It wasn't just London

Since this blog started some 18 months ago, we make no apologies for the majority of the writing being somewhat biased towards events in London. After all, the Blitzwalkers do concentrate on walks around various areas of our capital that were affected by the events of 70 years and longer ago. However, although London was the place that the Luftwaffe always returned to, we are the first to recognise that there were plenty of other places outside the capital that drew the attention of Hitler's finest.

Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast, Glasgow, Coventry, Portsmouth, Southampton, Belfast, Birmingham, Sheffield, Hull, Plymouth and Exeter amongst other places all suffered at the hands of the Luftwaffe and having just returned from a short holiday in Devon, it is this county upon which we shall concentrate today.

The county of Devon, with its rich agricultural traditions, at first choice seems an odd choice of target for Goering's bombers but with a little thought, the logic of this choice of target becomes apparent. The City of Plymouth is the home to Devonport Dockyard, the largest naval base in Western Europe and then as now, one of the homes of the Royal Navy. Hitler and his cronies were quick to recognise that if Devonport could be crippled, then the capabilities of the Royal Navy could be similarly hampered. The photograph shows the city centre the morning after a heavy raid in March 1941.

The first bombs fell on the city as early as 6th July 1940, when the suburb of Swilly was attacked with the death of three people. Much worse was to follow in early to mid 1941, when five heavy raids reduced large parts of the city to rubble. As elsewhere, the Plymouth Blitz brought tales of tragedy, heroism and defiance. Amongst the former, March 21st 1941 saw the Childrens' Ward at the City Hospital take a direct hit, when four nurses and nineteen children, the youngest barely a week old, were killed. Tragedy came again on 22nd April 1941, when a public air raid shelter located in Portland Square received a direct hit which resulted in the deaths of 72 shelterers. As always, the heroes were the firefighters, rescue workers and wardens, who toiled without a thought for their own safety. The defiance came in many simple ways; people continued to go to work, the Western Morning News, the local newspaper continued to appear every day despite the damage to their own offices and perhaps most poignantly of all was a wooden sign fixed over the door of the ruined parish church of St Andrew by a local headmistress, which read simply "Resurgam" which translated means "I shall rise again."

Neither was Plymouth the only part of Devon to be bombed; in 1940 and later during the so called Baedecker Raids of early to mid 1942 saw Exeter bombed with much of the historic City Centre being flattened. Newton Abbot railway station was bombed on 20th August 1940 when three enemy aircraft deliberately attacked the large railway station and yards resulting in the deaths of fourteen people and extensive damage and disruption to the main line to and from London.

Even seemingly sleepy backwaters such as the Regency seaside town of Sidmouth were not immune; in November 1941 a German bomber, probably on it's way back from a raid on Exeter shed it's load over the town, fortunately without loss of life but causing some material damage to properties and also causing the attention of a large number of curious locals who came to see the bomb craters the next day!

Devon, of course was the destination of large numbers of evacuees from the big cities, particulary from London. This writer knows of one friend who was evacuated from Greenford in Middlesex to Newton Abbot as a small boy. The reaction of his parents when they heard of the bombing of this part of Devon must have been one of extreme consternation, although for the most part, the evacuees sent to this part of the world must have found rural Devon a world apart from London and the other big cities.

Devon, in common with pretty well the whole of the south of England, was the home to many thousands of Allied servicemen in the build up to D-Day and many friendships were forged between American servicemen in particular and the local populace, whom they grew to like and to admire. In 1944, these servicemen were to leave for what General Eisenhower described as "The Great Crusade" to rid Europe and the World of Nazi tyranny. Many of these young men would never return, but they left behind a Devon, which like the remainder of the country, would never be quite the same again, so deep were the scars left behind.

Published Sources:

The Newton Abbot Blitz - AR Kingdom, Oxford Publishing Company 1979
Sidmouth, The War Years 1939-45 - John Ankins, privately published 2001
The Blitz of Plymouth - Arthur C Clamp - PDS Printers 1981

The Pen is Mightier........

A blog of this nature, although we try to be comprehensive and accurate in the subjects covered, cannot compete with the depth of knowledge and sheer detail that goes into many of the books written on the Second World War.

Such books began to appear immediately the war was over and continue to be written to this day. As someone who guides Blitz-related walks around London and as a Blitz-related blogger and writer, I am often asked what books I would recommend to someone starting a wartime library or to someone who has even a passing interest in the subject. Both Neil and I are very careful to add a ‘Published Sources’ footnote to our blog and whilst our articles are by no means a ‘cut and paste’ job, we are always very aware of the work that goes into producing any piece of writing and are happy (and proud) to acknowledge our sources and inspirations.

Therefore, in answer to the oft asked question, here are my thoughts on the very best of Second World War writing. By its very nature, such a list is subjective and I would welcome the comments of our readers as to their favourites.

As can be imagined, many books were written once the Blitz was over and in the immediate aftermath. These books are still of tremendous value, although some of them are written in the style of their time which can sometimes be seen as politically incorrect and were also written at a time when some of the secrets of the war were still to be revealed.

Of books written whilst the war was still in progress, Front Line 1940-41, published by HMSO in 1942 is a remarkable pictorial study of the Blitz which was issued as a tribute to Britain’s Civil Defence services. Probably the best of the contemporary histories is Carry on London! written in 1941 by Ritchie Calder, who wrote for the now defunct newspaper The Daily Herald and later became Science Editor of the also long disappeared News Chronicle. He was also the father of the author and historian Angus Calder, of whom more later. As might be expected, it is written in a journalistic style and concentrates on the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the ordinary people.

Of the books written in the immediate aftermath of the war, easily the best written in my opinion is Westminster in War by William Sansom and published in 1947. During the war, Sansom was a full time London firefighter, serving initially in the Auxiliary Fire Service and later the National Fire Service, who had several close calls, especially on 29th December 1940, when he narrowly avoided being buried by falling masonry on the night the City of London was firebombed. Well qualified to write on his subject, Sansom became a full time novelist, short story and travel writer post-war and this book stands up well to this day.

Specific raids have also been well covered; The City That Wouldn’t Die by Richard Collier, published in 1959 concentrates on the last night of the Blitz – 10th/11th May 1941 – and is written in a compelling style as befits a journalist with the Daily Mail amongst other publications. Collier skilfully selects various participants, both on the British and German sides and follows their stories through this night of nights. Blitz, by M J Gaskin, is a much more recent addition to the ranks of the publications, not appearing until 2005 and covers the night of 29th December 1940, the great fire raid on the City of London and is written in a similar style to Collier’s book, concentrating on the stories of many of those involved during this raid, cleverly interweaving their stories. Margaret Gaskin wrote this book because she was initially puzzled why so much of the history of the City of London was seemingly punctuated by the recurring date of 29th December 1940 and simply wanted to get to the bottom of the story, which she has done supremely well.

