The King's War

by The King's War- The Friendship of George VI

  A few weeks later, on 13 October, Princess Elizabeth, then aged fourteen, had the chance to follow in her father’s footsteps by making a radio address of her own: during Children’s Hour on the BBC, she made a five-minute broadcast to ‘the children of the Empire’. She approached the task seriously, modifying the prepared text to add phrases of her own and practising breathing and timing. At the end, she invited Princess Margaret to join her in wishing their listeners good night. The next day, Logue wrote to the future queen to add his ‘sincere and humble congratulations’ to the many he expected her to receive for her performance.

  ‘I am sure your royal parents will not mind my writing you, to say how splendidly your broadcast came through today,’ he wrote:

  It is always an ordeal to do anything public for the first time, but you spoke it so efficiently and your voice was under such excellent control, that I am sure you will never be worried in the future when you have to approach the microphone, and that is a very comforting thought for in your life you will have to do it many many times.

  I am afraid I was far more nervous than you were over it, for there was not a tremor in your voice and the inflection was perfect.

  On 17 October, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting wrote back to Logue to say she appreciated his letter and had been ‘so glad to hear that you enjoyed listening-in’.

  Although Britain continued to brace itself for the expected invasion, Hitler had now given up on the idea. During a meeting on 17 September with Göring and Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, he became convinced that the operation was not viable given that the Luftwaffe had still not managed to gain control of the skies. Later that day he formally postponed Operation Sealion and ordered the dispersal of the invasion fleet that had been assembled in order to avert further damage by British air and naval attacks.

  The relentless air assault on London nevertheless continued through the autumn of 1940. The south-eastern suburbs, where the Logues lived, were not the main focus of the German attack, but they, too, suffered considerable destruction, much of it visible from the clubhouse of the Dulwich & Sydenham Golf Club, where members of Logue’s Home Guard unit continued their lookout duties.

  On Monday, 9 September, when an air raid sounded soon after eight o’clock, Dr Bousfield wrote in his log:

  Many heavy air attacks from W by N to N.E. along a line across the Thames. Heavy fires apparently beyond Blackfriars, Tower Bridge, and over docks caused at intervals and blazing till dawn. At 03.55hrs a very violent but short conflagration occurred in N.E. illuminating whole sky, suggestive of large gasworks. Batteries came into action against enemy aircraft caught in searchlights on several occasions. The shooting was very accurate.

  The following Sunday came an attack closer to home:

  21.15 hrs unexploded bombs dropped direct hit Dulwich College – 23.25hrs unexploded bomb to ½ to 1 mile away – 23.3ohrs ‘Molotov Bread Basket’ [a large bomb containing numerous incendiary bombs] W.N.W. – 23.40hrs same again S.W. far off – 23.44hrs same again S.W. by W. far off – 23.58 brilliant flashes illuminating sky behind fires N.W. lasted 3-4 minutes – 00.23hrs bomb fairly near Post.

  Hostile plane activity during night; very active AA (antiaircraft) fire. Dug-out sump had to be pumped out. Water coming in down wall near telephone.

  The same day, a Dornier was shot down over London and crashed onto Victoria Station. Two of the airmen died but one parachuted out successfully, landing in Wells Park in south-east London. First on the scene was the local butcher, William Wellbeloved, who, armed with his meat cleaver, took the German prisoner. Logue described the incident in a letter to relatives in Adelaide: ‘From our front lawn we have seen some great fights, and had the satisfaction of seeing a Spitfire shoot down a Dornier about two miles from the house,’ he wrote.107 ‘It was marvellous to hear the machine-gun fire, and then the German slowly turn and glide down head first.’

