The title of this little series is a nod to David Walker's Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850-1939. As the title suggests, Walker argues that Australia's relationship with Asia in the decades before and after Federation was largely characterised by fear about immigration, imports and invasion. Peter Stanley, in Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia, 1942, fleshes out the last of these fears through a discussion of novels and books from the 1930s which discussed the prospect of war with Japan (or at least an unnamed or Ruritanian Asian enemy). For example, in Erle Cox's Fool's Harvest (1938/1939), Australia is attacked and invaded by 'Cambasia' in September 1939, beginning with a massive air raid on Sydney which causes 200,000 civilian casualties. Britain is unable to help, as it has been attacked by Germany, Italy and France; a British fleet at Singapore is sunk. The Australian armed forces are ill-equipped to defend the nation, and after a month Cambasia is victorious at the last battle of the war, at Seymour in central Victoria. A resistance movement is eventually suppressed after increasingly brutal reprisals. The south-eastern part of Australia eventually regains a limited independence in 1966, but the majority of the population still labours under the Cambasian yoke.

But I've also been reading Augustine Meaher's The Australian Road to Singapore: The Myth of British Betrayal. Meaher argues that Australians were not in fact particularly concerned about Japan in the 1930s. The few attempts at warning the public and the elites were confused and ineffectual; the armed forces were too busy fighting with each other to seriously think about fighting Japan. Even the start of the Sino-Japanese war and events like the Nanking Massacre didn't seem to cause any great alarm. And it must be said that Walker's account of the 1930s doesn't do much to contradict this. He focuses on the increasing interest of Australian elites in closer ties with Asia and the Pacific, rather than the fears which had preoccupied earlier generations. At the risk of caricature, Meaher's thesis is that Australians weren't too worried about the Japanese threat; and Stanley's is that they were too worried.

Meaher is convincing on his core argument: that Britain never promised it would be able to defend Australia under all circumstances and that Australia misunderstood the consequent need to invest in its own defences. But I do wonder if he is too quick to dismiss those efforts which were made to warn Australians of the Japanese threat, though. For example, I don't think he discusses the famous refusal of dock workers in 1938 to load iron onto ships bound for Japan, explicitly for the reason that it might come back in the form of bombs. This idea must have come from somewhere. He argues persuasively that the press and the ruling elites were ill-equipped to provide cogent analyses of Australia's strategic situation; the few attempts which were made were usually simplistic where they weren't plain silly. The depth of debate about strategic affairs does seem very poor when compared with Britain.

Still, that doesn't mean such debate as existed was without effect. Stanley describes Fool's Harvest as 'hugely popular' and notes that it was first serialised in the Melbourne Argus, one of the nation's leading newspapers. It also seems to be a good example of a novelist popularising the ideas of more serious thinkers, as Thomas Blamey advised Cox on the military side of things. Blamey had been Monash's chief of staff in France during the last war and at this time was in charge of recruitment for the Citizen Military Force (i.e. the Militia) and a regular commentator for the ABC on military and foreign affairs. The same sort of nexus between next-war novelists, military intellectuals and the press could be found in Britain, though by this time such blatant le Queux-like propagandising was no longer common. It looks to me like there was at least a nascent next-war literature by the late 1930s.

On the other hand, I put that that question mark in the title of these posts before I read Meaher's book. That's because I was concerned that I was projecting forwards my (not particularly deep) knowledge of the fear of Japan in the first decades after Federation, and backwards my (also not particularly deep) knowledge of the fear of Japanese invasion in 1942, as exemplified by the wonderful piece of scaremongering at the start of this post. But it's also because it didn't look like the mystery aeroplane sightings I'm looking at here can simply be put down to fear of Japan. I'll tackle that in a final post in this series.

A common complaint about this blog is that it doesn't feature nearly enough pictures of airships. So here's one, a 27-metre long non-rigid which belonged to Henry Spencer, scion of a remarkably airminded family (sixteen aeronauts across four generations). Indeed, he built it with his brothers. The photograph was taken on 16 February 1909 and apparently shows the first ever powered flight from Hendon aerodrome, though neither Spencer nor his airship are mentioned in David Oliver's Hendon Aerodrome: A History (Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing, 1994).

But much more interesting than the airship itself, it must be said, is what it was used for. The clue is the slogan emblazoned on the side of the envelope: 'VOTES FOR WOMEN'. Spencer had hired his airship out as a propaganda platform to Muriel Matters, an Australian-born suffragette who was very active in the Women's Freedom League (a non-violent breakaway from the better-known WPSU). Matters had won some publicity the previous year by chaining herself to the grille of the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons. Her airship flight was also designed to make Parliament take notice of the suffragist cause: the new session was opening that very day and it was her intention to fly over Westminster and drop Votes For Women leaflets on it. In the end Spencer and Matters didn't make it there, having been blown off course into a tree in Coulsden, well to the south. Three decades later, Matters herself gave a wonderful account of her flight to the BBC, which can be heard online here. (Ignore the photo there, which is of the Army airship Baby.)

The photograph above is from a scrapbook belonging to an American women's suffrage organisation, so the message did travel quite some distance, albeit to a receptive audience; I couldn't find any mention of Matters' flight in a quick search of the British press. It took nearly a decade for the WFL's demand to be partially fulfilled. And it's nice to see that the part Matters played in using airpower for progressive causes is still remembered in her native South Australia.

Without even waiting for a response to Eden's warning, on Thursday RAF aircraft bombed three Vichy aerodromes in Syria, as The Times reports (4). According to RAF HQ, Middle East Command:

At Palmyra three Ju90s, two other German aircraft, and one Cr42 were machine-gunned. At least three of these aircraft were severely damaged and one other was burnt out.

General Dentz, the French High Commissioner in Syria, protested these raids, saying that they had killed a French officer. He further claimed that the German aircraft were there due to 'forced landings' and that his officials, 'according to the terms of the Armistice, procured their most rapid departure'. The diplomatic correspondent to The Times comments that Syria 'must now be counted an important arena of war'.

