I have an embarrassment of Sunday papers now: the Observer, the Sunday Express, News of the World and The People. The last named (which has sales of more than 3 million per issue) has Coventry on the front page, but halfway down and underneath a photograph of a pig (I couldn’t say why). US-British cooperation, […]
News of Coventry’s tragedy — Hilde Marchant, writing on the front page of the Daily Express, above, says the city was ‘Guernicaed’ all Thursday night — has reached the morning press (though it was announced by the government yesterday and would have been reported on the BBC and in the evening papers). Initial reports are
It seems that Mussolini’s attempt to annex Greece may have been somewhat ill-judged. The Daily Express leads with news of a Greek counteroffensive against the Italian forces invading their country from Albania. A spokesman for the Greek government said that their ‘troops were advancing along the whole line’. The offensive opened with a savage attack
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
7 October was not the end of the Blitz or even of the Battle of Britain, but it is the end of my post-blogging of 1940, at least for now. The main reason for this is because I’m running out of primary sources, especially the Daily Mail. But as I think I’ve shown, in the
‘RAF PREPARING A GREAT NEW BOMBING OFFENSIVE’, Daily Mail, page 1: POWERFUL new R.A.F. bombers now being produced in great numbers and an amazing new long-range fighter are likely to be used, in the immediate future, for a greatly intensified bombing offensive over Germany. Hitler’s people can look forward to more than a taste of
For the third week in a row the Observer reserves its biggest headlines for a story about diplomacy rather than war — here the Hitler-Mussolini Brenner Pass meeting and subsequent threats made against Britain in the Axis press. This is deemed by the diplomatic correspondent to be a ‘bogy-war’ aimed at European neutrals, an ‘elaborate
The Daily Mail today leads with changes at the top of the RAF. The Chief of the Air Staff, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Cyril Newall, has been kicked upstairs to the Governor-Generalship of New Zealand. His replacement, Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, has come from commanding Bomber Command; and his replacement there
The Luftwaffe launched several large air raids in daylight hours yesterday. They had little success, and lost 47 aircraft. Fighter Command lost 22, but 12 of the pilots are safe (though the category ‘safe’ includes those alive but maimed, alive but burned, alive but psychologically scarred). Night attacks took place on London and the north-west
The Luftwaffe launched mass daylight raids against London and Bristol yesterday, ‘the most widespread of the war’ according to the Daily Mail (1), and with the largest losses since 15 September, too. German losses are reported to be 130 aircraft and about 300 aircrew, while the British lost 34 fighters and 19 pilots. Many people
