by Shaun Usher
Letter No. 062
FINAL, COMPLETE AND IRREMEDIABLE DEFEAT
HUGH DOWDING TO WINSTON CHURCHILL
May 16th, 1940
On May 16th 1940, nine months into World War II and with Germany advancing through Europe, Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, leader of RAF Fighter Command, wrote one of the most important letters of the War to Winston Churchill. With their defences breached, the French were struggling under the weight of Hitler’s men; Churchill, British Prime Minister for less than a week, responded by offering yet more airborne back-up in a desperate effort to turn the tide – but these were fighters that Dowding wasn’t prepared to hand over, not if it could lead to the “final, complete, and irremediable defeat of this country”. Churchill listened: no more squadrons left for France.
Two months later, those RAF squadrons proved invaluable as they held off the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and, crucially, denied Germany command of the skies.
SECRET May 16, 1940
Sir,
I have the honour to refer to the very serious calls which have recently been made upon the Home Defence Fighter Units in an attempt to stem the German invasion on the Continent.
2. I hope and believe that our Armies may yet be victorious in France and Belgium, but we have to face the possibility that they may be defeated.
3. In this case I presume that there is no-one who will deny that England should fight on, even though the remainder of the Continent of Europe is dominated by the Germans.
4. For this purpose it is necessary to retain some minimum fighter strength in this country and I must request that the Air Council will inform me what they consider this minimum strength to be, in order that I may make my dispositions accordingly.
5. I would remind the Air Council that the last estimate which they made as to the force necessary to defend this country was 52 Squadrons, and my strength has now been reduced to the equivalent of 36 Squadrons.
6. Once a decision has been reached as to the limit on which the Air Council and the Cabinet are prepared to stake the existence of the country, it should be made clear to the Allied Commanders on the Continent that not a single aeroplane from. Fighter Command beyond the limit will be sent across the Channel, no matter how desperate the situation may become.
7. It will, of course, be remembered that the estimate of 52 Squadrons was based on the assumption that the attack would come from the eastwards except in so far as the defences might be outflanked in flight. We have now to face the possibility that attacks may come from Spain or even from the North coast of France. The result is that our line is very much extended at the same time as our resources are reduced.
8. I must point out that within the last few days the equivalent of 10 Squadrons have been sent to France, that the Hurricane Squadrons remaining in this country are seriously depleted, and that the more Squadrons which are sent to France the higher will be the wastage and the more insistent the demands for reinforcements.
9. I must therefore request that as a matter of paramount urgency the Air Ministry will consider and decide what level of strength is to be left to the Fighter Command for the defences of this country, and will assure me that when this level has been reached, not one fighter will be sent across the Channel however urgent and insistent the appeals for help may be.
10. I believe that, if an adequate fighter force is kept in this country, if the fleet remains in being, and if Home Forces are suitably organised to resist invasion, we should be able to carry on the war single handed for some time, if not indefinitely. But, if the Home Defence Force is drained away in desperate attempts to remedy the situation in France, defeat in France will involve the final, complete and irremediable defeat of this country.
I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant,
Air Chief Marshal, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief,
H.C.T. Dowding
Letter No. 063
A FORCE FOR EVIL
RICHARD HELMS TO DENNIS HELMS
June, 1945
In June of 1945, a striking letter arrived at the home of three-year-old Dennis Helms in Washington, written on a sheet of Adolf Hitler’s letterhead. It had been penned by Dennis’ father, Lt. Richard Helms, an intelligence operative with the OSS who, following Germany’s surrender the month before, had managed to acquire some of the recently-deceased Nazi leader’s stationery from the Reich Chancellery. He then wrote to his son. Richard Helms later became Director of the CIA. His letter to Dennis now resides in their museum.
OBERSALZBERG, DEN V-E day
Dear Dennis,
The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe — three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins. He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat — a boon to mankind. But thousands died that it might be so. The price for ridding society of bad is always high. Love, Daddy
Letter No. 064
YOU ARE A BEAST
MICHELANGELO DI LODOVICO BUONARROTI SIMONI TO GIOVAN SIMONE BUONARROTI SIMONI
June, 1509
Born in 1475, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, better known simply as Michelangelo, was – and still is – one of the greatest artists ever to have walked the earth thanks to the numerous masterpieces to his name; his iconic sculptures, David and Pietà, and the exquisitely painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to name but three. He was a prolific creator and worked tirelessly at what he loved, with much of his earnings going to his needy family. In 1509, one of his four brothers, Giovan Simone, mistreated their father. Michelangelo, who loved his father dearly, responded furiously by letter.