Of general histories of the Blitz, there are several that stand out; Backs to the Wall by Leonard Mosley published in 1971 deals with the general subject pretty well and uses the by now tried and tested methods of concentrating on specific people who were involved and following their stories through the war. This is a fine book but suffers, in this writer’s opinion due to the author’s political viewpoint clouding his judgement occasionally. For example, he accuses Lord Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, of being out of touch with the situation in London. This is patently incorrect; Alanbrooke was based in London throughout the war and although his job dictated periodic absences, he was well aware as to what was going on and suffered losses amongst his own friends and family during the war. Out of touch he wasn’t! London at War 1939-45 by Philip Ziegler and published in 1995 is a masterful study of life in London not only during the Blitz, but during the war in general and as such grasps the atmosphere of London during this period very well.

However, in this writer’s opinion the best of these ‘general’ histories is The Blitz by Constantine FitzGibbon, first published in 1957 and which remains a magisterial piece of work. FitzGibbon was a well known novelist and historian who had previously written an account of the attempt on Hitler’s life, so was well qualified to write this history. It is supremely well-written and contains some of the best personal accounts of various incidents, known and lesser known. The illustrations by Henry Moore also add a touch of class to this wonderful book.

Another general history, this time of the Battle of Britain, The Narrow Margin by Derek Wood with Derek Dempster and first published in 1961, remains a valuable chronicle of the Battle of Britain. The Battle is viewed on a day-by-day basis, detailing the actions, participants and captures well the cut and thrust of the battle for the survival of this island. The organisational detail of both RAF Fighter Command and the Luftwaffe, together with the stories of the personalities and equipment used makes this a fascinating publication. An updated and illustrated version of this book was released in 1990 which takes into account many of the 'Ultra' secrets which could not be mentioned when this book was first published.

Many social histories of the ‘Home Front’ have been written. In this writer’s opinion, Angus Calder, son of the aforementioned Ritchie is the writer of two of the best books on the subject, The People’s War published in 1969 and The Myth of the Blitz published in 1990. Don’t be put off by the title of this latter book; this is in no way a revisionist work and Angus Calder is not a debunker. As he explains in his own introduction, he doesn’t use the word ‘myth’ as if exposing lies, as does one particularly forgettable book on the subject (that Calder refers to but which I will not do the honour of advertising) but rather re-examines already known facts and looks at the whole event in a rational manner, whilst at the same time reminding us that the Blitz wasn’t just about cheeky, salt-of-the-earth cockneys taking Hitler’s worst on the chin (which they actually did surprisingly often) but was also about looting, road accidents, official incompetence and the general effect on the British people, as well as how this period is portrayed in films, for example. As for The Myth itself, as Calder himself points out, it still holds true as London did survive as did the majority of Londoners without becoming gibbering wrecks.

Many companies and organisations published war histories and some of these are surprisingly interesting and well-written, mainly because the bigger organisations were able to commission first rate authors to write these histories. War on the Line published in 1946 and written by Bernard Darwin is a history of the Southern Railway during the war and although the Southern covered a vast area of Southern England from Dover to Padstow, London features prominently within its pages and includes some fascinating personal accounts from railwaymen and women of the time. London Transport at War, originally published in 1946 as London Transport Carried On and written by Charles Graves covers the story of London’s buses, trams and tubes through the wartime years and again, contains some very good personal accounts as well as being very well illustrated. It slightly glosses over the initial difficulties caused by the tubes not being originally made available as shelters but since the book is an official history written just after the war, perhaps this can be forgiven.

There have been many biographies have been written about the personalities involved during the Blitz and the Battle of Britain. Vincent Orange has written two excellent biographies of the leading RAF protagonists of the Battle of Britain; Dowding of Fighter Command is an honest and well written account of the ‘Father of Fighter Command’ whilst the simply titled Park is a biography of Sir Keith Park, the head of 11 Group, Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain and the man who was aptly christened ‘The Defender of London’ by the Germans of all people. It tells the story well of the jealousies and in-fighting within the RAF that was to lead to the dismissal of this wonderful man shortly after the Battle's conclusion but who was later to mastermind similar victories in Malta and later in the Far Eastern theatre against the Japanese.

So many books have been written about Winston Churchill, it is impossible to mention them all here. In my opinion, the best of them for sheer depth of research is Martin Gilbert’s voluminous biography Winston S Churchill of which Volume Six: Finest Hour 1939-41 published in 1989 extensively covers the Blitz period. An altogether easier to handle work on the great man is Churchill by Roy Jenkins published in 2001. This book covers the whole of Churchill’s life but there is a lengthy chapter on his Premiership during the Second World War.

There is one other book which does not really fit any of the above categories, such as they are and which goes to prove that Blitz Walking is nothing new. This book is called simply The Lost Treasures of London and was written by William Kent in 1947 when the Blitz was still very fresh in people's minds. It is a wonderful little book which consists of a series of walks through London linking those buildings, the treasures of the title, which were destroyed during the Second World War. William Kent's narrative vividly describes what was lost and when this occurred. It is beautifully illustrated and gives a startling insight into the London that might still have been had it not been for the intervention of Hitler and his Luftwaffe.

As has been mentioned earlier, this selection of books is very subjective and is certainly not exhaustive; when one has a library of over 200 books on the subject of the Second World War, of which a large proportion cover the Battle of Britain and Blitz periods, it is difficult if not impossible to mention all of them, save for presenting them in an uninspiring list but hopefully the above will give a good idea as to what to look out for. Some of the older books are now quite rare but given a bit of detective work and trawling of the internet, it is usually still possible to pick up most, if not all of the books referred to without costing a King’s Ransom.

There are many, many other fine pieces of writing, both old and new on the subject which have not been mentioned here due to the constraints of space but as mentioned earlier, I'd love to know your favourites on the subject.

Books referred to above:

Front Line 1940-41 - HMSO 1942
Carry on London! - Ritchie Calder, The English Universities Press 1941
Westminster in War - William Sansom, Faber & Faber 1947
The City that Wouldn't Die - Richard Collier, Collins 1959
Blitz - MJ Gaskin, Faber & Faber 2005
Backs to the Wall - Leonard Mosley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1971
London at War 1939-45 - Philip Ziegler, Sinclair Stevenson 1995
The Blitz - Constantine FitzGibbon, Macdonald 1957
The Narrow Margin - Derek Wood with Derek Dempster, Tri-Service Press 1990
The People's War - Angus Calder, Jonathan Cape 1969
The Myth of The Blitz - Angus Calder, Jonathan Cape 1991
War on The Line - Bernard Darwin, Southern Railway 1946
London Transport at War - Charles Graves, Almark Publishing 1974
Dowding of Fighter Command - Vincent Orange, Grub Street 2008
Park - Vincent Orange, Methuen 1984
Winston S Churchill, Volume 6 Finest Hour 1940-41 - Martin Gilbert, Heinemann 1989
Churchill - Roy Jenkins, Macmillan 2001
The Lost Treasures of London - William Kent, Phoenix House 1947

Dr Carrot, Potato Pete and Making do and Mending

Today, in 2011 after 66 years of peacetime and with fewer and fewer survivors of the wartime years to tell us about it first-hand, it is easy for us to look back upon those times with a certain amount of bewilderment at the way things were done in wartime London and the manner in which Londoners conducted themselves and to make comparisons with today's capital city.

