The Splendid and the Vile

by Erik Larson

  But in America, the tilt toward isolationism was gaining momentum and intensity. On September 4, a group of Yale Law students founded the America First Committee to oppose involvement in the war. The organization grew quickly, winning the energetic support of no less a celebrity than Charles Lindbergh, a national hero ever since his 1927 flight across the Atlantic. And Willkie, urged by Republican leaders to do whatever he could to pull ahead in the presidential election, was about to change strategy and make the war—and fear—the central issue in the campaign.

  CHAPTER 41

  He Is Coming

  ON WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, HITLER stepped to the rostrum at the Berlin Sportpalast, where some years earlier he had made his first speech as chancellor of Germany. Now he prepared to speak to a huge audience of female social workers and nurses, ostensibly to honor the opening of the year’s War Winter Relief campaign—Kriegswinterhilfswerk—to raise money to provide food, heat, and clothing to impoverished Germans. He used the opportunity, however, to launch a tirade against Britain for its recent air attacks against Germany. “Mr. Churchill,” he said, “is demonstrating his new brain child, the night air raid.”

  Hitler decried such raids as being cowardly, unlike the daylight sorties conducted by the Luftwaffe. He told his audience that thus far he had tempered his reaction to the British raids, in hopes that Churchill would reconsider and halt them. “But Herr Churchill saw in this a sign of weakness,” Hitler said. “You will understand that we are now answering, night for night. And when the British air force drops two or three or four thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will in one night drop 150- 230- 300- or 400,000 kilograms.”

  At this, wrote American correspondent William Shirer, a great roar rose from the crowd and forced Hitler to pause.

  He waited for the clamor to subside, then said, “When they declare that they will increase their attacks on our cities, then we will raze their cities to the ground.” He vowed to “stop the handiwork of these air pirates, so help us God.”

  The women leapt to their feet, Shirer wrote in his diary, “and, their breasts heaving, screamed their approval.”

  Hitler continued: “The hour will come when one of us will break, and it will not be National Socialist Germany.”

  The crowd erupted in a deafening tumult, crying “NEVER! NEVER!”

  “In England, they’re filled with curiosity and keep asking: ‘Why doesn’t he come?’ ” Hitler said, infusing every gesture with irony. “Be calm. Be calm. He’s coming! He’s coming!”

  The laughter from the audience verged on the maniacal.

  Churchill offered a bloody rejoinder: That night an RAF bomb fell on Berlin’s lovely main park, the Tiergarten, killing a policeman.

  * * *

  —

  AT CARINHALL, IN THE peaceful German countryside, Hermann Göring and his Luftwaffe commanders mapped out a concise, tersely worded plan of attack for “the destruction of London.”

  The initial raid was scheduled to begin at six P.M., followed by “the main attack” at six-forty. The purpose of the first raid was to draw RAF fighters into the air, so that by the time the main wave of bombers arrived, the British defenders would be running out of fuel and ammunition.

  Three fleets of bombers, guarded by a large screen of fighters, would set out from three locations on the channel’s French coast and proceed on a straight-line course to London. The fighters would accompany the bombers all the way to the city and back. “In view of the fact that the fighters will be operating at the limit of their endurance,” the plan said, “it is essential that direct courses be flown and the attack completed in minimum time.” The plan called for maximum force, with aircraft flying at staggered altitudes. “The intention is to complete the operation in a single attack.”

  With so many aircraft in the air, it was imperative that the pilots also know how to orchestrate their return. After dropping their bombs, the formations were to turn left and return along a course different from the one they had followed to England, to avoid colliding with bombers still making their approach.

  “To achieve the necessary maximum effect it is essential that units fly as highly concentrated forces during approach, attack, and especially on return,” the plan said. “The main objective of the operation is to prove that the Luftwaffe can achieve this.”

  The date was set for September 7, 1940, a Saturday. Göring told Goebbels the war would be over in three weeks.

