Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [54]
On September 12, when the prime minister visited Dungeness and North Foreland, on the Kent coast, with the C-in-C Home Forces, Alan Brooke wrote: “His popularity is astounding, everywhere crowds rush up and cheer him wildly.” U.S. general Raymond Lee perceived an improvement of temper even among the governing class, formerly so sceptical of Britain’s prospects. He wrote in his diary on September 15: “Thank God … the defeatist opinions185 expressed after Dunkirk are now no longer prevalent.” On September 17, Churchill told the Commons that in future its sessions should not be advertised beforehand: “We ought not to flatter ourselves by imagining that we are irreplaceable,” he said, addressing his fellow MPs in masterly language which suggested that he was confiding in a band of brothers, “but at the same time it cannot be denied that two or three hundred by-elections would be a quite needless complication of our affairs at this particular juncture.”
Once more, he asserted serene confidence: “I feel as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that we shall be victorious.” He harangued Dalton, minister of economic warfare, with what that assiduous diarist described as his “usual vigorous rhetorical good sense,”186 pacing up and down his room all the while: “This is a workman’s war … The public will stand everything except optimism … The nation is finding the war not so unpleasant as it expected … The air attacks are doing much less damage than was expected before the war began … Don’t be like the knight in the story who was so slow in buckling on his armour that the tourney was over before he rode into the ring.”
The bombs that were now falling upon city streets, as well as upon aircraft factories and dockyards, at first caused some government alarm. Cheering cockneys cried “Stick it, Winnie!” and “We can take it!” as the prime minister toured blitz-stricken areas. But was this true? Tens of thousands of fugitives from cities became “trekkers,” plodding out into the countryside at dusk to escape the night raiders. There was evidence of near social breakdown in some bombed areas. Fighter Command, with its primitive air interception radar, had no effective counter to Luftwaffe assaults in darkness. Industrial production suffered severely. The destruction of homes and property, the incessant fear of bombardment, ate deep into many people’s spirits.
But as the blitz continued, the nation learned to live and work with its terrors and inconveniences. Ministers’ fears about morale subsided. Churchill rang Fighter Command one September night, to complain irritably to its duty officer: “I am on top of187 the Cabinet Office in Whitehall and can neither see nor hear a raider. Why don’t you clear London of the Red warning? We have all been down too long.” The RAF’s daily reports of losses inflicted on the enemy cheered Churchill and his people, though they were heavily exaggerated. On August 12, for instance, Churchill was told that 62 German aircraft had been shot down for 25 British. In reality, the Luftwaffe had lost only 27 planes. Likewise, two days later, Fighter Command claimed 78 for 3 British losses, whereas Göring had lost 34 for 13 RAF fighters shot down. The Duxford wing once alleged that it had destroyed 57 Luftwaffe aircraft. The real figure proved to be 8.
This chasm between claim and actuality persisted through the battle, and indeed the war. It attained a climax after the clashes of September 11, when the RAF suggested that 89 enemy aircraft had been lost for 28 of its own. In fact, 22 German planes had been shot down for 31 British. Yet the inflated figures were very serviceable