For example, with an almost complete lack of private motoring, the general public were far more reliant on public transport than today; bus services especially, were hard pressed and could be few and far between, even in central London. Despite all this, Londoners queued patiently for their bus and woe betide anyone who tried to barge their way to the front. Compare this behaviour with the rugby scrums that pass for bus queues today!

In 2011, recycling is back in fashion. Quite rightly, people are being urged to save their waste paper, glass, tin cans and all manner of other refuse for re-use. Despite post war complacency, when society became increasingly 'throw away' in it's outlook, we are becoming all too aware of the finite resources of our planet and the urgent need to recycle and re-use our precious raw materials. In 1941, this need to recycle and re-use was even more urgent but for somewhat different reasons. Then, as now, we were a nation dependent on international trade but in 1941 shipping shortages were becoming acute due to the German U-Boat menace; raw materials could not be relied upon to be imported in sufficient amounts for use other than in war production, so 'Make-do and Mend' became one of the catch phrases of the day. Waste of anything could not and would not be tolerated. Everything, but everything was re-used, whether it be waste paper, glass, timber, rags, metals and even waste food which was 'recycled' for use in feeding pigs. Today, the recycling message hasn't hit home with everyone yet, although things are improving. Once again, we have a long way to catch up with our counterparts of 70 years ago.

Which brings us to rationing. We will explore rationing, not just of food but of petrol, clothing and much else, in a future blog entry but rationing was brought in during wartime as a means for providing fairness in ensuring that what supplies were available could go around to all who needed them. The coupon system worked surprisingly well and although there were cheats who tried to buck the system, the vast majority of the populace saw the common sense and fairness of the system and patiently waited their turn in the queues for food. Some foodstuffs, like eggs, became incredibly rare whilst others, such as bananas and lemons became almost non-existent. What rationing did encourage however, was the need to become as self-sufficient in food as possible. Everyone with a garden or with access to an allotment grew vegetables. Every scrap of land was converted to food growing - even prestigious open spaces such as Hyde Park had large areas given over to food production and the upshot of this campaign to 'Dig for Victory' was that by the end of the war, this country had halved the figure of 55 million tons of food that had previously been imported annually prior to the outbreak of war.

As can be imagined, 70 years ago, there was nothing like the variety of foods available that we are accustomed to today. Foods were seasonal and people were encouraged to make the best of what was available. Lord Woolton was appointed the Minister of Food and in a series of brilliant campaigns, encouraged the British people to use what they had and even had a vegetable based pie named after him. Characters such as 'Potato Pete' and 'Dr Carrot' made frequent appearances in various advertising campaigns extolling the values of these and other vegetables, which could be grown cheaply and easily.

As mentioned previously, there was a 'Black Market' and certain goods could always be purchased 'under the counter' if one had sufficient money or knew someone 'in the know.' Even 70 years on, this writer finds it hard to hide his disdain for people who cheated the system and not only did this but were proud of it. When one thinks of the huge dangers that British and Allied merchant seamen faced in bringing their cargoes through U-Boat infested waters, it is doubly hard not to feel utter contempt for those who cheated the system. The novelist and former Royal Navy officer Nicholas Monsarrat perhaps described it best:

"Petrol-wanglers, like traitors, merit a special hell. Probably enough has been written about the hazards of bringing an oil tanker across the Atlantic, and the fate of the ones who don't make it, to establish the background and impress it on the dullest mind. None of it has been exaggerated: tankers are dynamite, and their crews are heroes of a special quality.

What then, is one to make of people who licence their private cars as taxis, in order to get extra petrol coupons; who obtain additional petrol to go to church on Sunday and then don't go: who drive hundreds of miles to a race meeting already served by special trains: who treat petrol as if could be got from a tap? What sort of men are they? Stupid? Incurably selfish? Traitorous? Do they feel clever when they've got their extra whack? Does it give them a sense of power to know that men, foolishly valorous, have fought and perished in hundreds, just to keep their cars ticking over sweetly? Once again, ten such men are not worth the skin of one of the man who dies for them."

Even 68 years after these words were written, it is hard to disagree with them, especially when one knows that the author saw the sacrifices made by the merchant seamen and their naval escorts first-hand.

Some readers of these writings over the past year or so might think that this writer harbours a secret desire to have lived in the London of 70 years ago. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not so; I am happy to live in the present day and enjoy our rebuilt, vibrant city and to enjoy a rationing free life but perhaps if we could adopt some of the values and courtesies of those Londoners of 70 years ago and combine them with the fruits of their victory that we enjoy today, then maybe London would be a more pleasant place in which to live.

Published Sources:

Backs to the Wall - Leonard Mosley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1971
East Coast Corvette - Nicholas Monsarrat, Cassell 1943
London at War 1939-45 - Philip Ziegler, Sinclair Stevenson 1995
London Transport at War - Charles Graves, Almark Publishing 1974

An Unlikely Hero

As we have discovered already in previous entries to this blog, heroism and heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Just occasionally, somebody emerges that fits the image of the classic, square jawed 'Boys Own' hero but more often than not, heroes look just like ordinary people - for that is the what heroism essentially is all about - ordinary people performing extraordinary deeds.

Stanley Barlow (pictured above) was just such a man. In May 1941, he was a 35 year old newly qualified accountant who was Post Warden of Air Raid Warden's Post D2 in the Borough of St Marylebone in London. This post was located in the basement of the Royal Institute of British Architects' Building in Weymouth Street, just off Portland Place. Barlow had already demonstrated considerable moral courage, when he had taken on a Nigerian law student by the name of 'Sam' Ekpenyon at a time when the attitude of some Londoners towards black people were very different to the accepted norm of today. Sam was the son of a Nigerian chieftain whose story is one worth telling in it's own right and we shall hear more of him later.

To return to Stanley Barlow, it is fair to say that both amongst his subordinate wardens and in his working life, he was respected rather than liked and indeed, his wardens had nicknamed him 'The Fuhrer' behind his back. This would not particularly have bothered Barlow as he wanted results rather than popularity. What his wardens did not know and which possibly would have changed their attitude towards him, was that Barlow beneath his seemingly calm exterior, was a nervous wreck. He had supervised rescue work in New Cavendish Street on 'The Wednesday', April 16th 1941 and as a result of the grisly scenes he had encountered, even the banging of a shutter in the wind on an otherwise silent night had sent him rushing for cover and digging his fingernails into his palms to stop him from screaming out. Today, it is clear that Barlow was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress but in 1941, people were expected to pull themselves together and get on with it, which is just what he did.