Giovan Simone,
–It is said that when one does good to a good man, he makes him become better, but that a bad man becomes worse. It is now many years that I have been endeavouring with words and deeds of kindness to bring you to live honestly and in peace with your father and the rest of us. You grow continually worse. I do not say that you are a scoundrel; but you are of such sort that you have ceased to give satisfaction to me or anybody. I could read you a long lesson on your ways of living; but they would be idle words, like all the rest that I have wasted. To cut the matter short, I will tell you as a fact beyond all question that you have nothing in the world: what you spend and your house—room, I give you, and have given you these many years, for the love of God, believing you to be my brother like the rest. Now, I am sure that you are not my brother, else you would not threaten my father. Nay, you are a beast; and as a beast I mean to treat you. Know that he who sees his father threatened or roughly handled is bound to risk his own life in this cause. Let that suffice. I repeat that you have nothing in the world; and if I hear the least thing about your ways of going on, I will come to Florence by the post, and show you how far wrong you are, and teach you to waste your substance, and set fire to houses and farms you have not earned. Indeed you are not where you think yourself to be. If I come, I will open your eyes to what will make you weep hot tears, and recognise on what false grounds you base your arrogance.
I have something else to say to you, which I have said before. If you will endeavour to live rightly, and to honour and revere your father, I am willing to help you like the rest, and will put it shortly within your power to open a good shop. If you act otherwise, I shall come and settle your affairs in such a way that you will recognise what you are better than you ever did, and will know what you have to call your own, and will have it shown to you in every place where you may go. No more. What I lack in words I will supply with deeds.
Michelangelo in Rome.
I cannot refrain from adding a couple of lines. It is as follows. I have gone these twelve years past drudging about through Italy, borne every shame, suffered every hardship, worn my body out in every toil, put my life to a thousand hazards, and all with the sole purpose of helping the fortunes of my family. Now t
hat I have begun to raise it up a little, you only, you alone, choose to destroy and bring to ruin in one hour what it has cost me so many years and such labour to build up. By Christ’s body this shall not be; for I am the man to put to the rout ten thousand of your sort, whenever it be needed. Be wise in time, then, and do not try the patience of one who has other things to vex him.
Letter No. 065
IT’S BURNING HELL WITHOUT YOU
DYLAN THOMAS TO CAITLIN THOMAS
May 7th, 1953
In 1936, in a pub in the heart of London, 22-year-old dancer Caitlin MacNamara met Dylan Thomas, a Welsh poet who, even at the tender age of 23, was already winning plaudits from the most discerning of critics thanks to poems such as “And death shall have no dominion” and “Light breaks where no sun shines”. They married the next year, and so began a tempestuous relationship that was fuelled by, and almost destroyed by, excesses of all kinds. In 1950, Dylan Thomas left his wife and three children at the family home and headed for the US for the first of four supposedly lucrative but ultimately booze-ridden reading tours; it was on his final trip, late 1953, that Thomas died from pneumonia.
Six months before he passed away, holed up in a New York hotel room, he wrote one of his last letters to Caitlin.
Welsh poet Dylan Thomas walking with his wife Caitlin, 1946
Hotel Chelsea New York
May 7th 1953
O Caitlin Caitlin Caitlin my love my love, where are you & where am I and why haven’t you written and I love you every second of every hour of every day & night. I love you, Caitlin. In all the hotel bedrooms I’ve been in in this two weeks, I’ve waited for you all the time. She can’t be long now, I say to my damp miserable self, any minute now she’ll be coming into the room: the most beautiful woman on the earth, and she is mine, & I am hers, until the end of the earth and long long after. Caitlin, I love you. Have you forgotten me? Do you hate me? Why don’t you write? Two weeks may seem a small time but to me it’s old as the hills & deep as my worship of you. Two weeks here, in this hot hell and I know nothing except that I’m waiting for you and that you never come. And in two weeks I’ve travelled all over the stinking place, even into the deep South: in 14 days I’ve given 14 readings, & am spending as little as possible so that I can bring some money home and so that we can go into the sun.
I’m coming back, by plane, on the 26th of May, & will tell you later just when the plane arrives. Will you meet me in London? Did you get my letter from the horrible ship? And the little letter with the 100 dollar Oscar cheque? I don’t know what’s happening, because you don’t write. I love you, I want you, it’s burning hell without you. I don’t want to see anybody or talk to anybody, I’m lost without you. I love your body & your soul & your eyes & your hair & your voice & the way you walk & talk. And that’s all I can see now: you moving, in a light. I love you, Caitlin. I’ve been to foul Washington; I’ve been to Virginia & North Carolina and Pennsylvania & Syracuse & Bennington & Williamstown & Charlottesville; and now I’m back in New York, for two days, in the same room we had. That was the last love & terror, because I know you are coming into this room, & I hide my heaps of candies, & I wait for you – like waiting for the light. Then I suddenly know you are not here, you are in Laugharne, with lonely Colm; & then the light goes out & I have to see you in the dark. I love you. Please, if you love me, write to me. Tell me, dear dear Cat. There is nothing to tell you other than that you know: I am profoundly in love with you, the only profundity I know. Every day’s dull torture, & every night burning for you. Please please write. I’m enduring this awfulness with you behind my eyes. You tell me how awful it is, & I can see. You think I don’t understand grief & loneliness; I do, I understand yours & mine when we are not together. We shall be together. And, if you it, we shall never be not together again. I said I worshipped you. I do; but I want you too. God, the nights are long & lonely.