  * * *

  —

  AMONG THE BOMBER GROUPS assigned to take part was a special unit called KGr 100, one of three groups known as “pathfinders.” Its crews were specialized in flying along Germany’s navigational beams, taking advantage of a technology even more advanced than the Knickebein system, which was proving problematic. The genius of Knickebein was its simplicity and the fact that it used familiar technology. Every German bomber pilot knew how to use ordinary Lorenz blind-landing equipment when approaching an airfield, and every bomber had the system aboard. To use Knickebein, pilots just had to fly higher and follow the central beam for longer distances. But something seemed to have gone amiss. Pilots reported mysterious beam distortions and lost signals, and were growing distrustful of the system. A major raid against Liverpool on the night of August 29 had been severely and mysteriously disrupted, with only about 40 percent of the dispatched bombers reaching their targets. It seemed likely that British intelligence had discovered the Knickebein secret.

  Happily, another technology, this one even more advanced, remained as secret as ever, as best anyone could tell. German scientists had developed another method of beam navigation, called X-Verfahren, or “X-system,” that was much more precise but also much more complicated. It, too, relied on the transmission of Lorenz-like dash and dot signals, but instead of just one intersecting beam, it incorporated three, these much narrower, and thought to be harder for RAF listeners to detect. The first beam to cross the bomber’s course was merely a warning signal, meant to alert its wireless operator that a second, more crucial intersection was coming soon. Upon hearing that second signal, a crew member turned on a mechanism that calibrated the plane’s exact ground speed. Soon afterward the bomber crossed a third, and final, intersecting beam, at which point the crew started a timer that controlled the plane’s bomb-release mechanisms so that the plane would disgorge its bombs at exactly the moment necessary to hit the target.

  The system was effective, but because it demanded highly skilled and trained crews, the Luftwaffe formed a special bomber group, KGr 100, to use it. For the system to work, the aircraft had to fly precisely on course, at a steady speed and at the calibrated altitude, until it reached its target, leaving it vulnerable to attack. This made for some hair-raising moments, but bombers using the system flew at very high altitudes to pick up the beam, well beyond the range of searchlights and barrage balloons, and had little risk, at least at night, of being intercepted by RAF fighters. The group’s aircraft were painted matte black on every surface to make them all the more difficult to locate in darkness; this also imparted an aura of menace. Trials at a test range on a lake near Frankfurt found that crews could place bombs within a hundred yards of a target. As early as December 1939, the group had made three test flights to London with no bombs aboard.

  Over time the Luftwaffe developed a new tactic to take advantage of KGr 100’s special abilities. The group’s bombers would take the lead during raids, arriving first to mark targets by dropping a mix of incendiary and high-explosive bombs that ignited immense fires to guide the pilots following behind. The glow was visible even through clouds. The group’s zone of operations was expanded to include London.

  CHAPTER 42

  Ominous Doings

  ON FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 6, Churchill left 10 Downing for Chequers, where, after his usual nap, he had dinner with Pug Ismay and his two top generals, John Dill, chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Alan Brooke,
commander in chief of Home Forces.

  Dinner began at nine. The talk centered on the potential for invasion, and there was much to discuss. Intercepted signals and reconnaissance photos suggested that concrete preparations for an invasion had begun and were rapidly progressing. That weekend, British intelligence counted 270 barges at the Belgian port city of Ostend, where just a week earlier there had been only 18. One hundred barges arrived at Flushing (Vlissingen) on Holland’s North Sea coast. Reconnaissance aircraft spotted many more vessels converging on channel ports. Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee assessed that the coming days—in particular, September 8 through 10—would present a combination of moon and tide that would be especially conducive to an amphibious landing. On top of this came reports of increased bombing activity. That day alone, three hundred long-range bombers accompanied by four hundred fighters attacked targets in Kent and the Thames Estuary.

  The conversation became animated. “PM warmed up and was most entertaining for rest of evening,” Brooke wrote in his diary. “First of all he placed himself in the position of Hitler and attacked these isles while I defended them. He then revised the whole of the Air Raid Warning system and gave us his proposals to criticize. Finally at 1:45 A.M. we got off to bed!”