In the early evening of 10th May 1941, Barlow was on duty and was engaged in checking the members of a new shift on duty; Sam Ekpenyon was one, Winnie Dorow, a young Jewish tailoress, Annie Hill, who worked at a clothes wholesaler, Charlie Lee, a mechanic, Joan Watson, a hairdresser and full time wardens Jim Grey and Eileen Sloane, as well as many others. The differing backgrounds and occupations of the wardens was reflected right across London and indeed the whole country. It was the task of people like Stanley Barlow to mould these diverse groups of people into effective teams.

When an air raid was not in progress or an alert hadn't been sounded, the wardens had to settle down and play the waiting game. Some would play darts and others card games but there were other mundane tasks to complete as well. For Barlow on this night, it meant checking one of the local shelters where some bunks had been damaged and also to check out a report by a local woman that her Austrian maid had been sending smoke signals to the Germans!

There was also the task of performing the nightly census; this basically meant checking the neighbourhood to see who was sleeping where and to know which properties were occupied in the event of a raid and whether the Rescue Squads would be required to attend in the event of a direct hit on a building in the area. Barlow himself led by example - even on a non-raid night, he would be out on his rounds on and off until dawn, He would check and double check each street, road and mews in his area and being an accountant, he would keep notes and knew exactly who was in which building; something which would stand him in good stead later that night.

Fate would decree that this night would not be a non-raid night; at 11 p.m., the sirens sounded the alert. A big raid was building and had been tracked for some time as the bomber force built up and crossed the Channel coast. The Knickebein guidance beams were fixed on London, so there was no doubt as to where the raid was heading. There was also a full moon - the so called 'Bomber's Moon', so as the sirens wailed most Londoners stoically headed for the shelters and braced themselves for another night in which they and their city would face the worst that Hitler could throw at them.

For Stanley Barlow and his wardens, along with countless other Civil Defence workers across London, taking shelter was not an option; in fact this was where all the training paid off and where all the hours of waiting for something to happen became worthwhile. At the sound of the sirens, Barlow hurried back to Wardens Post D2 and passed two of his wardens, Charlie Lee and Winnie Dorow leaving the Bay Moulton pub in Great Portland Street; he had promised to meet them for a quick one but had forgotten all about it. As he returned to the post, he called out to them that he would make good tomorrow.

In the meantime, the night of May 10th/11th 1941 was proving to be a big raid. The trend recently had been for the raids to get heavier and less localised and tonight was no exception. This raid was affecting the whole of London, already the docks had been hit yet again and the area around the Elephant & Castle was starting to be deluged with incendiary bombs, the intensity of which had never been seen before. It was soon to reach Wardens Post D2.

It was 12.25 a.m. on the morning of May 11th and despite the rumble of bombs and anti-aircraft gunfire towards the east, St Marylebone itself was still untroubled by bombs. Barlow had sent his wardens out on another patrol and Sam Ekpenyon was performing his usual 'lucky charm' act by looking in on shelterers in his area - some of them reckoned his dark skin lucky and wouldn't settle down for sleep until he had looked in on them. Barlow himself was about to set off on his own rounds to check on the Shelter Marshalls when at 12.36 the whole Wardens Post shook as if by an earthquake. Seconds later, Warden Johnnie Noble came sprinting into the Post to impart the terrible news that Great Titchfield Street, the Bay Moulton pub and the Rest Centre next door to it had been hit. Barlow ran to the scene to find it looking like a battlefield and thought of Wardens Lee and Dorow who he had last seen leaving the pub for the Rest Centre. Barlow felt that they must have had no chance so was pleasantly surprised to find Charlie Lee at a First Aid Post receiving treatment. His pleasure was short lived as he also spotted Winnie Dorow lying still in the street, almost as if sleeping. Barlow knew better and gently placed a blanket over her.

As he walked back to Post D2, Barlow began to experience his old fears - would his nerves allow him to get through the night, or would he crack? Barlow drove himself on and soon after 1 a.m. went out on another patrol with Annie Hill, who was one of the few who knew of Barlow's fears and admired this man who fought his fear. As they left the Wardens Post and rounded the corner into Hallam Street, Barlow saw what he thought was a light shining at the top of the tower of the Central Synagogue which straddled the block between Hallam Street and Great Portland Street. Perhaps a careless individual had left a light burning - there would be hell to pay for them if this were the case but as he drew closer, he realised that the roof was on fire and that the incendiary bombs had ignited a gas pipe. Barlow knew from his meticulous notes that fourteen people would be sheltering in the basement and leaving Hill to deal with a shocked and hysterical woman that they had encountered, ran alone to the synagogue.

Across the road in Yalding House, a tenement block with a basement shelter, Sam Ekpenyon had also seen the fire in the Synagogue and sent a report back to Post D2. He had stayed put and as the shelterers felt the blast from another nearby bomb and began to bolt towards the exit, this giant of a man blocked their way and refused to let them out. His calm, assured presence did the trick and the shelterers not only stayed put but began to join in community singing led by Ekpenyon himself.

Meanwhile, Barlow reached the entrance to the synagogue basement only to find it blocked by a huge fall of rubble. Using his tin hat as a makeshift shovel, he clawed away at the rubble to eventually break through and crawl into the basement. He found the shelterers, amongst them Mr and Mrs Roth, the caretakers and began to lead them out through an alternative exit that led into Great Portland Street. He led the men out first, as they were coherent and responded to his instructions. Mrs Roth was almost paralysed with fear and he had decided to return for her and lead her out alone so as not to hold up the rest of the group. As he got the men out, he went straight back into the now blazing building, found Mrs Roth again and began to lead her out. Just as they were nearing the exit, a large part of the roof fell in on them. By this time another warden saw all this happen and felt sure that Barlow must have perished. Nonetheless, this un-named warden sprinted back to Post D2 and called for help.

Inside the synagogue, Barlow was very much alive and shortly after the warden had rushed off to report his probable demise, Barlow had in fact broken through into the street, somewhat singed but still with Mrs Roth firmly in his grasp. He found another warden, Arthur Fayers and sent the party off in Fayers' charge to another shelter for medical attention. Incredibly, Barlow himself went back into the burning building to see if anyone else remained inside. Now though, shortly after re-entering the building for the third time at 1.45 a.m., the whole of the roof fell in on him. Amazingly, he survived this too and scrambled out through a side exit further down the road. Barlow saw rescue workers milling about the entrance but it didn't occur to him that they were in fact, looking for him. Meanwhile, he noticed that 143-149 Great Portland Street, a car showroom, was also ablaze and his memory told him that there were fire watchers stationed here.