  Initially, like its counterparts across the country, Logue’s Home Guard unit struggled to get sufficient weapons. In the weeks that followed more were issued, together with bayonets, and a demonstration was given of a Browning automatic rifle. The unit’s members soon had plenty of opportunities to make use of their newly issued weaponry, as the clear moonlight nights provided perfect conditions for enemy bombers. One of their most important tasks was shooting out the flares that were dropped by the Luftwaffe to illuminate potential targets and identify barrage balloon. On one occasion a parachute mine was seen falling close to the seventh green, followed by a large explosion that damaged the clubhouse. The volunteers blamed the owners of the Grange, a house near the course, which was not properly blacked out and leaking light, and which, it was felt, must have been seen by the German bomber. Two members of the unit were dispatched, who then shot out the offending lights. There was no mention in the log of the owner of the house’s reaction.

  On 14 October, two bombs exploded within a mile to the south; soon afterwards, a Messerschmitt 109 dived low over the clubhouse. There was considerable enemy activity that night and a barrage balloon came down on the thirteenth fairway, which the Home Guard had to secure. A week or so later, another ‘Molotov Bread Basket’ exploded on the golf course, scattering some hundred incendiaries over a wide area, several of which they put out. An entry in the log, echoing Alfred, Lord Tennyson, read: ‘H. G. Welsh, with fires in front of him – fires to the right of him – and fires to the left of him, rushed forward carrying two buckets of sand, jumped a ditch and fell into a bunker straining both ankles severely. After receiving First Aid he carried on conscientiously with his turn of duty’. On the evening of 9 November, a few hours before Logue reported for his 00.30 to 02.30 shift, a plane was seen crashing, apparently in Bromley, five or so miles to the south-east. The Home Guard log reported that its three crew members had bailed out; one had been caught but two Germans were still at large. It was not recorded whether they were eventually apprehended,

  Some of the German bombs nevertheless found their mark, among them one on 25 October that hit Cobbs Department Store on Kirkdale Road, Sydenham, the most prestigious establishment of the sort in south-east London. About three-quarters of the building was destroyed by the bomb and the ensuing fire, which needed twenty-five fire crews to put it out. The area suffered an even deadlier attack on 8 December, when a parachute mine fell on Elsinore Road in Forest Hill, to the east. Often exploding as they drifted down to earth, such bombs were capable of enormous damage since the blast spread out over a wide area. This particular one killed two people and injured 144, destroyed or damaged 370 houses and put Kilmorie Road School out of commission for the rest of the war. So many incendiaries were dropped that several targets including St Giles Hospital in Camberwell were hit; at one point twelve separate fires were burning. The volunteers recorded plenty of enemy aircraft on 23 December, too, with bombs dropped on the golf course. After a pause for Christmas, heavy raids resumed on 27 December.

  In addition to his duties with the Home Guard, Logue also worked three times a week as an air raid warden. He approached the job with his characteristic humour. Digging a woman out of the ruins of a bombed-out building, he asked: ‘Was your husband with you?’*

  ‘No, he enlisted,’ the woman replied.

  ‘The bloody coward!’ Logue shot back.

  The Germans, meanwhile, had been shifting their strategy to attack industrial centres outside London, mounting a devastating raid on Coventry on the night of 14/15 November. More than 500 tons of high-explosive bombs and 30,000 incendiaries were dropped over the course of 13 hours, turning the centre of the city into a sea of flames and killing nearly 600 people. Told of the scale of the attack, the King visited the next day. He arrived to find the city’s fifteenth-century Gothic cathedral almost completely destroyed and spent hours tramping through the rubble, overwhelmed by the scale of the destruction. ‘What could I say to these poor people who had lost everything, sometimes their families, words were inadequate,’ he asked Logue a couple of weeks later when
they were going through the speech he was due to make during the State Opening of Parliament. In the weeks that followed, the Germans turned their attention to Southampton, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Portsmouth and Manchester.

  Amid the misery and destruction there were some lighter moments too. When the King arrived at the Palace from Windsor on his way to deliver the speech, he greeted Logue with a big grin. ‘Logue, I’ve got the jitters,’ he declared. ‘I woke up at 1 o’clock after dreaming I was in parliament with my mouth wide open and couldn’t say a word.’ The two men had a good laugh and went through the speech three times. Logue was pleased by the result, but it brought home to him how heavily the King’s speech impediment still weighed on him despite all the years they had spent working together.

