Summer 1978
I’ll always remember the third of September 1939.
It was a Sunday. Percy and I were sitting at our kitchen table, listening to the wireless and drinking tea, discussing our plans for the day. It was a warm morning, rather muggy. We thought we might find a nice shady spot in Lincoln’s Inn Fields to sit and watch the world go by. Maybe we’d take a packed lunch with us.
Then, just after eleven, the programme was interrupted for an announcement by the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.
‘Uh-oh,’ I thought.
His speech was short and solemn, and it ended with the words: ‘… this country is at war with Germany.’
We looked at each other and groaned: ‘Here we go again!’
It wasn’t unexpected, mind you.
You see, Pauly, Germany had invaded Poland two days previously. Britain and France had guaranteed Poland’s independence back in March, so now the two nations had to honour that guarantee, by declaring war on Germany.
Hitler didn’t want to fight Britain at all – or at least, not yet. In many ways, he admired the British and saw in us natural allies.
Well, we begged to disagree.
He thought we would just let him carve up Poland and share it with Stalin. The Soviet Union was Germany’s ally at that time, you know.
Why did the Nazis want Poland? Deary me, I’ll have to go back a bit to explain that.
You see, Poland-Lithuania was one of the most powerful states in Europe for hundreds of years. But at the end of the eighteenth century it collapsed and was swallowed up by Russia, Prussia and Austria.
Ever since, the ‘Polish Question’ had occupied European politics: what to do about Polish independence?
Well, the Treaty of Versailles set out to resolve that question and give the Poles their country back. The newly-created – or recreated – Polish nation needed access to the sea, for reasons of trade, so the ‘Polish Corridor’ was created, cutting off Prussia from the rest of Germany.
It was another example of how the treaty created new problems, by trying to solve old ones in clumsy ways. It gave that bully Hitler the excuse he needed to break treaties, ignore borders and dominate neighbouring countries.
Of course, the Nazis claimed they were righting a great wrong that had been done to them, and there was a grain of truth in that lie. There usually is.
So, anyway, there we were. At war again.
This time, nobody underestimated the Germans. There was the usual patriotic nonsense, of course, but no optimistic chatter that it would ‘all be over by Christmas’.
We’d seen what the modern Wehrmacht could do, in the Spanish Civil War, and the non-aggression pact between the German Reich and the Soviet Union had horrified us. Britain and France had been betrayed by the Soviets and outmanoeuvred by the Nazis.
Percy and I discussed our personal situation. It was clear that London would be a target for German bombers again. Was it safe to remain in the capital, and what were the alternatives?
In the end, it was simply too difficult to move, we decided.
Our work was in the City, and our flat, crammed with all our precious things. The thought of packing everything up was daunting.
So we decided to stay put, and sit the war out.
If only we’d known.
Now Percy’s son, George, was called up as soon as war was declared, along with all the other men between eighteen and forty-one. At that time, he was twenty-six.
They put him in the infantry: Royal Fusiliers, Second London Battalion.
That’s right. No messing around this time, waiting for volunteers. Conscription began as soon as war was declared. In fact, younger men had already been called up for basic military training, before the summer of thirty-nine.
He’d become a good friend to me, that young man. I really felt he was my stepson. He was very kind and attentive during my illness. If he had reservations about my role in his father’s life, he never showed them.
We were both very anxious for him.
At first, though, nothing much happened. Germany and Russia did exactly as they wanted with Poland, and all our politicians sent were telegrams.
For months and months, there were no battles between the Axis and those proud imperial powers, France and Great Britain. Not on land, anyway. Out in the Atlantic, the U-boats were already busy, sinking merchant ships, and the Royal Navy was busy trying to stop them.
The newspapers called it the Phoney War.
Then Hitler’s troops overran Denmark and Norway, in April 1940. The very next month, the Nazis marched into the Low Countries. Just like the Kaiser’s troops did in World War One.
This time, the Germans’ speed of advance was astonishing. It was a new kind of war – Blitzkrieg, it was called. It means ‘lightning war’, as I expect you know. The onslaught seemed unstoppable.
Britain sent the Expeditionary Force to join forces with the French, the Dutch and the Belgians. Perhaps the Maginot Line would hold, and the Germans could be bogged down in the Flanders mud. Just like last time.
It wasn’t like last time, though.
The British Army was caught by surprise, and we very nearly lost the lot.
Our troops were outnumbered, outmanoeuvred, outfought. Within weeks – days – they’d been defeated by the Germans, routed. The armies of two world empires were running for their lives before the enemy they’d trounced, ground into the dirt and humiliated just twenty years before.
It was unimaginable.
Over three hundred thousand men, British, French and other Allies, were stranded on the beach, completely exposed to the Stukas and the guns of the advancing Wehrmacht.
The news at home was lagging far behind events on the ground, of course. We received word about the defeat on the very same day we learned that George’s battalion had been sent to the Low Countries.
Neither of us was religious, but we both prayed that he was one of the soldiers cowering on the beach at Dunkirk: cold, exhausted, demoralised – but still alive.
Then the rescue effort began. It was as if Great Britain finally woke up from its comforting dream of invincibility.
It was an amazing effort. A fleet of a thousand ships and boats raced across the Channel to pick up our boys, under direct fire from the Germans.
Most of the rescuers weren’t naval vessels. No, they were paddle steamers, fishing boats, private yachts, even rowing boats, crewed by civilians. And when they’d dropped off the troops they’d rescued, they turned right round, went back and did it all again – and again.
It was a heroic effort. All the tanks and big guns and other equipment had to be left behind, but most of the men were saved.
We really felt it was a miracle.
So in the end, that terrible defeat became a huge morale boost for Great Britain. A defining moment in our nation’s history, even. Isn’t that strange?
But our George wasn’t among the soldiers arriving on the docks at Dover and Folkestone, exhausted, soaked to the skin and traumatised.
We heard that the Royal Fusiliers had been engaged in heavy fighting on the Ypres Canal, trying to hold back the German advance.
Then we got the news that we’d dreaded: George was missing in action.
Coming up:
This Friday in Tales from the Wood: The fight between Pauly and Pete looks set to take place. (Paid subscriptions.)
Next Tuesday in Lizzy May: Percy and Lizzy May endure the Blitz and contribute to the civil defence effort.
I am thinking of Pogo, "we have met the enemy and he is us," as I watch what's happening here in the states. I wonder if this is how a majority of Germans felt as they watched Hitler come to power in their country, promising to make Germany great again.