He charged down the stairs into the basement and found that the three men were in a badly shocked state and had also been cut by flying glass. To make matters worse, the cars stored here were on fire and Barlow had to lead the first two men through this deadly obstacle course to get the men safely out into the street. Once again Barlow returned inside and eventually led the third man to safety, although by this time Barlow felt a strange sensation in his ankles. It later transpired that his rubber boots had begun to melt and fused his woollen socks into a sticky mess. This party of stunned and terrified survivors were ushered to a nearby First Aid Post. Back in the street again, Barlow saw yet another building, Hallam House on fire and once again instantly knew how many people were inside. This time there were fifteen; fortunately thirteen of them had managed to escape by themselves but Barlow went inside the rubble strewn building and using his tin hat once again to scrape a way through, managed to free the remaining two survivors inside twenty minutes.

For the next two hours, Barlow organised a bucket chain of wardens and fire watchers to keep the walls of the buildings adjoining the blazing synagogue cool. His energy was amazing - this quiet man had performed extraordinary deeds; even more extraordinary considering that some of his colleagues thought that he was dead!

Back at Wardens Post D2, Eileen Sloane, who had been left in charge by Barlow, was in despair. Some four hours previously she had received a report that he was buried inside the synagogue and had heard nothing since. The next thing she was aware of was the image of Barlow, who was covered from head to foot in white dust. Sloane was one of Barlow's few close friends and their friendship had been the talk of the post. Upon seeing him, she broke down and cried.

At 5.52 a.m. on Sunday 11th May 1941, the 'All Clear' had sounded. London was a city licking it's wounds, which were grievous indeed. This raid had been the heaviest of the entire Blitz but mercifully, although Londoners were not to know this right now, it was also to prove the last as Hitler, despite the entreaties of his Luftwaffe commanders, decided to turn his attentions eastwards, towards Russia and the promise of lebensraum for the German volk. Despite this, Goering and Sperrle wanted to continue to attack London. Two thirds of the Luftwaffe was to remain in the western theatre but Hitler was having none of it. Unwittingly, and not for the first or the last time, the incompetent 'military genius' that was Adolf Hitler had done his enemies a huge favour.

If he were to have known the havoc wrought in London, he may have had second thoughts. Fourteen hospitals had been hit, fifty percent of London's telephone circuits were broken, twenty Fire and Ambulance Stations were out of action, the Port of London was down to a quarter of it's capacity, 605 water mains were broken, 71 key war production factories were knocked out, 8,000 roads were rendered impassable with rubble and every main line railway station was out of action as were all through rail routes across the capital. In addition, some 155,000 people were without water, gas or electricity on this grim Sunday morning. This was destruction on a scale that London had never seen before, or thankfully, since. The value of the damaged caused was £ 20,000,000 at 1941 values but even this staggering sum cannot cover the human cost. A series of raids on this level would have had serious repercussions indeed and Churchill ordered the emergency services to draw up plans accordingly. The general opinion was that two more raids of this intensity would leave London at a standstill.

It never happened. Apart from conquering his own demons, Stanley Barlow deservedly was awarded the George Medal for his incredible acts of bravery on this night of nights. Amongst the public, the attitudes of Londoners towards their German counterparts hardened noticeably after this raid. When the RAF began plastering German cities later in 1941 and early in 1942, the general feeling was one of wreaking revenge - a revenge which was to be terrible in it's intensity.

Today, thanks to a remarkable find of home movie footage donated to Westminster City Council's archives, we can see Stanley Barlow, Sam Ekpenyon and the other wardens of Post D2 in colour footage. Check out this link http://westendatwar.org.uk/page_id__124_path__0p27p.aspx to see this evocative footage.

Published Sources:

The City that Wouldn't Die - Richard Collier, Collins 1959
Westminster at War - William Sansom, Faber & Faber 1947

Doodlebugs, Buzz Bombs and Robots

13th June 1944: The Allies had been ashore in Normandy for six days; the invasion of Europe was under way and the Germans were being inexorably pushed back yard by yard out of the territory they had invaded some four years previously and although the Allies were not to know it at the time, the European war had less than a year to run its course.

London at this time was a city licking its wounds. The great raids of 1940/41 were now but a memory but large swathes of the capital were still in ruins and would remain in this state for many years to come – in some cases until the 1960s and 70s and although the raids of the ‘Baby Blitz’ had been nowhere near as intense, they too had rendered large areas of the city uninhabitable. So the news of the invasion had been greeted with cautious optimism by Londoners, perhaps the end was in sight and perhaps there would be no more bombs.

It was not to be; at 04:25 the Grove Road railway bridge at Bow, in London’s East End was struck by a large explosion. The bridge and the railway track were badly damaged, several houses were badly damaged and six people were killed. Moments before the explosion, eyewitnesses had heard what vaguely sounded like a crashing aircraft and had found remnants of what looked like a small aeroplane amongst the wreckage but could find no trace of a pilot. There was no pilot, for what had caused the explosion had been the first of Hitler’s Vergeltungswaffe or Vengeance Weapons. Officially known as the Fieseler Fi103, these weapons were effectively the first form of cruise missile and were launched from fixed ramp sites in the Pas de Calais area of France and had been developed by the Luftwaffe at the Peenemunde site where the second of the Vengeance Weapons, the terrifying V-2 rocket was also under development. Thanks to the bravery of agents on the ground and also the actions of the RAF’s reconnaissance pilots, the site had been bombed by the RAF and the programme set back by six months or so but the bomb that fell on Grove Road was amongst five launched that night; in fact the first one had landed in Kent shortly before the one that fell in Bow but after this first wave of attacks, nothing happened for two more days, as if these first bombs were finding the range.

The Civil Defence records for these first incidents describe them as ‘PAC’ or Pilotless Aircraft, soon afterwards the description changes to ‘FLY’ for Fly-Bomb and this is what the majority of Londoners called them – Flying Bomb, although the media soon christened them ‘Buzz Bombs’ or ‘Doodlebugs’, whilst some ruder citizens called them Farting Furies due to the distinctive rasping sound made by the pulse jet engine.

The V-1 was a sophisticated piece of engineering, which was powered by a pulse jet engine capable of giving a speed of 400 mph and was guided by a gyrocompass autopilot system and designed to ensure that the engine would cut out when it reached its target – usually London – by an odometer which was powered by a small anemometer in the nose. Londoners would soon learn to rush for cover when the engine cut out and the brief eerie silence which followed was the only chance people on the ground had to avoid death at the hands of the 850 kg Amatol warhead in the ‘Robots’, which was another popular name in the media for the new weapons.