So far the Germans appear to have sent few aeroplanes across Syria to Iraq. They are exploring the road in a manner which seems almost tentative; but it would be unwise to expect them to draw back.

The reason is Iraq's oil, which Germany needs not so much for petrol as for lubrication, especially for the Luftwaffe. The quality of lubricating oil produced by its own plants is 'good but by no means perfect', and while the Soviets are willing to supply Germany's needs, they 'are hard bargainers, and they insist upon prompt German deliveries in return'.

Possession of Iraq would greatly lessen the German anxieties over supplies. Out of the total Iraqi production of 4,300,000 tons of oil a year (to quote the 1938 statistics), about 3,000,000 tons have been of the heavy type from which lubricating oil is derived.

The Turkish government is reportedly worried by the prospect of German encirclement (Manchester Guardian, 7). This is mainly because of the German involvement in Syria and Iraq, but also because of a reported buildup of the Luftwaffe in Greece 'with a view to attacking in Crete, Cyprus, and in the Middle East, and possibly to support a renewed push in Libya' (where British forces have just recaptured the frontier village of Sollum).

It is supposed that German assurances to Turkey will hold good until Germany has completed the encirclement of Turkey by getting a footing in Syria and Iraq, or, alternatively, until Germany has attempted such an encirclement and failed.

A bob each way, then. The German army is also massing on the 'Moldavian frontier', which 'points to the imminence of German-Russian negotiations'.

The question is whether Hitler will demand only economic concessions or demand Soviet military co-operation in the Middle East in return for a promise to recognise the Persian Gulf as a Soviet sphere of influence.

Turning to the home front now, 'air raids on Britain during Thursday night were on a comparatively light scale' (4). The official Air Ministry/Ministry of Home Security communiqué states that

Bombs were dropped at several scattered points, mostly in coastal districts. Some damage was done at one or two places on the coast and at one point there was a small number of casualties.

Last night, 'A west Midlands town was one of the targets for the enemy bombers', according to The Times (4). During daylight hours, German fighters ineffectually attempted to attack RAF aerodromes, and also strafed civilians:

Six Messerschmitt 109s attacked a south-east coast town from 400ft. last evening. Many people caught in the streets had remarkable escapes as bullets spattered everywhere. One man was hit by splinters of a cannon shell and taken to hospital.

The Home Security Minister, Herbert Morrison, gave a speech on the BBC last night on winning the 'battle of the flames'. In the Guardian's paraphrase (4),

Having been cushioned for hundreds of years from the worst shocks of war the British people were not always quick enough to recognise imminent danger. They found it difficult to give up their ordinary ways. The house-holder who wanted to stop in his own street, the business man or the worker who wanted to argue about rights and wrongs while the bombs fell -- well, the time come when we must get beyond all that.

"At this moment," he said, "there is no room for private selfishness, no room for sectionalism of any kind. This is total war. We need the whole population to wage it -- 40,000,000 fire-fighters."

Private selfishness? There is evidence both for and against this in today's Guardian (8). Last night the list of awards for gallantry in civil defence work was announced. For example Post Warden Robert Leslie Platten and Warden Thomas Edgar Davis, both from Croydon, receive the George Medal for saving thirty people trapped in an air raid shelter. After they got them out,

Davis found a baby buried under wreckage. He placed himself in such a position that no more would fall on the child while Platten and the child's father worked to release it.

At the other extreme is Edward Jonas Osman, 47, of 'no settled address' (but who was arrested in Salford), who was convicted of passing rumours about the war 'likely to cause alarm and despondency'. On the night of 9 May he engaged in conversation with three young women in a supper bar.

He told them that London was "finished" because it had been "laid flat by air raids," and added, "I have just come from Liverpool. The people of Liverpool have let us down. They have surrendered, and have started parading the streets carrying banners. They have also put white sheets on all the buildings [...] Liverpool is under martial law. No one is allowed near the place."

Overhearing this, a soldier went outside and notified police, who arrested him. Osman admitted that 'I know it is wrong, but I wanted to look big. I only repeated what other people told me'.

Men born between 1 January and 31 December 1902 inclusive must register at their local Ministry of Labour and National Service office today, unless they are seamen in which case they should register at a mercantile marine office. They may express a preference for service with 'the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, the Police War Reserve, and the Auxiliary Fire Service' (7).

There have been alarming developments in the Near East, reports the Manchester Guardian today (5). Syria, a Vichy French possession, is being used as a staging post for German aeroplanes on their way to Iraq, where an anti-British coup recently took place.

About thirty have already crossed Syria, it is authoritatively stated in Cairo. Their markings are believed to be French. It is understood that the 'planes are not troops-carriers but are transporting technicians.

According to the Associated Press most of the 'planes landing in Syria are understood to be bombers.

The paper's diplomatic correspondent says that

Germany is preparing to dominate Syria with a view to using it as a base for operations intended in the first instance to help Rashid Ali and the usurpers in Iraq who have made war on this country. At the same time Iran is being pressed to allow Germans to infiltrate there.

What isn't mentioned here, but is clear from an accompanying map, is that Iraq and Iran have oil, which would be of great value to Germany, if it can eject Britain from the area. It does seem to be trying; although 'The latest German "blitz" [into Egypt] seems to have gone off at half-cock' (8), thanks to the RAF, reports in Istanbul (also under German pressure) suggest 'the imminence of an attack on a big scale against Crete with combined operations by the Luftwaffe, Italian Navy, and land forces' (5). Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, has effectively given Vichy an 'eleventh hour warning' to 'stop the Germans, but it is running out'. It seems unlikely that it will be effective. In what The Times describes as a 'surrender by Pétain' (4), Vichy has

decided definitively on political agreement with Hitler, and henceforth the whole French political, economic, financial, and colonial policy will conform with that of the Axis. This includes the placing of the French African Empire at the disposal of the Axis for common development.

Hitler has apparently already demanded 'as of right the abandonment by the French of the Cameroons, the occupation of which by the Germans would involve an open march across Morocco'.

