Post-blogging 1940-2

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Observer, 29 December 1940, 7

Today seems to be a slow news day, if such a thing can exist in the middle of a world war. The Observer leads today with a non-story (7). Free French radio reports that Hitler has demanded the handover to Germany of the Vichy fleet. Petain's response to this is unknown; for that matter, so is the veracity of this story. The only evidence given is that Admiral Darlan was called to Paris after three days of Cabinet talks, and the British government reportedly does not believe that a 'crisis is imminent'. Yet the question of whether Vichy France will 'collaborate with Hitler' or challenge him by 'renewing the fight for her Mediterranean and African Empire' is described as the 'issue of the moment'.
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Daily Mirror, 21 November 1940, 1

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.
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Daily Express, 20 November 1940, 1

According to the Daily Express, the 'ever-increasing power behind Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal's master-plan for crippling Hitler's war industries' is beginning to yield results (1). The giant Krupp factory (nearly always rendered as 'Krupps' in the British press) at Essen had three 'sections [...] put out of commission', which must be considered especially impressive as it is 'officially stated' that they 'has been built underground because of their importance'. A big ocean liner, SS Europa, was damaged in an air raid on the Bremen docks. Other targets attacked recently include the oil industry at Hanover ('completely destroyed') and the Fokker aircraft factory at Amsterdam.

None of this helped London and the Midlands last night, which were heavily bombed last night. According to German radio, Coventry and Birmingham were said by German radio to be the targets in the latter, though this is not yet confirmed by the government. In one of the towns,

Practically every suburb was involved. Civilian homes were the main target, and several were wrecked before the attack slackened off shortly after midnight.

Damage to industrial buildings was reported to be small.

But 'Many casualties are feared in the two towns'.
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Daily Mirror, 19 November 1940, 1

Some inconsistencies in the Daily Mirror's message today. Liverpool was bombed heavily last night in 'One of the most severe raids in the air blitz' (1):

Fire bombs damaged a boys' college and caused casualties; a secondary school was hit by an oil bomb and incendiaries; numbers of houses were destroyed; gas and water mains were fractured. There were no reports of any vital damage to industrial undertakings.

This last statement is presumably the basis for the statement that the raid had 'failed'. However, the Mirror suggests that Liverpool, along the recent lessening of attacks on London and the Coventry raid, 'is a clear indication that Goering is copying the R.A.F. and aiming blows at the production centres and military objectives of the provinces'.

Henceforth, the Germans are expected to copy our devastating raids on military objectives in Germany.

But will they be too late?

In the view of the air experts, they would have achieved considerable success if they had started at the beginning on our military objectives instead of foolishly attempting to break London's morale and win a short war.

Which is the opposite of what actually happened back in August and September, but never mind.
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Daily Mirror, 18 November 1940, 1

The Daily Mirror likes its headlines big and bold. The one above takes up two-thirds of the width of today's front page. The story is that Arthur Greenwood, Minister without Portfolio in the War Cabinet (and deputy leader of the Labour Party; interesting that he is not described as such in an ostensibly left-wing newspaper) has claimed that Germany is suffering from aerial bombardment more than Britain -- fifty times more, to be precise (though I'm not sure if that's just last week or over the whole war). Partly this is due to 'The R.A.F.'s mastery of night flying, which enables them to take off in weather which grounds the Germans'.

Mr. Greenwood, who spoke at Colchester, said the past week had been a bad one for the enemy. It had opened a new chapter in the war. "I myself have gained heart," he said. "I am satisfied of [sic] the result."

He said that serious as were the enemy attacks on such places as London, Coventry, Birmingham and Liverpool, the R.A.F. had handed out greater punishment. "I am not concerned with the killing of people in Germany," he declared. "I am concerned with killing their power to strike at us."

On that subject of killing, the death toll at Coventry has now reached 250.
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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, the brave HMS Jervis Bay and the Italian evacuation of Koritza in the face of the Greek advance are the stories which are given top billing instead.

Sunday Express, 17 November 1940, 1

The other three have chosen Coventry as their lead story. The Sunday Express has this banner headline stretching the entire width of the front page. The story, written by Geoffrey Winn, continues on the back page where the headline is explained as a conversation overheard in the Cathedral (12):

Round me there are old folk, three generations together, grandfather, daughter, son. All of them week have not only looked on the cathedral as the centre point of their city. But have entered there to pray.

AT MY SIDE I HEAR SOME ONE SAY, IN A QUIET VOICE TO A BOY IN AIR FORCE UNIFORM: "PLEASE GOD, YOU WILL AVENGE WHAT WAS DONE TO US AND OUR BEAUTIFUL CATHEDRAL ON THURSDAY NIGHT."

He nods, too moved to speak. Then another voice said to some one else near-by: "Excuse me. But please remember this is still a church."

With a murmur of apology the man at once removes his hat.

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Daily Express, 16 November 1940, 1

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 that casualties amount to about a thousand people, killed or wounded. It is clearly a great shock to the nation: the Manchester Guardian's London correspondent says that the news 'has hit Londoners, I believe, harder than any of the attacks on themselves' (6). It's the first time an urban centre outside the capital has been blitzed in this way. Those who have already experienced London's intense bombardment can imagine how much harder to cope it would have been for the much smaller city of Coventry. For the rest of us, Marchant gives a sense of the devastation:

The shopping centre of Coventry is one choking mass of ruins, fire, and people who, by some miracle, have emerged alive.

They walk through this skeleton of the city centre with faces stained black, breathing the smoke of their homes, trying to find their families and friends, not sure of the way through their own streets.

The front page features a photograph of the suddenly ruined Coventry Cathedral.
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Daily Express, 15 November 1940, 1

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 from the kilted Evzones, supported by cavalry, infantry, mountain guns, tanks and British and Greek planes.

This is the icing on yesterday's cake. The leading article on page 4 takes the Taranto raid as a turning point in the war:

FROM now on Britain must stay in top gear and go full speed ahead.

More smashing blows against Italy while she still reels from the effects of Taranto.

More bombs on German factories and fields.

And so on. The Daily Mirror takes much the same line (5):

WHAT does our success this week in the Mediterranean prove?

First, obviously, that the process of socking the Wop has begun.

Ah, that was not the bit I meant. Here it is:

But it proves more than that.

It proves that initiative, daring, the offensive spirit, brains directing risky operations can, after all, hasten the end of the war.

From different political positions (the Mirror broadly left, the Express definitely right, both populist and very popular) both papers are saying that Britain needs to take the offensive. But the Express seems a little less optimistic, saying only that this will 'bottle up the enemy's means of attacking us', not help 'hasten the end of the war' as the Mirror has it.
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The Times, 14 November 1940, 4

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?
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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 preceding week or two the press (at least the parts available to me) seems to have decided that a turning point in the air battle had been reached: that the Luftwaffe had been decisively repulsed by day and that the invasion was not coming. Also, the early shock of the bombing of London had worn off -- after three weeks or so it was clear that this was no knock-out blow -- and the problems in the shelters were starting to be resolved by a number of well-publicised measures. So late September/early October turns out to be as good a place to stop as any.
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