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The Good Fight This Page Intentionally Left Blank the Good Fight Battle of Britain Propaganda and the Few The Good Fight This page intentionally left blank The Good Fight Battle of Britain Propaganda and the Few Garry Campion © Garry Campion 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-1-4039-8998-7 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-27996-4 ISBN 978-0-230-29164-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230291645 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Campion, Garry, 1963– The good fight : Battle of Britain propaganda and the few / Garry Campion. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. For Suzanne From a Sergeant Pilot God, give us grace that we, Flying our fighters to eternity, May meteor-like before we fall Leave fiery trails of light, that all Truth’s sons may clutch, and clutching rise To blast Hell’s spawn from Heaven’s skies. Pilot Officer O.C. Chave 3 July 1940 [452, p. 11] Contents List of Illustrations x Acknowledgements and Permissions xi Abbreviations xiii Chronology – May 1940–March 1941 xv Introduction 1 The disputed invasion threat 1 The propaganda war 6 1 ATangleofVapourTrails 9 Defining propaganda 9 The Air Ministry 12 ‘Ministry of Morale’ 25 Winston Churchill 33 Conclusions 35 2 Squadrons Up 36 RAF Fighter Command 36 The Luftwaffe 48 The Battle of Britain 51 Reckoning 58 3 Arise to Conquer 64 RAF pilots’ combat experiences and morale 64 Luftwaffe morale and the Few 71 Contemporary tributes to the Few 73 British, Empire and international tributes 85 Deliverance 90 4 Winged Words 91 Collating and broadcasting the claims 91 Breaking the news 96 Persuading Britain 101 The aircraft-claiming controversy 104 Significance 114 vii viii Contents 5 Mastery of the Air 116 Wireless propagandists 116 BBC home news coverage 120 Contribution 133 6 Finest Hour 134 ‘Hot’ propaganda: the press 134 Warrior-heroes 140 Off the front pages − The Mirror and The Times 147 Magazines and journals 151 Conclusions 159 7 Men Like These 161 Newsreels as propaganda 161 Newsreel coverage of Fighter Command 163 American newsreels 175 MOI ‘shorts’ 179 A restrospective 187 8 The Sky’s the Limit 189 The RAF in focus 189 Photographing the Few 192 Portraying the Luftwaffe 197 Newspaper and magazine cartoons 198 Magazine illustrations 206 Newspaper and magazine advertisements 208 Posters 212 War art − official and semi-official 214 Battle iconography in retrospect 222 9 Combat Report 224 People’s war: Britain and the Battle 224 Persuading America 236 The Axis: Germany and Italy 244 Persuading the world 246 Winning the propaganda war 249 10 The R.A.F. in Action 251 Cinema, propaganda and the RAF 251 America and the Few 266 Retrospect and post-war cinema 275 Contents ix 11 To So Few 278 Publishing propaganda 278 Official and semi-official propaganda 280 Unofficial propaganda 301 Inspiring the young – official and unofficial publications 304 Post-war historiography 307 Conclusion 311 War Artists’ Appendix 315 Bibliography 317 Index 336 List of Illustrations Figures 1 Relationship between events and subsequent media coverage 97 2 Engagement with the news during May–November 1940 98 3 BBC and Deutschlandsender broadcasts of air claims 99 4 News ‘currency’ of daily BBC bulletins 120 Plates Cover image: 19 Squadron Spitfires from Duxford in a ‘vic’, 1938. 1 Diagram showing the organisation of layered British air defences. 2 Rolls Royce advertisement for its superb Merlin engine with Spitfires. 3 Pilots at readiness, playing draughts. 4 Eric Kennington’s portrait of Flight Lieutenant A.G. Malan. 5 19 and 616 Squadron fighter pilots ‘scrambling’. 6 Churchill’s 20.8.1940 ‘psalm form’ speech. 7 A poster that said it all. 8 Heinkel He111 ablaze during an attack. 9 Punch’s ‘The Crammer’ cartoon. 10 A Sergeant pilot and a Flight Lieutenant colleague. 11 ‘A Polish Sergeant Pilot’ by Cuthbert Orde. 12 32 Squadron pilots at Hawkinge. 13 Pilot Officer Keith Gillman at Hawkinge. 14 Punch’s ‘A new game for Neptune’ cartoon. 15 Aircraft advertisements in The Aeroplane. 16 Photograph of five aircrew. 17 Pilot Officer Thomas Neil’s portrait by Eric Kennington. 18 Battle of Britain oil painting by Paul Nash. 19 Air Fight over Portland oil painting by Richard Eurich. 20 Spitfire cockpit photograph used to support Spitfire Fund campaigns. 21 Illustration of an RAF fighter’s attack on Me109s. 22 Front cover of 1941 Canadian Battle of Britain pamphlet. 