The Hess affair is still attracting comment, again much of it of a contradictory nature. A leader in the Guardian says 'its military significance is small' (4):

It does not weaken German military power; it will not cause any slackening of German arms; if anything, it will only increase Nazi fanaticism.

By contrast, The Times's military correspondent is of the opinion that (4):

To have at our disposal in the midst of war not simply a man who knows a great deal but actually a man who knows everything about the enemy's policy, plans, weaknesses, hopes, and fears is a unique experience [...] It is the wildest dream of the intelligence services come true.

Berlin, of course, wants to downplay any such notion. The Guardian reports that German 'officials' yesterday claimed that 'Military and diplomatic action of such magnitude can be expected in the near future that Hess will be completely eclipsed' (8).

Readers of The Times don't seem too impressed by Hess's defection, or whatever it is (Churchill still hasn't made his expected statement on the matter, although he did answer some questions in the House of Commons yesterday). Beatrice Brownrigg writes in to say (5):

From the tone of smug complacency in which the announcer of the B.B.C. gave out the news this morning, he must have thought it would bring infinite satisfaction to the suffering victims of the bloody savagery of the enemy, of which Rudolf Hess is one of the most guilty, to know that Rudolf Hess is "very comfortable." Shall we next have our day made sweeter by being assured that, in spite of the treachery of his friend, Hitler has passed a good night!

Not there is much 'bloody savagery' to report in the way of air raids: 'little damage and no casualties' were reported yesterday (4). However some censorship restrictions on discussing previous air raid damage to London have been lifted. The Guardian's London correspondent (4):

the destruction by German raiders of more precious churches and Queen's Hall -- now indeed a ruined choir -- and damage to St. James's Palace and Lambeth Palace and the Old Bailey and Shaftesbury Theatre. St. Clement Danes, whose bells had rung out Oranges and Lemons ever since Covent Garden Market existed near by, was a Wren church with a Gibbs tower and one of the two island churches that formed the chief beauty of the Strand. Johnson worshipped there and his statue still stands with its back to its blackened apse. The Old Bailey has a huge rent in its façade and its library lies beneath tons of wreckage. Thousands of pounds' worth of instruments belonging to the London Philharmonic Orchestra were destroyed at Queen's Hall. At Lambeth Palace, too, many valuable books were destroyed and the Chapel roof was burned out.

The Times belatedly welcomes the centralisation of Britain's fire-fighting services, which its leading article reports 'has given wide satisfaction' (5). But it wants more. It endorses an article by 'a special correspondent' which calls for more thoroughgoing centralisation of civil defences . The time has come, the correspondent writes, 'for radical change':

Air attack has come to stay. For months, years perhaps, we have to face the prospect for our cities of ordeal by fire and high explosive. The present writer has seen at close quarters the consequences of bombing in many of our large towns. The tragedy follows much the same lines whatever the locality: destruction of public buildings and commercial houses by fire and high explosive; shattering of private homes, temporary breakdown of communication by road, rail, telegraph, telephone; cutting off of gas, water, electricity. It is a pattern common to all.

Thus it is urgent 'that the defensive machinery should be made at once more simple, flexible, and authoritative. The tangle of competing local bodies and their officials must be cut away and power concentrated on one responsible unit', namely the Regional Commissioners who are to have great powers in the event of invasion. 'But invasion tarries [...] the situation in a bombed area brooks of no delay if human suffering is to be mitigated'.

Saturday night's heavy air raid on London damaged some of its greatest buildings. Parliament were hit hard: the House of Commons is 'wrecked', in the words of the Manchester Guardian today; Westminster Abbey is 'open to the sky' (5), though its structure is still intact. Other historic buildings were hit too. From The Times (4):

What some consider the most magnificent roof in the world -- that of Westminster Hall, with its soaring arches and sweeping beams of oak -- has been pierced by bombs, and damage has been done to the interior. The hall was started by William Rufus in 1097 [...]

Big Ben's face was blackened and scarred, but although the apparatus which broadcasts the chimes was for a time put out of action, the hands of the clock continued without interruption telling the time to Londoners.

The Deanery of Westminster, one of the best examples of medieval houses in England, has been destroyed [...]

The British Museum was set alight by a shower of incendiaries, which burnt through the roof and set fire to the back of the building [...] Fortunately most of the treasures had been removed to safety, and the damage was comparatively light.

Is it a sign of increasing indifference that the human cost of the raid is relegated to a few paragraphs at the end of the article, or is just that the destruction in the heart of London was something that could not be underplayed?

One area of London received its worst battering of the war. A street corner of shops was bombed shortly before the raiders passed signal, and rescue parties worked feverishly in daylight to reach a number of people, estimated to be about eight, who were still beneath. A few had been released soon after the bombs fell. A policeman, mortally injured, died on admission to hospital. Not far away the ruins of a demolished block of flats entombed seven people.

There is some good news: London's air defences shot down 33 German bombers (29 by fighters, 4 by anti-aircraft guns). Such tallies are becoming reminiscent of the glory days of Fighter Command, back in September last year. Indeed, even before Saturday night's raid, Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour, said much the same thing in a speech at Leeds (Guardian, 6):

"Get that up to a couple of hundred," he told his audience of men training as engineers, "and night fighting becomes as expensive to Hitler as day fighting was a year ago. Our bombers are growing in size and in carrying capacity. Our science is developing more rapidly than his. We are proud of our people. We are on the up grade. Never mind the croakers. We are winning and we are winning every hour.

No response is recorded, however, to his later question, 'Isn't it gratifying to realise that in the daytime at least you are safe?'

Bomber Command was out the same night as London was being hit so hard The main raid was on Hamburg, 'as effective as it was fierce':

pilots of the Bomber Command report immense damage throughout the city. Under a clear sky and helped by a full moon, our aircraft went in through the barrage to drop load after heavy load of high-explosives and incendiaries. Once again the industrial quarters and the whole spread of the docks were hammered and left blazing.