Despite what in 1944, was the futuristic nature of the V-1, they could be defended against. The capital’s anti-aircraft guns were quickly redeployed from the parks and open spaces in and around London to the south coast of England and the Thames Estuary, so as to intercept them as they crossed the coast. The new proximity shells and the radar guidance of the guns were extremely effective in bringing down the robots – on average, one shell in every hundred fired brought down a buzz bomb. The defences were arranged in layers; for any V-1s that evaded the guns, the next layer was the balloon barrage, which had also been moved from London. These large balloons were tethered with thick steel cables which could tear the wings from a low flying aircraft but in the case of the V-1s were largely ineffective; the leading edges of the wings of the doodlebugs had been fitted with cable cutters and fewer than three hundred were thought to have been brought down this way. The next line of defence was the aircraft of RAF Fighter Command. The later marks of Spitfire, the new Hawker Tempest and the even newer Gloster Meteor jet fighters were more than capable of keeping up with the V-1s, although it took considerable nerve to fly behind a flying bomb with a near one tonne warhead and then to pump cannon shells into it for the resulting explosion could quite easily take the attacker with it as well. Some pilots preferred to fly alongside the V-1 and disrupt the air flow beneath the wings by placing the wing of the fighter beneath the wing of the robot without touching it, thus throwing the gyro stabilizer into confusion and causing the weapon to pancake into the ground. This manoeuvre also required considerable skill and courage but the ‘anti-diver’ patrols, combined with the anti-aircraft guns and balloons, as well as the false information about the fall of the missiles fed to Germany by double agents, most notably Juan Pujol, aka Garbo, all managed to ensure that about 7,500 of the almost 10,000 launched at London never reached their target.

Despite all these counter measure, bombs still got through and the worst incident was to occur on the first weekend of the attacks. It was Sunday June 18th and the regular service in the Guards Chapel in Birdcage Walk was under way and at 11:20 Colonel Edward Hay was reading the lesson at the lectern when at that instant, the chapel was obliterated in a massive explosion. A V-1 had struck with a direct hit and Hay, along with 121 others was killed instantly. The Guards Chapel was in ruins; in places the rubble was ten feet thick and it took two days to dig out all of the victims; 141 others were seriously injured but miraculously, the Bishop of Maidstone who had been conducting the service was totally unhurt. The portico of the ruined chapel which had sheltered the bishop and which was the only part of the building to survive, forms part of today’s rebuilt Guards Chapel which contains a Book of Remembrance for those lost in the disaster. Another shocking incident in Central London came a few days later on the 30th June, when Adastral House, home of the Air Ministry in the Aldwych suffered a V-1 strike; 48 people were killed, mainly office workers and the photograph of the immediate aftermath, shown above, shows an ominous mushroom cloud rising above Fleet Street as Londoners hurry about their business.

Incident after incident followed with depressing regularity and it became imperative for the invading armies in France to overrun the Pas de Calais in order to bring the attacks to an end. By the end of September 1944, this had been achieved and the last of the regular V-1 attacks was over. Over 6,000 civilians had been killed in London alone with a further 17,000 injured. Although the fixed launch sites had been overrun, V-1s were still launched from converted Heinkel 111 bombers, mainly at Antwerp, which was hit by a further 2,448 missiles between October 1944 and March 1945. The V-1s had finished with London but worse, much worse was to come in the form of the V-2 rockets, the first of which was to fall in Chiswick on 8th September 1944.

Although these rockets were to fall on England until late March 1945, the final enemy activity of the Second World War on British soil occurred from an air launched V-1, which fell harmlessly in open countryside in Datchworth, Hertfordshire on 29th March 1945, barely six weeks before the end of the war in Europe.

Published Sources:

The Doodlebugs - Norman Longmate, Hutchinson 1981
War Diaries 1939-45 Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke - ed Alex Danchev & Daniel Todman, Wiedenfeld & Nicolson 2001
Westminster in War - William Sansom, Faber & Faber 1957

For God & Country

This week we have a guest blogger in the shape of Dave O’Malley from Vintage Wings of Canada, which is an aviation museum and charitable organisation based at Gatineau Ottawa Airport, Quebec dedicated to the preservation, restoration and maintenance of classic aircraft from the early history of powered flight. Dave also produces an excellent blog called 'Vintage News' at www.vintagewings.ca and when in Canada, a visit to this wonderful museum is a must.

No one has ever accused me of being a religious man. Not in the last four decades anyway. Perhaps it was all those years as an altar boy trudging to church through ice pellets and snow squalls at 5 a.m. during a black-as-night Canadian winter morning, my heavy boots squeaking on the hard snow. Perhaps it was the hundreds of masses I served in an overheated church where I knelt, rang hand bells, yawned and teetered on the edge of sleep while Monsignor Costello droned on in Latin for the benefit of one lonely lady and the Organ Master.

On two occasions in those days, I was stopped in the frozen, black, suburban void of Elmvale Acres two hours before sun-up by the single cherry-red light of a prowling police cruiser. What, in God's name, I was asked, was a freckle faced 12-year old kid in duffel coat, ear muffs and Second World War flight boots doing in a world that belonged to sidewalk sanders, milkmen and officers of the law?

One day about 40 years ago, much to the silent displeasure of my father, I stopped going to church alltogether, and I have never entered a church since that day with the intention of praying or finding solace and contemplation. I have never since that day felt a spirit dwelling in any church that I have visited for weddings or funerals. Perhaps there was a spirit, but I have not been able to feel it.

That all changed last fall when visiting London on Vintage Wings of Canada business. One of the places I was hoping to visit on my down time was a small (by Westminster standards) church buried deep in one of the most historic sectors of London. The Church of St Clement Danes first came to my attention while watching a video on the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. During that documentary, the Flight was honoured with their unit crest being carved in slate and embedded in the floor of this unique and beautiful church. I had never before heard of this practice, this place of worship, this glorious tradition. I made it an imperative to visit while in London.

The site of St. Clement Danes on the Strand has been a place of worship for more than 1,200 years and the church structure that stands on it now has been here for 330 years. The main structure was designed by none other than Christopher Wren, the best known and highest acclaimed architect in British history. After the Great London Fire of 1666, Wren was tasked with the rebuilding no less than 51 razed churches in the City of London alone. One was St. Clement Danes, while one was his the crowning masterpiece of his life's work - St. Paul's Cathedral. Having a university degree in architecture, I was doubly excited to behold one of his buildings for the first time.

While a religious edifice of some kind has endured here since 600 years before Columbus discovered the New World, in all that time none of the buildings found here were ever draped in the glory, honour, sadness and history now found contained within its present four walls. But to get to that glory, first St. Clement Danes had to face its own trial by Satan's fire and a scourging by the whips of blasted metal from the angels of darkness.