23 Front cover of Puffin’s Battle of Britain book. 24 William Rothenstein’s portrait of Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding. x Acknowledgements and Permissions At the University of Northampton, I would particularly like to thank my teaching colleague Stephen Young for his support and encouragement; Dave Keskeys and Dr Jude Ackroyd for their support; Dr Chris Ringrose for his advice about Holinshed and Hall; and George Payne, Genine O’Neill and staff in the library who helped with many book requests. More broadly, thanks to Professor Michael Paris for his valued assistance with Eagle Squadron films, Sally Stenning for providing valuable guidance on aircraft claim statistics and Malcolm Brown for allowing me to use material in his Spitfire Summer book. Pauline and Barry Campion are thanked for their support and encouragement; Jean and Judd Procter have also contributed to my being able to conceive of and write this book, also offering encouragement and valuable support with permissions. And to Luke, Ollie and Louis who would say that they’ve heard rather too much about all this – hopefully, it will prove interesting at a later time. Most importantly, grateful thanks to Suzanne Stenning for her unstinting support, encouragement, humour, comments on my ideas and writing, and her wise guidance on the nature of art in wartime – there would be no book without her. For permission to use material, or access to archives, the following organi- sations are gratefully acknowledged: the British Broadcasting Corporation, the British Library, the British Universities Film & Video Council, The Churchill Archive, The National Archives, the RAF Museum and the Imperial War Museum. Permission to reproduce text in magazines, newspapers and books is also gratefully acknowledged: Adam Matthews Publications, The Aeroplane magazine, Punch magazine, Tribune magazine, Country Life magazine, Flight Inter- national magazine, Associated Newspapers, Illustrated London News, Mirrorpix, News International, Solo Syndication and Telegraph Media Group. Magee’s High Flight is reproduced by kind permission of This England magazine. The front cover of The Battle of Britain by David Garnett is reproduced by permission of Penguin Group (UK). Extracts reproduced from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West (Copy- right © Estate of Rebecca West 1941) are by permission of PFD (www.pfd.co.uk) on behalf of the Estate of Rebecca West; and copyright 1940, 1941 renewed © 1968, 1969 by Rebecca West – used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Extracts from Postscripts by J.B. Priestley (Copyright © Estate of J.B. Priestley 1940) are also by permission of PFD (www.pfd.co.uk) on behalf of the Estate of J.B. Priestley. The Paul Richey extract is courtesy of B.T. Batsford and Anova Books. The excerpt from England’s Hour by Vera xi xii Acknowledgements and Permissions Brittain is included by permission of Mark Bostridge and Timothy Brittain- Catlin, Literary Executors for the Vera Brittain Estate, 1970. The Churchill extract from What Did You Do in the War Auntie? by Tom Hickman is pub- lished by BBC Books, and reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. Diary extracts taken from We Are at War: The Diaries of Five Ordinary Peo- ple in Extraordinary Times by Simon Garfield are published by Ebury Press and reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. Extracts from The Memoirs of Lord Ismay, by H.K. Ismay, are published by William Heinemann Ltd, and reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. The modified version of the table giving British and German broadcast claims for aircraft, and the responses to Charles Gardner’s broadcast on 14 July 1940, are from The War of Words by Asa Briggs (1970) – copyright © by permission of Oxford University Press. Extracts from The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary (Copyright © Richard Hillary, 1942) reprinted by permission of A.M. Heath & Co Ltd. Extracts from Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: My Country Right or Left, 1940–43 by George Orwell (Copyright © George Orwell, 1968) by per- mission of Bill Hamilton as the Literary Executor of the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell and Secker & Warburg Ltd; and copyright © 1968 by Sonia Brownell Orwell and renewed 1966 by Mark Hamilton, reprinted by permis- sion of Harcourt, Inc.
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