The bombing was deadly accurate, too:

Industrial plant and factories, their chimneys standing up like black nine-pins against the moonlit waterway, were easy targets for our bomb-aimers. Sticks of high-explosive bombs fell across goods yards and railway tracks, and yet more fires added to the destruction in the submarine building yards.

This is a view unlikely to be backed up by the German government, which described the London raid as '"a reprisal" for recent R.A.F. raids on Germany, "in which the R.A.F. repeatedly and deliberately damaged residential quarters of Berlin and other cities' (5).

Another sceptic (although for entirely different reasons) is Major General Giffard le Q. Martel, who commands the Royal Armoured Corps. He notes that 'We live on the land and we must beat them on the land' (6).

Bombing Germany cannot subjugate the Germans entirely, however hard you bomb them. The country is so vast. Bombing alone will never win the war.

He was speaking at an exercise on Salisbury Plain, presumably the same one described today by the military correspondent to The Times (5). It simulated a landing on the south coast by, initially, three German divisions whose objective was to secure a port for the disembarkation of a Panzer division. The defences' reserves included a motorised and an armoured division. The writer was very impressed with 'the skill and the realism with which it [the exercise] was mounted. The men were keen, the tanks are 'now coming along well, but there are still certain deficiencies to be filled up'.

The hitting power of the armoured fighting vehicle was illustrated not only by what it did but also by the effect of its near presence on other troops. Mr. Menzies was right when he said it was urgently necessary to increase our strength in this arm.

Now, let us turn to a more serious matter, namely the atrocious pronunciation of announcers on the BBC. H.D., writing to the Guardian from London, is prepared to let go when it comes to 'the "Latin longs and shorts"' (4).

But there are a few fixed things that we should surely maintain, and one of them is the inviolable rule that "g" before "a," "o," and "u" is pronounced gutturally and not like "j." Yet the B.B.C. systematically and invariably pronounces "margarine" "marjarine." They might as well say "one got or one tittle." If we must be vulgar, or let us say popular, let a short statute or "Dora" regulation be passed changing the spelling to "margerine" or, going the whole hog, changing the word to "marge"!

The arrival of mass media benefited nobody more than language pedants. Discuss.

Ten aircraft failed to return from Bomber Command's operations over Germany on Thursday night. Those losses are quite small in relation to the number of British aircraft involved in the raids on Hamburg and Bremen, between three and four hundred, 'certainly the largest number ever used in one night' according to page 7 of the Manchester Guardian.

Moon and weather favoured the attack, and the submarine and shipbuilding yards of both ports were heavily damaged. Pilots' individual reports speak of areas a mass of flames, in which it was impossible to distinguish separate fires, and of great explosions caused by our most powerful bombs being dropped into the heart of the fires.

The report in The Times (4) is more vivid and evocative, which seems to have inspired even the subeditor ('cities seared by fire').

In other industrial quarters of both towns there were widespread fires as well, and many other marks of devastation. At Hamburg a whole wharf was blazing as a single stick of bombs was seen to split open a row of buildings. Here smoke was rising to 10,000ft., and in another part of the town smoke rolled in black eddies and suggested the destruction of great stores of oil.

Of course, German raids on Britain continue as well. The official report states (2) that:

The scale of the enemy attack on Thursday night was again heavy. The principal concentrations were on the Humber area and two districts in the north Midlands. In the Humber area considerable damage was done and preliminary reports indicate that casualties are likely to be heavy. In one area in the north Midlands there was substantial damage, but casualties are not expected to be very numerous.

The Humber raid was the second in successive nights. Accordingly an evacuation of schoolchildren was organised; 'the air raid welfare committee has brought the scheme of compulsory billeting into operation to deal with homeless people'. The casualties included three firemen killed by a bomb near their station, and three firewatchers killed in an air raid shelter. One side-effect of the raids is that 'Some of the many girls made workless by the destruction of shops were yesterday enlisting in the women's services'.

Are people getting fed up with the way the war is going? Judging from the (time-honoured but notoriously treacherous) evidence of a recent by-election, the answer would seem to be no. The Guardian reports (8) on the result of Thursday's poll in King's Norton (Birmingham). Previously comfortably held by a Conservative, under the wartime party truce it was contested this time by none of the other major parties. However, two independents with diametrically opposed platforms threw their hats into the ring. One was Stuart Morris, national secretary of the Peace Pledge Union; the other Dr A. W. Lumsden Smith, who 'was known as the "Bomb Berlin" candidate. He advocated reprisals for the indiscriminate Nazi raids on this country'. The result was a majority of 19,877 for Captain Peto of the Conservatives, with Lumsden Smith getting 1696 votes and Morris 1552. Both independents therefore lost their deposits. This would seem to be a good result for the government, but the Guardian makes little of it and it's not even mentioned in The Times.

A leading article in the latter attempts to draw conclusions from 'the large correspondence which continues to reach The Times about civil defence against air raids' (5). It finds that three major questions are at issue. Firstly, 'how can the outpost line -- the large number of citizens organized as watchers and fire-bomb fighters in business and residential areas -- be strengthened'? The training and equipment of these groups is left to local authorities, and is haphazard at best (for example, they aren't even issues with steel helmets). If the local authorities can't do the job properly, 'then some other authority must be created to do the work'. Secondly, 'how can the main line of defence -- the fire brigades and the A.F.S. [Auxiliary Fire Service] -- be improved'? Again, it's a matter of 'the unit of the local authority' being 'too small and too imperfectly organized' to assemble an adequate fire-fighting force when a heavy air raid takes place. This should be done on a regional basis, as 'there is abundant evidence that many local authorities have been too complacent, too unimaginative, and sometimes actually secretive about their plans'. Thirdly, and this again relates to the problem of purely local organisation, is the question of whether post-raid services (rest centres, advice bureaus, reserves of clothing) are being adequately prepared in advance, or are just being improvised on the spot.