On the night of the 10th of May, 1941 and into the morning of the 11th, the St. Clement Danes on the Strand was ravaged by direct hits from incendiary bombs and viciously lashed by huge chunks of shrapnel from near misses of high explosive aerial bombs. Satan's dark angels in the form of Hitler's Heinkels dropped load after load on central London in what was to be for all intents and purposes the last night of the Blitz.

On this night, which was to be the last major attack on London, the Luftwaffe amassed 550 bombers. When the sun came up on the 11th of May, St. Clement Danes was a smoking shell and many other important buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged including The Houses of Parliament, the British Museum and St. James Palace. The death toll that night was 1,364 Londoners killed and 1,616 seriously injured. After the "All Clear", the steady and determined British set to work to clear the rubble, bury their dead and get back to the business of defeating the Evil Empire.

After the war, the ruin that was Wren's beautiful and elegant work was left until its future could be secured. Because the church was burned but still standing as a result of the German attacks, it came to symbolize, along with the pilots of the Battle of Britain, the strength of the British resolve in the face of dire circumstance. And because it was damaged as the result of a to-the-death aerial war that was eventually won by the Royal Air Force, the church was handed over to them in 1953. Following an appeal for funding that secured £ 250,000 and reached around the world to the airmen and air forces of the Commonwealth, the church was restored to its original Christopher Wren beauty.

In 1958, St. Clement Danes was consecrated as the Central Church of the Royal Air Force and opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Today the church stands as a living and growing spiritual tribute to the sacrifices of the airmen of the Commonwealth during the Second World War and to the continuing sacrifices of the RAF to this very day.

Every inch of the walls, floor and ceiling is a memorial of some kind to airmen. Above the balcony hang a number of stood down unit colour standards. Below each lower window is a glass case above which stands an eagle and in which sits a book of remembrance - one airman to a page. The 8th and 9th US Air Forces stationed in the United Kingdom during the war years are included with a shrine. The whole ground floor is a sweeping plain of white stone patterned by a seeming endless galaxy of 1,000 insets of Welsh slate in the shape of RAF unit badges. A special stone and brass mosaic at the entrance has the crest of the RAF surrounded by eight crests of the Commonwealth air forces (some of which no longer exist), while another in the left aisle has the Polish eagle surrounded by the armorial symbols of the sixteen Polish squadrons of the RAF during the Second World War.

Gift tributes found throughout the church include: the altar from the Netherlands, the lectern from the Royal Australian Air Force, a chair from Douglas Bader to the memory of his first wife - Thelma who died in 1971, a chair honouring surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe and The Guinea Pig Club, and a processional cross from the Air Training Corps. The organ on the balcony at the rear was a gift from the US Air Force. The basement crypt has been made into a quiet and secluded chapel, with an altar from the Netherlands Air Force, a baptismal font from the Norwegians, and a candelabrum from the Belgian Air Force

The carillon bells were hung in 1957 with a big bass bell nick-named “Boom” in commemoration of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Trenchard, GCB OM GCVO DSO who organised the RAF from its inception. “Boom” Trenchard had just died the year before the bells were hung.

I suppose that part of my problem with the spirituality of churches stems from inside myself. If unable to open a door inwards I could hardly expect to access whatever lay behind the doors of these buildings. There was of course this one very powerful exception. Walking down the Strand from Trafalgar, the knowledge of where I was and of what happened there 70 years ago was like a crowbar to the jamb of that inner door. The closer I got to the church, the more that door was forced open and as I walked through the doors of St. Clement Danes, some huge wind of release threw that heavy gate solidly back. This church was clearly different and so was my openness.

Somewhat soiled and grey on the outside and pockmarked by shrapnel, the interior is a sunlit sanctuary that begs for silence, encourages contemplation and awards the visitor with spiritual warmth. There is a spirit of triumph and yet there is a lesson on human failure here too - how they blend so well is a mystery. Gold leaf, carvings, military colours, holy names and an ocean of squadron crests speak to glory, history and accomplishment, while the totality of the sacrifice of airmen and women during the wars of the 20th century hangs like smoke in the air. The place is a strange mixture of uplifting, soaring euphoria and heavy, crushing sadness. These equal and opposite emotional effects serve to keep the visitor solidly and powerfully centred within the walls and vaulted ceilings of St. Clement Danes

When we left the sanctuary and silence of that beautiful church, we came out to a sunny day and a bustling, lively city. London is a proud and in my opinion, a very happy city. She has endured much over the centuries, and suffered most during Second World War. But she is as alive today as she has ever been, thanks in part to the Royal Air Force. It is fitting then that a church so wounded in the conflagration would rise from the ashes of one of London's worst, yet defining, moments and become the vessel into which much of the sadness was poured. I have seen and heard how people who suffer great personal loss need closure - a part of that lost person, a memorial, a place to grieve, to come to terms with the reality of the loss so that life may resume and the sun can shine. St Clement Danes represents closure for a city, a nation, a commonwealth and its alliances and for those who visit an individual. The rebirth of St. Clement Danes represents a moment of spectacular creativity by the Royal Air Force, one for which I offer thanks from Vintage Wings of Canada.

I'm not going back to church on a regular basis anytime soon to be perfectly honest, but I thank the RAF of all people, for a glimpse at what faith must be like. Me... I will put my faith in the strength of our heroes, armed forces, first responders, hard workers, volunteers, givers, team players and history makers - so many of whom hold faith in a God I have yet to find.

As a footnote to Dave's excellent and thought provoking article, perhaps we should mention the Reverend William Pennington-Beckford, who was appointed as Rector of the church in 1910. It is fair to say that Beckford loved this church and amongst his many duties, he oversaw the annual ceremony of the presentation of oranges and lemons to local schoolchildren, for St Clement Danes is the 'Oranges and Lemons' church of the famous nursery rhyme. In the photograph below, he can be seen in the centre background watching the ceremony.

On the night of 10th/11th May 1941, Beckford, by now an elderly man but still the rector of St Clement Danes, stood watching in tears as his beloved church was bombed and burnt to the ground. Within a month, he was dead; some said he died from a broken heart.

"Oranges and Lemons" say the Bells of St Clement's
"You owe me five farthings" say the Bells of St Martin's
"When will you pay me?" say the Bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow rich" say the Bells of Shoreditch
"When will that be?" say the Bells of Stepney
"I do not know" say the Great Bells of Bow
"Here comes a candle to light you to Bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head
Chip chop chip chop - the Last Man's Dead."

Escape to Victory (2)

Lancastria sinking in St Nazaire Harbour (IWM image)

In our previous blog article, we began to examine the evacuations of the British Expeditionary Force and perhaps more belatedly, their French allies from the French Channel ports. Because of the sheer magnitude and the huge number of troops returned to these shores, the main evacuation at Dunkirk, known at the time as Operation Dynamo, has rightly secured it's place in British history as one of the turning points of the war, which enabled the British to secure the nucleus of it's Army, around which a new and much larger force would be formed and which would return to France as part of the great army of liberation some four years later.

