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Authors: Winston S. Churchill
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eighteen miles wide by over twenty miles deep. It is therefore the unique target of the world for the use of a weapon of such proved inaccuracy. The flying bomb is a weapon literally and essentially indiscriminate in its nature, purpose, and effect. The introduction by the Germans of such a weapon obviously raises some grave questions, upon which I do not propose to trench today.
Arrangements had been made to evacuate mothers and children and to open the deep shelters which had hitherto been held in reserve, and I explained that everything in human power would be done to defeat this novel onslaught;
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but I ended on a note which seemed appropriate to the mood of the hour.
We shall not allow the battle operations in Normandy nor the attacks we are making against special targets in Germany to suffer. They come first, and we must fit our own domestic arrangements into the general scheme of war operations. There can be no question of allowing the slightest weakening of the battle in order to diminish in scale injuries which, though they may inflict grievous suffering on many people and change to some extent the normal regular life and industry of London, will never stand between the British nation and their duty in the van of a victorious and avenging world. It may be a comfort to some to feel that they are sharing in no small degree the perils of our soldiers overseas, and that the blows which fall on them diminish those which in other forms would have smitten our fighting men and their allies.
But I am sure of one thing, that London will never be conquered and will never fail, and that her renown, triumphing over every ordeal, will long shine among men.
We now know that Hitler had thought that the new weapon would be “decisive” in fashioning his own distorted version of peace. Even his military advisers, who were less obsessed than their master, hoped that London’s agony would cause some of our armies to be diverted to a disastrous landing in the Pas de Calais in an attempt to capture the launching-sites. But neither London nor the Government flinched, and I had been able to assure General Eisenhower on June 18 that we would bear the ordeal to the end, asking for no change in his strategy in France.
Triumph and Tragedy
65
Our bombing attacks on launching-sites went on for a time, but it was clear before the end of June that these were now poor targets. Bomber Command, anxious to share more effectively in relieving London, sought better ones; and they were soon found. The main storage depots for the flying bombs in France now lay in a few large natural caverns around Paris, long exploited by French mushroom-growers.
One of these caverns, at St. Leu d’Esserent, in the Oise valley, was rated by the Germans to store two thousand bombs, and it had supplied 70 per cent of all the bombs fired in June. Early in July it was utterly destroyed by Bomber Command, using some of their heaviest bombs to crush the roof in. Another, rated to hold one thousand, was smashed by American bombers. We know that at least three hundred flying bombs were irretrievably buried in this one cavern. London was spared all these, and the Germans were forced to use bombs of a type which they had previously condemned as unsatisfactory.
Our bombers did not achieve their success without loss. Of all our forces they were the earliest engaged against the flying bombs. They had attacked research centres and factories in Germany, and launching-sites and supply depots in France. By the end of the campaign nearly two thousand airmen of British and Allied bombers had died in London’s defence.
At the headquarters of the Air Defence of Great Britain much thought had been given to the roles of fighters and guns. Our dispositions had seemed sensible enough: fighters ranging out over the sea and over most of Kent and Triumph and Tragedy
66
Sussex, where the bombs were dispersed, and guns concentrated in a belt nearer London where
Arrangements had been made to evacuate mothers and children and to open the deep shelters which had hitherto been held in reserve, and I explained that everything in human power would be done to defeat this novel onslaught;
Triumph and Tragedy
64
but I ended on a note which seemed appropriate to the mood of the hour.
We shall not allow the battle operations in Normandy nor the attacks we are making against special targets in Germany to suffer. They come first, and we must fit our own domestic arrangements into the general scheme of war operations. There can be no question of allowing the slightest weakening of the battle in order to diminish in scale injuries which, though they may inflict grievous suffering on many people and change to some extent the normal regular life and industry of London, will never stand between the British nation and their duty in the van of a victorious and avenging world. It may be a comfort to some to feel that they are sharing in no small degree the perils of our soldiers overseas, and that the blows which fall on them diminish those which in other forms would have smitten our fighting men and their allies.
But I am sure of one thing, that London will never be conquered and will never fail, and that her renown, triumphing over every ordeal, will long shine among men.
We now know that Hitler had thought that the new weapon would be “decisive” in fashioning his own distorted version of peace. Even his military advisers, who were less obsessed than their master, hoped that London’s agony would cause some of our armies to be diverted to a disastrous landing in the Pas de Calais in an attempt to capture the launching-sites. But neither London nor the Government flinched, and I had been able to assure General Eisenhower on June 18 that we would bear the ordeal to the end, asking for no change in his strategy in France.
Triumph and Tragedy
65
Our bombing attacks on launching-sites went on for a time, but it was clear before the end of June that these were now poor targets. Bomber Command, anxious to share more effectively in relieving London, sought better ones; and they were soon found. The main storage depots for the flying bombs in France now lay in a few large natural caverns around Paris, long exploited by French mushroom-growers.
One of these caverns, at St. Leu d’Esserent, in the Oise valley, was rated by the Germans to store two thousand bombs, and it had supplied 70 per cent of all the bombs fired in June. Early in July it was utterly destroyed by Bomber Command, using some of their heaviest bombs to crush the roof in. Another, rated to hold one thousand, was smashed by American bombers. We know that at least three hundred flying bombs were irretrievably buried in this one cavern. London was spared all these, and the Germans were forced to use bombs of a type which they had previously condemned as unsatisfactory.
Our bombers did not achieve their success without loss. Of all our forces they were the earliest engaged against the flying bombs. They had attacked research centres and factories in Germany, and launching-sites and supply depots in France. By the end of the campaign nearly two thousand airmen of British and Allied bombers had died in London’s defence.
At the headquarters of the Air Defence of Great Britain much thought had been given to the roles of fighters and guns. Our dispositions had seemed sensible enough: fighters ranging out over the sea and over most of Kent and Triumph and Tragedy
66
Sussex, where the bombs were dispersed, and guns concentrated in a belt nearer London where
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