The operations of all these bodies -- official and unofficial -- cannot be left to the chance of whether the Emergency Committee of the local authority happens to be complacent or energetic, obscurantist or forthcoming, prejudiced or imaginative. Unless all have worked out their plans in collaboration beforehand there will be many more casualties, much more damage, much slower recuperation, human and material -- in short, there will be chaos on the night and for a long time afterwards.

The Times suggests that the answer is that the government, through its regional commissioners, 'insist' that these plans are drawn up and coordinated by and between local authorities before raids, not during and after them. It might have mentioned, though it did not, an upcoming parliamentary motion for a Ministry of Civil Defence, 'charged to coordinate the activities of all local government authorities and other agencies concerned'. This was tabled by three Labour MPs, Dr Haden Guest, Ben Smith and Kenneth Lindsay (National Labour, actually), as reported on page 2.

Overseas, things seem to be relatively quiet: Italy has reported that 'Benghazi had been bombarded from the sea and the air' (Manchester Guardian, 7); after the revolt of elements of the Iraqi army, British forces have occupied parts of Basra and have cleared the plateau overlooking the RAF aerodrome at Habbaniyah; the Italian defence of Abyssinia is nearing its end.

The most intriguing news comes from the Soviet Union. After recently taking for himself the job of prime minister from Molotov, Stalin has now decided to withdraw formal recognition of the legations from Belgium, Norway and Yugoslavia; that is to say, the Soviet Union no longer recognises them as independent states and, in the words of the Manchester Guardian's diplomatic correspondent (7), 'disapproves the fight of their independent Governments to liberate their native lands from the German invaders'. This is described as 'appeasement' of Germany, perhaps in the hopes of preventing 'further German demands'. A more analytical piece by historian Sir Bernard Pares, a Russian specialist, thinks that despite all this, Russia's real interests are manifestly the same as our own' (6). He describes Russia as preparing for war with Germany:

Active defence preparations are going on all along the Russo-German frontier, and on both sides of that front increasing numbers of troops are being concentrated [...] the strongest concentration of Soviet forces is in the Ukraine, which has now for the first time been almost wholly united to Russia. Meanwhile significant preparations are being made for a German invasion of the Ukraine.

Of the recent non-aggression pact with Japan, Sir Bernard thinks it clears the way for 'the long-awaited Japanese drive to the southern seas'; for the Soviet Union, it serves to 'immobilise any threat in the East in order to concentrate her attention westward'. Given the presence of German divisions in Finland, the German thrust into the Balkans, and its current destabilisation of Iraq, 'it is high time for her to do so'.

Mr. Reginald Foort, the organist, was given five minutes of the B.B.C.'s broadcasting time last night to deny that he was a Fifth Columnist. He began his "special message," as the announcer called it, by referring to rumours that he was in prison or locked up in the Tower of London or in an internment camp. As an answer to these rumours he pointed out that since the first months of the war he has been giving daily performances on his organ at theatres and halls.

He suggested two possible reasons: one that is having 'a double "o" in your name makes in a bit foreign'; alternatively it might have something to do with 'the destruction of the B.B.C. theatre organ'.

The title of this post is something which Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris did not say. There are an uncountable infinity of things Harris didn't say, but this particular one is of interest because during the Second World War it was widely believed that he did say it, and was taken to represent his aims and the aims of Bomber Command. It's part of a propaganda broadcast made to the German people in Harris's name, telling them what Bomber Command had in store for them if they did not overthrow their Nazi leaders:

Soon we shall be coming every night and every day, rain, blow, or snow -- we and the Americans [...] We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end if you make it necessary for us to do so. You cannot stop it, and you know it.

You have no chance.

The broadcast was picked up in Britain too, translated and printed in the daily press. In his memoirs, Harris says that he never said any of it, or even approved it; he had agreed that his name could be used on leaflets to be dropped into Germany, but this had somehow mutated into a radio broadcast. As Harris pointed out, he couldn't even speak German. Having said that, he nowhere disavows the substance of the speech, only that it understated the 'pains and dire penalties' which were 'actually meted out' to the German people by Bomber Command. Nor was he able to disavow authorship during the war. So this speech, though false, was more or less accurate and accepted as such. As I'm always looking out for ways to explore attitudes towards strategic bombing, the episode of the speech not made by Harris seems worth looking at.

The speech itself is too long to quote in full here, but can be found online in Flight, 6 August 1942, 145. Here's not-Harris answering his own question about why Britain was 'bombing Germany heavily':

Why are we doing so? It is not revenge, though we do not forget Warsaw, Belgrade, Rotterdam, London, Plymouth and Coventry. We are bombing Germany, city by city, and ever more terribly, in order to make it impossible for you to go on with the war. That is our object. We shall pursue it remorselessly. City by city: Lübeck, Rostock, Cologne, Emden, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Duisburg, Hamburg -- and the list will grow longer and longer. Let the Nazis drag you down to disaster with them if you will. That is for you to decide.

In fine weather we bomb you by night. Already 1,000 bombers go to one town, like Cologne, and destroy a third of it in an hour's bombing. We know; we have the photographs. In cloudy weather we bomb your factories and shipyards by day. We have done that as far away as Danzig. We are coming by day and by night. No part of the Reich is safe.

Here, not-Harris addresses the question of area bombing and of the killing of civilians, including women and children:

I will speak frankly to you about whether we bomb single military targets or whole cities. Obviously we prefer to hit factories, shipyards, and railways. It damages Hitler's war machine most. But those people who work in these plants live close to them. Therefore, we hit your houses and you. We regret the necessity for this. The workers of the Humboldt-Deutz, the diesel-engine plant in Cologne, for instance -- some of whom were killed on the night of May 30 last -- must inevitably take the risk of war. Just as our merchant seamen who man ships which the U-boats (equipped with Humboldt-Deutz engines) would have tried to torpedo. Were not the aircraft workers, their wives and children, at Coventry just as much 'civilians' as the aircraft workers at Rostock and their families? But Hitler wanted it that way.