I LOVE YOU. Oh, sweet Cat.
Dylan
Letter No. 066
I DRANK TOO MUCH WINE LAST NIGHT
JANE AUSTEN TO CASSANDRA AUSTEN
November 20th, 1800
Since her death in 1817, Jane Austen’s anonymously penned novels – Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma, to name but three – have become required reading in many circles and are now held aloft as classics without reservation. She was also a prolific and observant writer of frank letters that rarely failed to entertain; however, sadly, the majority of the thousands she sent were destroyed by her sister and closest friend, Cassandra, shortly before she died, and less than 200 are still with us. This surviving example, sent to Cassandra in November of 1800, was written mid-hangover by 24-year-old Jane and concerns a ball she attended and was keen to describe.
Steventon: Thursday, November 20, 1800.
My Dear Cassandra,
Your letter took me quite by surprise this morning; you are very welcome, however, and I am very much obliged to you. I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to-day. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error.
Your desiring to hear from me on Sunday will, perhaps, bring you a more particular account of the ball than you may care for, because one is prone to think much more of such things the morning after they happen, than when time has entirely driven them out of one’s recollection.
It was a pleasant evening; Charles found it remarkably so, but I cannot tell why, unless the absence of Miss Terry, towards whom his conscience reproaches him with being now perfectly indifferent, was a relief to him. There were only twelve dances, of which I danced nine, and was merely prevented from dancing the rest by the want of a partner. We began at ten, supped at one, and were at Deane before five. There were but fifty people in the room; very few families indeed from our side of the county, and not many more from the other. My partners were the two St. Johns, Hooper, Holder, and very prodigious Mr. Mathew, with whom I called the last, and whom I liked the best of my little stock.
There were very few beauties, and such as there were were not very handsome. Miss Iremonger did not look well, and Mrs. Blount was the only one much admired. She appeared exactly as she did in September, with the same broad face, diamond bandeau, white shoes, pink husband, and fat neck. The two Miss Coxes were there: I traced in one the remains of the vulgar, broad-featured girl who danced at Enham eight years ago; the other is refined into a nice, composed-looking girl, like Catherine Bigg. I looked at Sir Thomas Champneys and thought of poor Rosalie; I looked at his daughter, and thought her a queer animal with a white neck. Mrs. Warren, I was constrained to think, a very fine young woman, which I much regret. She has got rid of some part of her child, and danced away with great activity looking by no means very large. Her husband is ugly enough, uglier even than his cousin John; but he does not look so very old. The Miss Maitlands are both prettyish, very like Anne, with brown skins, large dark eyes, and a good deal of nose. The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, all in black, but without any stature, made their appearance, and I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me.
Mary said that I looked very well last night. I wore my aunt’s gown and handkerchief, and my hair was at least tidy, which was all my ambition. I will now have done with the ball, and I will moreover go and dress for dinner.
We had a very pleasant day on Monday at Ashe, we sat down fourteen to dinner in the study, the dining-room being not habitable from the storms having blown down its chimney. Mrs. Bramston talked a good deal of nonsense, which Mr. Bramston and Mr. Clerk seemed almost equally to enjoy. There was a whist and a casino table, and six outsiders. Rice and Lucy made love, Mat. Robinson fell asleep, James and Mrs. Augusta alternately read Dr. Finnis’ pamphlet on the cow-pox, and I bestowed my company by turns on all.
The three Digweeds all came on Tuesday, and we played a pool at commerce. James Digweed lef
t Hampshire to-day. I think he must be in love with you, from his anxiety to have you go to the Faversham balls, and likewise from his supposing that the two elms fell from their grief at your absence. Was not it a gallant idea? It never occurred to me before, but I dare say it was so.
Farewell; Charles sends you his best love and Edward his worst. If you think the distinction improper, you may take the worst yourself. He will write to you when he gets back to his ship, and in the meantime desires that you will consider me as
Your affectionate sister,
J. A.
Letter No. 067
LET US BLAZE NEW TRAILS
BILL BERNBACH TO HIS COLLEAGUES
May 15th, 1947
Bill Bernbach was one of the original Mad Men. A real-life Don Draper. One of the greats. In May of 1947, at which point he was 35 years of age and Creative Director at Grey Advertising on Fifth Avenue, he noticed a worrying development: as the agency grew in size, they were in danger of losing their creative spark – they were, he believed, falling victim to “bigness”. Fearing the worst, he wrote a warning letter to the owners of Grey that has since become famous in the industry and a reminder that often it is best to think small. Two years after writing it, with his advice largely ignored, Bernbach left Grey New York to co-found the hugely successful agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach.
In the 1950s, DDB revolutionized automotive advertising with the ‘Think Small’ campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle (pictured).
5/15/47
Dear ___________ :