  In his diary the next day Brooke wrote, “All reports look like invasion getting nearer.” For him, as the general in charge of defending Britain from attack, the tension was great. “I do not think I can remember any time in the whole of my career when my responsibilities weighed heavier on me than they did during those days of the impending invasion,” he wrote later. The survival of Britain would rest on his preparations and his ability to direct his forces, despite what he knew to be their shortcomings in training and armament. All this, he wrote, “made the prospect of the impending conflict a burden that was almost unbearable at times.” Compounding this was the fact that he felt he could not reveal his inner concerns. Like Churchill, he understood the power and importance of outward appearance. He wrote, “There was not a soul to whom one could disclose one’s inward anxieties without risking the calamitous effects of lack of confidence, demoralization, doubts, and all those insidious workings which undermine the power of resistance.”

  On that Saturday, September 7, the question before Brooke and the chiefs of staff was whether to issue the official alert, code-named “Cromwell,” that would indicate that invasion was imminent and require Brooke to mobilize his forces.

  CHAPTER 43

  Cap Blanc-Nez

  ON SATURDAY MORNING, GÖRING AND two senior Luftwaffe officers made their way along the French coast in a motorcade consisting of three large Mercedes-Benzes led by soldiers on motorcycles. His “special train” had brought him from his temporary headquarters at The Hague to Calais, so that he could travel in comfort and examine new troves of art along the way, accompanied always by a detachment of twenty plainclothes members of Heinrich Himmler’s Sicherheitsdienst, the state security service, or SD; if he saw something he liked, he could have it packed aboard immediately. Göring exhibited an “all-embracing acquisitiveness,” according to a later report by U.S. investigators. “There were no limits to his desires as far as the Collection was concerned.” His long leather coat made him look immense; underneath, he wore his medals and his favorite white uniform.

  The cars climbed to the top of Cap Blanc-Nez, one of the highest points on the French coast and, in more peaceful times, a popular picnic ground. Here the officers set up tables and chairs and laid out a meal of sandwiches and champagne. The chairs were collapsible, and care was taken to ensure that the one given to Göring was as sturdy as possible. The officers were here to watch the start of the Luftwaffe’s attack on London, set to begin that afternoon.

  At about two o’clock continental time, Göring and the others heard the first sounds of the bombers, a low hum rising to the north and south. Officers stood on their toes to scan the horizons. Göring raised his binoculars. An officer called out and pointed down the coast. Soon the sky was filled with bombers and their fighter escorts, and high above them, barely visible, additional waves of single-engine Messerschmitt 109s, positioned to take on the British fighters that, without doubt, would rise to meet the assault. German ace Galland and his squadron were assigned to sweep the English coastline for RAF interceptors.

  So confident was Göring that the day would bring the Luftwaffe a stunning success, he announced to a group of radio reporters present on the cliff that he had taken personal command of the attack. This was the kind of moment Göring adored: the grand coup, with him the center of attention. “This moment is a historic one,” he told the correspondents. “As a result of the provocative British attacks on Berlin on recent nights, the Führer has decided to order a mighty blow to be struck in revenge against the capital of the British Empire. I personally have assumed the leadership of this attack, and today I have heard above me the roaring of the victorious German squadrons.”

  The mood on the clifftop was one of elation. Barely able to restrain his glee, Göring grasped the shoulder of an officer next to him and, beaming, shook it hard, as if acting in a film for Goebbels’s Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda.