And here's not-Harris telling the German people how they can save themselves:

One final thing: It is up to you to end the war and the bombing. You can overthrow the Nazis and make peace. It is not true that we plan a peace of revenge. That is a German propaganda lie. But we shall certainly make it impossible for any German Government to start a total war again. And is not that as necessary in your own interests as in ours?

So, what were the reactions, if any, to not-Harris's speech? The Manchester Guardian, thinking back to the Blitz, doubted its efficacy as propaganda (30 July 1942, 4):

The effect of such an utterance on us would have been to make us all summon the Government and the workers to still fiercer efforts in order to repel (and afterwards repay) the threatened blows.

It also thought it unwise to predict attacks which might be thwarted by bad weather, which would 'enliven the enemy and disappoint our friends'. A letter to the editor of the Guardian by Carey Lord (31 July 1942, 4) made similar criticisms, asking 'Would it not be better to get on with the job and threaten less?' Lord claimed that he had heard 'not a few exasperated queries' from people reading not-Harris's speech, asking 'when on earth we are going to begin [heavy bombing], especially with the situation in Russia becoming more and more critical'.

The Observer (then very conservative politically), by contrast, welcomed the not-Harris speech, but more for its effects on the British people than the German. In fact, its leader claimed that it was 'welcomed by the British as a message to themselves', without, however, actually offering any evidence for this (2 August 1942, 4):

what he said was keenly studied by the British people, not because they take a sadistic glee in the prospect of an enemy nation being scourged by fire, but because they feel a passionate need for some knowledge of our own strategy and policy. If the Prime Minister had nothing to say to our own Parliament, here, perhaps, was alternative guidance, the guidance for which we wait.

The Observer clearly had an agenda here; it was evidently unhappy at the lack of explanations from Churchill and other politicians as to what Britain was doing and what it was planning to do. So it seized upon not-Harris as some indication of what the bigger picture was:

As for strategy it was clear from this that the "big bombing" is not the alternative to a Second Front, but its prelude and confirmation. As for policy, it was abundantly made plain that the scourge is devised to whip a devilish creed out of existence and not as the root-and-branch destroyer of a race.

The Observer offered no criticisms of the speech, but did wonder if the 'big bombing' could be undertaken 'without prejudice to other and possibly more important preparations?' There's the hint here of a discussion about whether Bomber Command was a wise use of limited resources, but no more than that.

There was in fact a brief debate about not-Harris's speech in Parliament. Lord Addison, the leader of the Labour party in the House of Lords, proposed a motion on 4 August criticising the broadcast. His main objection was to 'the practice of having individual officers of the different Services broadcasting statements on war aims and strategic policy', as they are not ministers. Addison also added some other criticisms for good measure: like the Guardian, he argued that bad weather had already prevented bombing on some nights, so it was foolish to boast that Germany would be bombed 'rain, blow, or snow'. That led to another criticism, of the boastful nature of the broadcast:

If you read some of the statement it seems much more like Mussolini than an Englishman. It is not a British habit to brag in advance of all you are going to do.

Before Lord Selborne answered for the government (and Addison withdrew his motion, knowing as he would have all along that it would not succeed), the Marquess of Crewe, Lord Ailwyn and the Earl of Mansfield all spoke more or less in the same vein as Addison. Crewe's response was the most interesting to me. He noted that German propaganda was using the not-Harris speech as proof that 'it is proposed to mercilessly bomb the civilian population of Germany'.

Of course that is completely untrue. What Sir Arthur Harris did say -- and it cannot be contradicted -- was that in making attacks on purely military objectives such as dockyards or factories by bombing, it is not possible to avoid a certain loss of civilian life and destruction of the houses in which people who are not actually engaged in the Army live. That we all recognize in considering the attacks that have been made on this country. We draw a clear line of distinction between the casualties which have been inflicted on civilians in the immediate neighbourhood of military objects of attack, and the loss of life which has occurred in such places as Bath or Exeter. Undoubtedly that warning or caution was what was contained in the broadcast of Sir Arthur Harris.

This is the closest I've found in this episode to any discussion of the reprisals question which was so urgent during the Blitz, and it's a reaffirmation of the principle of selecting purely military objectives, or rather a denial that civilians were Bomber Command's target. A fair reading of not-Harris's speech, but not an accurate reading of Harris's thinking.

The postwar debate about area bombing implicitly assumes that it was not an inevitable strategy, that there were other choices, whether more moral or more wise or both. Rarely are any potential turning points identified, points when these other choices could have been made. I suspect that, in part, it's because there weren't very many, at least not as many as one might think. (Harris rightly points out that he was not the author of the area bombing policy, for example; it was in place before he assumed command of Bomber Command and the RAF's reliance on heavy bombers had been planned long before the war.) This particular point in time might have been one: Bomber Command was still relatively small and not obviously effective at scourging anything. The war had widened hugely in scope since Churchill ordered the bomber offensive back in 1940: the Soviet Union and the United States were now allies, and Japan an enemy. Resources used to make Halifaxes and Lancasters could have been diverted eastwards instead, or marshalled at home for a cross-channel invasion in 1943. But the question of ending or scaling down the bomber offensive did not seem to have arisen. Can you blame a whole nation for lack of imagination?

The Mediterranean theatre of war has seen a lot of action in recent days, as these headlines from The Times (4) show. While the Italian outpost at Bardia is besieged from land, sea and air, British armoured units are approaching Tobruk, 70 miles to the west. On Monday night, Italian warships at Taranto were bombed by the RAF: '11 bombs were seen to burst around the target' (though without such striking success as attended the Royal Navy's raid last November). The Greek army is continuing its slow and stubborn advance, though 'the present line of Italian defence shows no clear sign of cracking'.

Yesterday, Blenheims of Bomber Command made snap daylight raids on targets in Germany and the Netherlands, making direct hits on a bridge, a factory, an aerodrome and a flak ship. J. R. B., writing to the editor of the Manchester Guardian from Manchester, would presumably approve of bombing industrial targets in Germany; but would also presumably want 'homes' bombed too, due to 'the obvious demoralising effect that it must have on the workers' (8).