Operation Dynamo was completed on June 4th, when the final French elements were brought across to Dover. However, approximately 20,000 British soldiers remained in the Abbeville-Rouen-Le Havre triangle, facing the Germans across the River Somme. This included the bulk of the 51st Highland Division, which had been undertaking a tour of duty on the Maginot Line. The Germans were advancing at such a rapid pace, there was no option but to order an evacuation from Le Havre and the operation, code named 'Cycle' was put into effect on June 9th. On this night, no British troops were evacuated but the French were able to complete their own evacuation. One of the ships involved was HMS Wellington, which today is moored on the Victoria Embankment in London as the headquarters ship and livery hall of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners. The following day - June 10th, destroyers were sent to investigate the possibility of evacuating troops from the coast between Le Havre and Dieppe but at 1530 these vessels came under fire from shore batteries, which revealed that the Germans had broken through to the coast, thus cutting off the escape route of 51st Highland Division to Le Havre.

It was therefore decided to concentrate the shipping required on the small fishing port of St Valery en Caux and began to arrive accordingly in the early hours of June 11th. Unfortunately, the bulk of the Highlanders had been delayed in their withdrawal and the only troops evacuated that night were some forty stretcher cases, some walking wounded and a handful of able bodied British and French troops. It was reported to the Royal Navy beach party that the majority of the Division would be ready for evacuation on the night of 12th June but shortly afterwards, the port came within range of German artillery and due to this, combined with patchy fog descending on the beaches, meant that the evacuation was far from smooth and many ships were hit by German artillery fire. By 0830 on the 13th, it became clear that further evacuation was impossible; the beaches were under intense fire from east and west and an hour later, the evacuation fleet was withdrawn to sea. No further troops had reached the beach and some 8,000 men of the 51st Highland Division under the command of Major General Victor Fortune surrendered. Unlike Dunkirk, this evacuation had fallen foul of the weather and the speed of the German advance. However, Operation Cycle had not been a complete failure and including the evacuations from Le Havre, some 14,500 British and 900 French troops were evacuated to Britain.

Despite these evacuations, British forces elsewhere in France were still being reinforced and a Second British Expeditionary Force was formed, under the command of General Alan Brooke, himself only recently returned to Britain from Dunkirk. This force was designed to show solidarity with Britain's French allies but as Brooke himself reported to Churchill, it was impossible to make a corpse have feelings and it was quickly concluded following a three way telephone conversation between the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir John Dill, Brooke and Churchill, that Franch collapse was imminent and that all remaining British personnel should be withdrawn as soon as possible.

Therefore on June 15th, preparations were made for the evacuation of some 140,000 troops from Cherbourg, Granville, St Malo, Brest, St Nazaire, Nantes and La Pallice. Unlike at Dunkirk, it was possible on this occasion to salvage a certain amount of equipment in the shape of equipment, stores and vehicles. The operation started on the same day with the withdrawal of British troops from Nantes and continued over the coming days at the ports mentioned above. It was whilst British personnel were being evacuated from St Nazaire a couple of days later that disaster struck.

By 2200 on June 16th, some 17,000 men had already safely embarked in four large liners, the Georgic, Duchess of York and the Polish Batory and Sobieski. These vessels were immediately replaced in the port by the Orient Line's Oronsay and the Cunarder Lancastria. Troops were being ferried out by French tugs, smaller British merchant ships and the destroyers HMS Havelock and Beagle. The Lancastria was not one of the glamorous Cunarders like the Queen Mary but was one of the workhorses of the fleet, having been built in 1922 for use on the North Atlantic run and also for Mediterranean cruises, which suited her rather plodding 17 knots rather well.

The Lancastria was at anchor and had been loaded with British soldiers, airmen and civilian evacuees since early in the morning but because of the sheer numbers of people being loaded on board, the crew's discipline had lapsed somewhat in as far as the exact numbers boarding were not being recorded in the latter stages of the embarkation. Some witnesses recalled hearing the Chief Officer Harry Grattidge reporting to the Master, Capt Rudolph Sharp that over 6,700 passengers were on board, which combined with the ship's crew of 330 would have put the total number on board at around the 7,000 mark. However, with the lack of an accurate count, the number of passengers on board could possibly have been much higher - indeed many people were witnessed boarding without anyone to count them on board the vessel and as a result, some sources stated that as many as 11,000 people were on board, although there would have to have been a major discrepancy in the counting process for this latter figure to be correct.

At around 1200, the first air raid of the day started but the Lancastria had almost completed loading by this time. Despite repeated advice from the Senior Naval Officer, Captain Barry Stevens, in HMS Havelock to get underway, Captain Sharp was reluctant to sail without an escort, preferring to wait for the Oronsay to complete loading and to sail as an escorted convoy in case of U-Boat attack. The Oronsay was hit and damaged during this raid at 1350 but despite this warning, Captain Sharp still refused to sail or even to weigh anchor and manoeuvre slowly thus making a more difficult target for the bombers.

A second raid started at 1545 and Lancastria (pictured above in her death throes) was soon struck by four bombs which ripped through the ship's side and caused her to sink inside 30 minutes. Many of those lost were trapped in horrendous conditions inside the vessel's holds, whilst many others perished in the oil polluted waters, either choked by the oil itself or strafed by attacking aircraft. Over 2,400 oil soaked survivors were picked up by other vessels in the port, but because of the uncertainty as to exactly how many were aboard in the first place, the precise death toll is unknown. The number of known fatalities was put at 1,738 but assuming there were 7,000 on board and given the known number of survivors picked up, the death toll could possibly have been as high as 4,600. Whatever the exact figure, this remains the worst disaster in British maritime history but one which is strangely overlooked. Perhaps this was because the tragedy occurred relatively early in the war and was soon to be overtaken by many other tragic events over the next five years. Captain Sharp himself survived this incident, only to perish when a subsequent command, the Laconia was torpedoed in the Atlantic in 1942, with major loss of life and not without more than a tinge of tragedy.

In spite of this disaster, Operation Aerial, as this part of the evacuation had been codenamed, saw the return of a further 139,812 British troops as well as 46,515 Allied servicemen, which as well the French included 24,000 Poles and nearly 5,000 Czechs. These forces would face four long years before returning to France but in the meantime, the French airfields which had fallen into German hands would soon bring the British people into the range of the Luftwaffe.

Published Sources:

BEF Ships before, at and after Dunkirk - John de S Winser, World Ship Society 1999
Dunkirk, Fight to the Last Man - Hugh Sebag Montefiore, Viking 2006
Epitaph for Forgotten Thousands - Nicholas Monsarrat, Daily Telegraph 1970