  Because of the Blitz, parliament was meeting not in the Palace of Westminster, but in nearby Church House, which was being tried out as an alternative venue. As was the case the previous year, it was a simple ceremony: the King, in the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet, did not put on the Imperial Crown, which was carried on a purple-covered salver by a member of the House of Lords, but instead wore his service cap. In his speech, he spoke of the close and cordial relationship between Britain and the United States, saying: ‘It is good to know in these fateful times how widely shared are the ideals of ordered freedom, of justice and security.’ That afternoon at four o’clock, Hardinge called Logue to tell him the King had accomplished his task splendidly’.

  That year’s Christmas card sent by the King and Queen to those, including the Logues, privileged to be on their list showed them standing in front of a bombed-out section of Buckingham Palace. By contrast, Queen Mary chose a picture of a rustic flower garden and quaint cottage, but with the greeting: ‘There’ll always be an England.’ While the Blitz raged on, Britons were preparing to celebrate as best as they could what was the first real wartime Christmas. Carol singing was abandoned because of the blackout and the bombing, while many had to make do with ‘Empire’ beef and mutton rather than turkey or goose. For the first time, all heavy industry and many offices and stores had to work on Boxing Day. Yet theatres continued to stage pantomimes and churches put on nativity plays, while many of the big shelters where as many as a million Londoners were now forced to spend the night were decorated with Christmas trees.

  The King was preparing to make his broadcast to the Empire. Christmas Day fell on a Wednesday, and the previous Friday Logue had a call from the Palace instructing him to hold himself in readiness. It was agreed he would be there at 1.15 on the Monday. Logue arrived fifteen minutes early, and Hardinge gave him a copy of the speech. Logue ‘didn’t like it a bit’. As far as he was concerned there was nothing for the King to get his teeth into and he thought the Princess Elizabeth had ‘done the same thing so well a few weeks earlier’. The King was having lunch with Churchill and so Logue ate instead with Commander Campbell.

  ‘When I went into the King, I found him looking very fit, and we had a go at the speech,’ Logue recalled. ‘The Prime Minister had had a go at the speech as well and during lunch marked it in his own illegible writing. The King and myself had a go at translating and at last fixed it up. It took bit of altering and even when finished I still didn’t like it.’

  The next day, Christmas Eve, Logue met Wood at Broadcasting House and they drove down together to Windsor, to which the royal family had decamped for the holiday. As they passed Runnymede, Logue ‘thought of King John and all we are fighting’. They arrived and had a drink with Miéville before going up to the Long Room to wait for the Royal party.

  Logue always knew when the King and Queen were coming, as first their dogs ran into the room barking. Then in walked the royal couple, smiling.

  ‘Well, I’m hungry, let’s have lunch,’ said the King and they trooped into the dining room, with its long corridors looking over the garden and the home park. They went through the speech, but Logue still didn’t like it. The King had refused to broadcast from his dugout and so had all the recording equipment put back into the study from which the Princess Elizabeth had made her broadcast. Logue was struck by how bare the rooms looked now that most of the good furniture had been put into storage. The King was not very well as he had eaten something that disagreed with him, so they only went through the speech once. Logue then drove back to London with Wood. They ran into a terrible fog after leaving Kingston but eventually reached Wimbledon and then it was on to Herne Hill and home.

  The weather on Christmas morning was cold but cheerful. Logue did not want to chance the trains so took the Green Line Coach to Windsor instead. ‘It had been standing in the cold all night and when the door was opened, and we got in, the cold hit you,’ he wrote. ‘It was like getting into an ice house. I got colder and colder and when I reached Windsor, I fell out of the bus a frozen mass.’ The walk up to the Castle warmed him up a little; a glass of sherry with Miéville after he arrived helped further. ‘The beautiful coal fire, still further thawed me out so when the King and Queen with the Princess and Duke and Duchess of Kent came in, I was almost human,’ he wrote. At 1.10 they went upstairs in front of the lavishly decorated Christmas tree. The royal family had ‘worked wonders’ since he left the day before, he thought. They sat down to a Christmas Dinner of boar’s head and prunes, which, according to Logue, ‘looked and tasted marvellous’, adding: ‘I have rarely had such a beautifully cooked and served meal.’