Has it not occurred to the advocates of "no reprisals" that it is not really a question of retaliation, but merely one of prosecution of the war? If the civilian can be so blithely informed that he is in the firing line, does it not make sense that enemy civilians should at least occupy the position that is expected of him?

The writer understands that some people sincerely 'think this form of defence wrong, but they, like the war fiends [...] can be almost equally menacing to a community. They fail to grasp the realities of the situation'. As if to prove J. R. B.'s point, The Times publishes some interesting statistics about the damage done by bombers to sleep and work irrespective of any bombs dropped (4):

London spent approximately 1,180 hours -- equal to 49 whole days -- under alerts during 1940. The sirens sounded over 400 times during the year.

Another, grimmer statistic for 1940 is that road fatalities were up 26 per cent on 1939's figures (8347 to 6628), due in large part to the blackout. The Chief Constable of Oldham can't see things improving any time soon (Manchester Guardian, 8):

With the development of intensified air attacks on this country any further modification of the lighting restrictions does not appear likely, and unless greater care is shown by all road-users there is a distinct possibility that the accident figures throughout the country are likely to show a steady and melancholy rise.

Still, modern cities have a tremendous ability to route around damage (The Times, 2):

The life of the City has adapted itself in great measure to this desolate tragedy. Instructions to staffs have been posted on office doors that open on to nothing but the charred remains of what last week were well-furnished premises. In Basinghall Street a tea shop opposite one of the side entrances to Guildhall was being used yesterday as an office from which permits had to be obtained by people wishing to visit on business buildings which were unsafe. During most of the morning and afternoon there was a long queue outside this office.

You can't stop bureaucracy.

You also can't stop British civil aviation. Despite 'Hitler's boast of having established an aerial blockade of Britain [...] civil aircraft have flown 5,000,000 miles to and from Britain, carrying nearly 30,000,000 air-mail letters alone' (Manchester Guardian, 7). Transatlantic flights even 'at the height of the invasion crisis' are credited with 'enormous propaganda value'.

I'm not sure if Dr. Joseph Needham, a Cambridge biochemist and embryologist, flew across the Atlantic during for his five-month tour of American universities; the report of the Guardian's scientific correspondent on their interview (4) doesn't say. But it does contain much interesting information about the attitude of American scientists to Nazi Germany, and in particular 'the Nazi Philosophies of Science'. Actually, they didn't know much about 'such conceptions as "Wehrwissenschaft," or the conscious direction of science to destructive purposes' at all until they attended one of Needham's lectures:

Dr. Needham found that, as in England, extremely few people had read any of the Nazi literature on science. The writings of Stark and Lenard on physics; of Spann, Klages, and Blüher on philosophy; of Marr, Jung, Haiser, and Möller-Brück on sociology; of Brohmer on biology; of Jeansch, Hommes, Krannhals, and Schulze-Sölde on racialism; of Stapel and Freyer on ethics; and the speculative mythology of Rosenberg and Krieck were virtually unknown. Hommes, for instance, writes that "the concept that twice two make four is somehow differently tinged in the minds of a German, a Frenchman, a Negro, or a Jew."

I suspect G. A. Sutherland of Victoria Park knows where Needham is coming from, even if his target is British broadcasting rather than German scholarship (8):

By its action in protecting the public from the pernicious singing of the Orpheus Choir under the direction of the pacifist Sir Hugh Roberton the B.B.C. has earned the plaudits of all prudent patriots. It therefore came as a great shock to read in the "Radio Times" that a lifelong pacifist, Sir Arthur Eddington, was actually being allowed to disseminate his insidious astronomical theories in a talk with the significant title "Other Worlds." Should not the person responsible for subjecting the nation to so grave a risk be immediately removed from office?

Well played, sir, well played.

I was going to end this section of the post-blog with yesterday's post, but who could resist a front page like this? It's so emotive and manipulative. The scene itself is tragic enough: the mass burial and funeral of 172 men, women and children killed in the blitz on Coventry last Thursday night. Another seventy will be buried today. But to that the Daily Mirror adds (1) portentous capitalisation ('the Tragedy of Coventry'); (2) a rousing declaration ('WE SHALL REMEMBER!') combined with a graphic of Coventry in flames; (3) the archaic insults ('HUNS RAID', 'the Hun's massacre'). There's more on page 7, along with photographs of the open grave, and on the back page. The Mirror is milking Coventry for all it's worth. And who knows, maybe it's worth a lot.

The Daily Express, by contrast, has a feel-good story on its front page -- that is if the increased ability to bomb Germany makes you feel good. The US Army is immediately giving up twenty-six of its coveted 'Flying Fortress' bombers to the RAF. Another twenty, now under construction, are to be delivered by 1 March 1941: a black day for German barrels.

These twenty are being equipped with the famed Sperry bombsight, said to be capable of aiming a bomb "into a barrel from 10,000."

And the Express would presumably consider this a feel-good story. In its editorial, which chiefly discusses the problem of the night bomber (again), it says (4) that part of the answer is that

Germany must be paid back in fill and overflowing measure for every bomb on this country.

Harold Jaffa of Norwich will also be glad to hear of the coming of the Fortresses. In a letter to the Express, he quotes Hilde Marchant's story describing the sentiments of the bombed in Coventry 'the morning after its Guernica bombing': '"Bomb back and bomb hard.'" He believes her account over that of a BBC correspondent who reported the following night that 'Coventry did not want reprisals':

But, of course, the people of Coventry, as well as the people of every other bombed city in this country, want the Germans to be bombed back. Not one shred more mercy, not one bomb less than they give to us.

"Coventrating" is a new phrase for the Nazi papers. Show Germans what it means before they add it to their military textbooks.

The editorial explains that 'Coventrating' is 'a word they invented from the devastation of Coventry when they boasted of the "demolition technique" of the Luftwaffe.' So which German city will be the first to be Coventrated?

