Exactly one year later, Britain still stood alone against Germany, but the war had moved on into an entirely different and more complex state.
By 1941, Germany was at the height of its military power. German troops occupied most of Europe and with its Vichy French ally dominated a huge area of Africa and the Middle East. Germany also controlled the Balkans, including Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and most of Greece. The first Jews in Poland had been rounded up and were being moved to ghettos in Warsaw and other large cities. Italy had joined the war on the German side. The USA was neutral, but was supplying ships, aircraft and guns to the British. The Soviet Union was in alliance with Germany. Japan, also allied to Germany, was embroiled in a war in China and Manchuria and was severely weakened by oil sanctions imposed on her by the USA.
On the night of May 10, 1941, Britain and Germany launched devastating bombing attacks against each other. The RAF raided Hamburg and Berlin, causing extensive damage to both cities, although particularly to Hamburg. At the same time, the Luftwaffe carried out the most destructive bombing attack of the war, with nearly seven hundred aircraft dropping high-explosive bombs and incendiary canisters on wide areas of London. But out of the sight of most people, hidden also from history, several small events were taking place that night. One of these events had been his own birth, in the very house in Cheshire where he was living once more.
Driven initially by curiosity, later by the sense that he had a good book in the making, Stuart Gratton set out to discover what people had been doing on that day.
5
On May 10, 1941, Pilot Officer Leonard Cheshire, DSO DFC, was on a Norwegian cargo ship, crossing the North Atlantic in convoy from Liverpool to Montreal. He was a serving pilot in RAF Bomber Command, but having reached the end of his first tour of duty he volunteered to act as an air-ferry pilot, flying lend-lease American bombers across the Atlantic to Britain. That night he was playing cards with other volunteers. Cheshire told Stuart Gratton that he remembered that after the game he went up on deck for a breath of fresh air and stood at the ship’s rail for several minutes, watching the dark shape of the ship closest to his own, sailing a parallel course a few hundred yards away. Someone was also on the deck of that ship - Cheshire saw the man light a cigarette, causing a sudden flare of light that he was convinced could have been spotted by an enemy plane or ship from a great distance. (Cheshire told Stuart Gratton that because of the armistice he stayed on in the USA until the end of that summer. He helped set up the Commonwealth Flight for the USAAF, in which demobilized RAF aircrew were encouraged to bring their combat experience to aid the USA in its pre-emptive air strikes against Japanese expansionism. Although tempted to join the USAAF himself, Cheshire instead returned to Britain to take part in Operation Maccabeus, the British sea-and air-evacuation of European Jews to Madagascar. He acted as both a pilot and administrator during the long and dangerous operation. When he returned to civilian life in 1949 he set up charitable homes for critically ill ex-servicemen and others.)
John Hitchens was a telegraph operator for the Post Office, living in the north of England. On May 10 he travelled to London by train to watch a football match. The Football Association Cup had been suspended in 1939 when war was declared. However, by 1941 a certain amount of competitive soccer was being played again. On that day the final of the Football League War Cup was being played at Wembley, between Arsenal and Preston North End. More than sixty thousand fans attended the match, which finished in a 1-1 draw. Most of the crowd came from London, but the ones who travelled down for the match were able to be on their homeward trains by the evening. Hitchens was on one of the last trains to leave Euston Station; he recalled hearing the sirens as the train pulled out. (John Hitchens worked in Eastern Europe between 1942 and 1945, helping to repair and maintain telephone networks in the wake of Operation Barbarossa. He returned to Britain in 1945 and retired from the Post Office in 1967.)
Dr Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, spent the day in his office in Berlin. He issued new penalties for illegally listening to BBC broadcasts. He received the latest shipping-loss figures, in which it was claimed the British had lost half a million tons during April. He stepped up his broadcasting effort directed at Iraq. He closed down the German radio service to South Africa. In the evening Dr Goebbels returned to his estate in Lanke. He was visited by people from the film world and they watched a recent British newsreeclass="underline" they agreed that it was ‘bad and in no way comparable with ours’. They then watched two films in colour, one German and one American. A discussion of film-making problems followed, interrupted by an air-raid warning. (Dr Goebbels remained at his position until 1943. He published the first of his Diaries in 1944, with subsequent volumes appearing at yearly intervals. He later became a noted documentary film-maker and newspaper columnist. He retired from public life in 1972.)
Flight Lieutenant Guy Gibson, DFC, was based at RAF West Mailing, in Kent. On the night in question he and his navigator, Sergeant Richard James, were flying a Bristol Beaufighter on night-fighter patrol over London. A heavy Luftwaffe raid was in progress. He and Sergeant James saw two Heinkel 111 bombers and launched an attack on them, but the Beaufighter’s cannon failed to fire. Gibson returned to base, had the weapons checked, then went back on patrol again. There were no other incidents that night. (Gibson also joined Operation Maccabeus after the end of the war, piloting more evacuation flights than any other single volunteer. He was involved in the Toulouse incident, in which the plane he was flying, carrying more than fifty German Jews to Madagascar, was one of several in a formation attacked by French warplanes operated by the National Front. He received several civilian awards for his bravery and leadership on this occasion. Gibson afterwards went into electrical engineering, entering politics with the General Election of 1951. He became Tory member for West Bedfordshire and was PPS to a Home Office minister in the R. A. Butler government. Gibson was knighted in 1968. In the early 1970s Sir Guy led the Conservative ‘No’ campaign against Britain joining the European Union. He returned to business in 1976 after he lost his parliamentary seat in the General Election.)
Pierre Charrier, a member of the Free French forces based in London, celebrated the feast of Jeanne d’Arc at Wellington Barracks, the first time the festival was commemorated outside France. The ceremonies were completed at Westminster Cathedral, where M. Charrier was still present when the first bombs of the night began to fall. He returned safely to his lodgings in Westbourne Road, although he was badly shaken by the experience. (M. Charrier went back to Paris at the end of 1941, where he became a government official involved in post-war reconstruction. He later became a European Commissioner.)
Philip Harrison, an under-secretary at the British Embassy in Chungking, was working in his office when the building was attacked by Japanese warplanes. Although Harrison was not hurt in the raid, the ambassador, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, and several members of his staff received minor cuts and bruises. The building suffered structural damage but after repairs normal work resumed soon afterwards. (Mr Harrison continued his diplomatic career until 1965, when he retired. He was British Ambassador to the USA during Adlai Stevenson’s presidency, 1957-1960. Harrison died in 1966; his daughter was interviewed by Stuart Gratton.)
Kurt Hofmann was a civilian test pilot working for the Messerschmitt company at a small airfield in eastern Germany. On May 10, 1941, under conditions of immense secrecy, Hofmann piloted the maiden flight of a revolutionary new type of aircraft. It was an experimental fighter powered by a jet turbine engine. The prototype Messerschmitt Me-163 flew at 995 kph (621 mph) before landing safely. This aircraft was widely used on the Russian Front from late in 1943 until the end of hostilities, becoming the standard ground-attack fighter-bomber. It was found to be superior not only to early marques of the Russian MiG-15 jet fighter, but also to the Lockheed Sabre that was entering service with the USAAF at the same time. (Kurt Hofmann later rejoined the Luftwaffe, where he flew Me-163s for several months. He was wounded when shot down in 1944. After the Treaty of the Urals brought an end to hostilities he returned to Germany and became technical director of the civil airline Lufthansa.)