  Afterwards they all pulled crackers and the King wanted to know what the message in Logue’s had said. Logue read it out loud: ‘What is a pedestrian? One of those things motorists run over.’

  The King thought for a minute before saying: ‘No, I don’t think we can interpolate it with the broadcast.’

  After the meal, they went back to the Long Room, and the Queen took an object off the tree. ‘Mr Logue, please keep this as a memento,’ she said, handing it to him. It was a gold cigarette case. ‘It was a beautiful gift, and I was overwhelmed and I am afraid I stammered out my thanks,’ Logue recalled. Then the King said ‘Come on let’s do our work’ and they went to his study and had a run-through of the broadcast, after which they moved to the Broadcasting Room. Wood joined them briefly, they synchronized their watches and he went back to his room and his equipment. The King and Logue were left alone chatting, as they waited for the three flashes of the red light to announce the start of the broadcast.

  ‘In days of peace the feast of Christmas is a time when we all gather together in our homes, young and old, to enjoy the happy festivity and good will which the Christmas message brings,’ the King began. ‘It is, above all, children’s day, and I am sure that we shall all do our best to make it a happy one for them wherever they may be.’

  Many children, he continued, were separated from their parents, either because their fathers had gone away to fight or because they had themselves been evacuated – whether to the countryside or to temporary homes in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or the United States. At the same time, in contrast to the First World War, where ‘the flower of our youth was destroyed, and the rest of the people saw but little of the battle’, the adults at home were this time ‘in the front line and the danger together, and I know that the older among us are proud that it should be so’.

  If war brings its separations, it brings new unity also, the unity which comes from common perils and common sufferings willingly shared ... Time and again during these last few months I have seen for myself the battered towns and cities of England, and I have seen the British people facing their ordeal... Out of all this suffering there is a growing harmony which we must carry forward into the days to come when we have endured to the end and ours is the victory ...

  We have surmounted a grave crisis. We do not underrate the dangers and difficulties which confront us still, but we take courage and comfort from the successes which our fighting men and their Allies have won at heavy odds by land and air and sea.

  The future will be hard, but our feet are planted on the path of victor
y, and with the help of God we shall make our way to justice and to peace.

  The text of the speech had not grown on Logue, but he was nevertheless pleased with the way in which the King delivered it. Afterwards, Wood came in to congratulate him on his performance. That evening Logue picked up Myrtle and they went down to dinner with John Gordon at his home in Croydon.

  For their part, the King and Queen set off the day after Boxing Day to Sandringham for a few days. The big house had been closed since the start of the war and surrounded by barbed wire, and they stayed instead in Appleton House. It was hoped it would be a less obvious target for German bombers, but the King and Queen were nevertheless still protected by an armoured car unit and four Bofors guns. Among the trees nearby was a reinforced concrete air raid shelter. Despite the thick snow on the ground, the King went shooting every day. Writing in his diary, he began by describing 1940 as ‘a series of disasters’ but then went on to set out the positives of the previous twelve months, from the formation of the new government under Churchill – which ‘stopped the political rot’ – to the ‘splendid’ civilian defence services and morale of the people. ‘Hitler has not had everything his own way,’ he added.108

  On New Year’s Day Lionel was pleased to receive a letter from Hugh Crichton-Miller, a leading physician and psychiatrist who had been based for some time in the same building as him in Harley Street, and was now in charge of Stanborough Hospital, Watford.

  ‘My dear Logue,’ he wrote. ‘I must send you a line to congratulate you on the success of your treatment, which was more obvious at 3.00 p.m. on Christmas Day than it had ever been before.’