British and Allied forces have been having a good week, at Italy's expense. The Italians lost Gallabat (in the Sudan), a division in the offensive against Greece and much of a convoy taking supplies to Albania. The greatest Allied success was the carrier strike against the Italian naval base at Taranto, which took place on Monday night (The Times, 4). Three battleships were severely damaged. Last night the First Lord of the Admiralty, A. V. Alexander, told the nation via the BBC (and reported here on page 2) that whereas before the attack the Italian battle fleet had a numerical superiority in the Mediterranean, it is now inferior to the Royal Navy.

For reasons best known to themselves the Italians did not seek to exploit their superiority and they had remained immobile behind the defences of their harbour. Even that, however, had failed to protect them. Within their inglorious shelter the Italian battle fleet had suffered a defeat which could only have been redeemed in the public mind had that fleet shown itself willing to accept battle at sea.

The Italian News Agency has a somewhat different view of the air raid, calling the British account 'clap-trap' and a 'shameless fraud' (3):

If there had not been an urgent necessity to inject optimism into a depressed public opinion Churchill ought to have had the elementary prudence to study the Italian official communiqué of November 12, which said that only one unit was in any way extensively damaged, and added that there were no victims. It is evident that if the massacre of ships imagined by Churchill had really taken place there would have been a number of victims, unless we suppose that on board Italian warships there are no crews.

The truth is that 'the invincible British Navy has not yet scored a single success, however modest'. Who is telling the truth?

Elsewhere in the world today, Japan is attracting a bit of attention. The Times reports on 'Japanese hopes of peace' (3), after an emissary to China returned several weeks ago and an Imperial conference considered the matter. The official reports are bland; The Times's correspondent is reduced to interpreting 'The Emperor's nod for peace' in response to a remark by US Ambassador Joseph Grew: he showed his 'approval of that peaceful sentiment by nodding emphatically': 'In Japan such incidents attract and deserve attention'. Equally vague, though more worrying, is Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov's current visit to Berlin. Press speculation in Japan suggests that it will 'strengthen the Axis' and may even develop into 'an anti-Anglo-American front'.

Coincidentally, the Manchester Guardian reports today (5) that the RAF has reinforced its forces in south-east Asia, and apparently even more importantly a new post has been created to command them: Commander-in-Chief Far East. The first appointee is Air Chief Marshal Brooke-Popham, who will have overall command of air forces in Malaya, Burma and Hong Kong. It's doubtful whether this action would mollify Labour MP Philip Noel-Baker, who pressed R. A. Butler, Under-Secretary of State for the Foreign Office, in the House of Commons yesterday over the continuing supply of oil to Japan (7). After being informed by Butler that Chinese civilian casualties in the Japanese bombing of Chongqing amounted to about 2500 dead until the end of August, Noel-Baker asked:

Is the Minister not aware that civilians were killed in tens of thousands? Is it not advisable that, whatever other companies do, British companies should not supply oil for this butchery?

According to Butler, however, the 'oil position is an international one and very complicated', so it's not as simple as that. He doesn't reply to Noel-Baker's suggestion that British oil companies sell their oil to Britain instead and 'not for the bombardment of Chungking'.

Of course, there is a lot about bombing in Europe, too. But it doesn't seem to be the focus of such concentrated attention as it was a few weeks ago. The Guardian has a couple of paragraphs on Bomber Command operations on Tuesday night, including raids on 'oil plants at Gelsenkirchen and Cologne, the inland port of Duisburg-Ruhrort, and railway centres and factories in the Ruhr and near Cologne' (8). It also notes that the RAF will be getting 'Forty of the four-engined "flying fortress" bombers' for Christmas, and possibly the older of the Americans' very secret bombsights as well.

And there's the German bombing of Britain. There are stories about the effectiveness of British defences ('Four bombers shot down. Fruitless night and day attacks', from The Times, 4). There are also ones about civilian courage under fire, like this one from the Guardian, ('London cinema bombed. Audience's coolness', 7):

Girl ushers tore up their blouses to tend wounded people in the darkness when a high-explosive bomb partially demolished a London cinema during Tuesday night's raids. Seven people were killed and rescue work was carried on to free more people whom it was feared had been trapped under the wreckage.

Ernest Barker, chairman of the Community Centres and Associations Committee of the National Council of Social Service, writes to The Times (2) to warmly commend another correspondent's account of 'Neighbour's Leagues' in Leicester. He has heard this called 'the Good Neighbour Movement' elsewhere, and thinks it 'another and a fine example of that invincible instinct for self-help and voluntary organization which is a gift of our people':

The citizens of Leicester, and other cities, are knowingly distilling out a soul of goodness from the lowering evil of air-warfare.

But there are also less wholesome stories, such the arrest of a London ARP demolition worker for looting, reported by the Guardian (7). True, in this case it was only a matter of three books. But perhaps more worrying is the revelation that London County Council has a 'chit' system for ARP workers, whereby salvage workers can take away 'items of little value' from bomb sites after getting authorisation from the 'incidents officer in charge'. H. notes that demolition work 'demands the highest discipline' (3), such as is only found in the armed forces. But the Army has its own tradition of condoned pilfering, known as 'scrounging', and so even sending soldiers in would not be a panacea. What is needed are 'very severe examples':

There is a sort of impression that things lying losely [sic] about may be picked up by anyone, as instance the case the other day of a man who was sent to prison for looting some valuable furs from a wrecked house. It is this impression which must be checked firmly if, to the very great misfortunes suffered by bombed-out victims, is not to be added that of grievous injury by their own countrymen.

A last note from the Guardian (7):

It may now be stated that in recent air raids in the Midlands the following have been bombed:--

Birmingham: Cathedral, Bristol Street Methodist Church, Corporation Street.
Coventry: Cathedral, St. Mary's Hall.

An incendiary bomb damaged the nave of Coventry Cathedral but -- fortunately -- 'prompt action by spotters and firemen confined a fire to a small area'.