Fn. 1), p. 234. 78 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 283; Collier: A History of Air Power (see Fn. 70), p. 170. 79 Cab. 65/8, WM (40)236 of 29 August, 1940, 223. 80 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 284, 290, 616; Butler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, p. 287; Air 6/60, Items 31 and 40. 81 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 275, 283, 284, 390.

82 Webster/Frankland: The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany (see Fn. 1), vol. 1, p. 147; But- ler: Grand Strategy (see Fn. 4), vol. 2, p. 294.

83 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 293; The Times (London), 5 September 1940, 4b; The New York Times, 5 September 1940, 1.

84 Saundby: Air Bombardment (see Fn. 30), p. 97; Denis Richards: Pönal of Hungerford. London 1977, p. 161.

85 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), p. 290; Air 6/60, Item 45; Saundby: Air Bombardment (see Fn. 30), p. 96; Richards: Portal of Hungerford (see Fn. 84), p. 161; Cosgrave: Churchill at War (see Fn. 42), vol. 1, pp. 300, 302. 86 Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 283—84. 87 Ibid., p. 293. 88 Saundby: Air Bombardment (see Fn. 30), p. 96. 26 August, 1970; Burghclere, England. Quester's Deterrence before Hiroshima had started me to think along these lines. Churchill: Their Finest Hour (see Fn. 1), pp. 227, 238, 275, 283. Recent publications examined besides those already cited include: Max Hastings: Bomber Com- mand. London 1979; R. V. Jones: The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945. New York 1978; Freeman Dyson: Reflections: Disturbing the Universe — Part I. In: The New Yorker (,1979) 37-63. Stevenson: A Man Called Intrepid (see Fn. 5), pp. 160—61.