  Part Four

  BLOOD AND DUST

  SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER

  CHAPTER 44

  On a Quiet Blue Day

  THE DAY WAS WARM AND still, the sky blue above a rising haze. Temperatures by afternoon were in the nineties, odd for London. People thronged Hyde Park and lounged on chairs set out beside the Serpentine. Shoppers jammed the stores of Oxford Street and Piccadilly. The giant barrage balloons overhead cast lumbering shadows on the streets below. After the August air raid when bombs first fell on London proper, the city had retreated back into a dream of invulnerability, punctuated now and then by false alerts whose once-terrifying novelty was muted by the failure of bombers to appear. The late-summer heat imparted an air of languid complacency. In the city’s West End, theaters hosted twenty-four productions, among them the play Rebecca, adapted for the stage by Daphne du Maurier from her novel of the same name. Alfred Hitchcock’s movie version, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, was also playing in London, as were the films The Thin Man and the long-running Gaslight.

  It was a fine day to spend in the cool green of the countryside.

  Churchill was at Chequers. Lord Beaverbrook departed for his country home, Cherkley Court, just after lunch, though he would later try to deny it. John Colville had left London the preceding Thursday, to begin a ten-day vacation at his aunt’s Yorkshire estate with his mother and brother, shooting partridges, playing tennis, and sampling bottles from his uncle’s collection of ancient port, in vintages dating to 1863. Mary Churchill was still at Breccles Hall with her friend and cousin Judy, continuing her reluctant role as country mouse and honoring their commitment to memorize one Shakespeare sonnet every day. That Saturday she chose Sonnet 116—in which love is the “ever-fixed mark”—and recited it to her diary. Then she went swimming. “It was so lovely—joie de vivre overcame vanity.”

  Throwing caution to the winds, she bathed without a cap.

  * * *

  —

  IN BERLIN THAT SATURDAY morning, Joseph Goebbels prepared his lieutenants for what would occur by day’s end. The coming destruction of London, he said, “would probably represent the greatest human catastrophe in history.” He hoped to blunt the inevitable world outcry by casting the assault as a deserved response to Britain’s bombing of German civilians, but thus far British raids over Germany, including those of the night before, had not produced the levels of death and destruction that would justify such a massive reprisal.

  He understood, however, that the Luftwaffe’s impending attack on London was necessary and would likely hasten the end of the war. That the English raids had been so puny was an unfortunate thing, but he would manage. He hoped Churchill would produce a worthy raid “as soon as possible.”

/>   Every day offered a new challenge, tempered now and then by more pleasant distractions. At one meeting that week, Goebbels heard a report from Hans Hinkel, head of the ministry’s Department for Special Cultural Tasks, who’d provided a further update on the status of Jews in Germany and Austria. “In Vienna there are 47,000 Jews left out of 180,000, two-thirds of them women and about 300 men between 20 and 35,” Hinkel reported, according to minutes of the meeting. “In spite of the war it has been possible to transport a total of 17,000 Jews to the south-east. Berlin still numbers 71,800 Jews; in future about 500 Jews are to be sent to the south-east each month.” Plans were in place, Hinkel reported, to remove 60,000 Jews from Berlin in the first four months after the end of the war, when transportation would again become available. “The remaining 12,000 will likewise have disappeared within a further four weeks.”

  This pleased Goebbels, though he recognized that Germany’s overt anti-Semitism, long evident to the world, itself posed a significant propaganda problem. As to this, he was philosophical. “Since we are being opposed and calumniated throughout the world as enemies of the Jews,” he said, “why should we derive only the disadvantages and not also the advantages, i.e. the elimination of the Jews from the theater, the cinema, public life and administration. If we are then still attacked as enemies of the Jews we shall at least be able to say with a clear conscience: It was worth it, we have benefited from it.”

  * * *

  —

  THE LUFTWAFFE CAME AT TEATIME.

  The bombers arrived in three waves, the first composed of nearly a thousand aircraft—348 bombers and 617 fighters. Eight specially equipped Heinkel bombers of the KGr 100 “pathfinder” group led the way, carrying a combination of standard high-explosive bombs, incendiary oil bombs (Flammenbomben), and bombs with time-delayed fuses meant to keep firefighting crews at bay. Despite clear weather and daylight, they used the X-system of beams to navigate. In London the first siren sounded at 4:43 P.M.