The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson Page A
Authors: Erik Larson
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he was convinced by his own reasonings, was so deeply and unshakably convinced.”
Discouraged but not yet vanquished, Jones returned to his office to consider his next move. He arranged a second meeting with Lindemann for the next day.
----
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A T ELEVEN O’CLOCK ON Thursday morning, Churchill again took off for France, for what would prove to be his last face-to-face meeting with French leaders. He brought Pug Ismay, Halifax, Cadogan, and Major General Edward Spears, the British liaison to the French army, and this time even Lord Beaverbrook, once again putting at risk a significant portion of Britain’s government. The airfield to which they were headed, at Tours, had been bombed just the night before. For Mary Churchill and her mother, the flight meant another day of anxiety. “I do hate it when he goes,” Mary wrote in her diary. “We all have a ghastly premonition that the French are going to give in. O God! France can’t do it! She must go on—she must go on.”
The field was deserted and desolate, cratered from the night’s raid. French fliers lazed among the hangars, showing little interest in the new arrivals. Churchill walked up to a group of airmen and introduced himself, in awful French, as Britain’s prime minister. They gave him a small touring car—hard for Churchill to fit into, let alone Halifax, who was six feet five inches tall. Thus crammed into the car, like characters in a slapstick movie, they set off for the local préfecture, which housed local representatives of the national government. Here they found just two officials, French prime minister Reynaud and his undersecretary for foreign affairs, Paul Baudouin. Reynaud sat behind a desk; Churchill chose a deep armchair and nearly disappeared from view.
Unlike at the previous meeting in Briare, Churchill made no effort to appear affable. He looked “extremely stern and concentrated,” wrote General Spears. Pug Ismay, no longer the lovable human canine, also wore a severe expression. Beaverbrook jingled coins in his pocket, “as if feeling for a coin with which to tip someone,” Spears observed. His face was flushed, his hair—what little he had—wild. “His round head looked like a cannon-ball that might be projected at any moment at Reynaud by the powerful spring his small, tense body provided.”
The French were clearly bent on surrender and seemed impatient to get the meeting over with. At this point, Reynaud said, everything depended on what the United States would do. He planned to cable Roosevelt immediately. “For the moment,” he noted, “the only move open to us is to put the situation to the American President with the greatest frankness.”
Churchill promised to do likewise, then asked for a moment alone with his colleagues. “Dans le jardin!” he commanded. They retreated to a bleak rectangular garden lined with a narrow path, and marched in repeated circuits. “I believe that everyone was too stunned to speak,” Spears wrote. “I certainly was.”
Abruptly, Beaverbrook broke the silence. All they could do now, he said, was wait for Roosevelt’s response. Fearing that Churchill might rashly promise anew to dispatch squadrons of RAF fighters, Beaverbrook urged him not to make any last-minute pledges. “We are doing no good here,” he said. “In fact, listening to these declarations of Reynaud’s only does harm. Let’s get along home.”
They returned to England at dusk.
----
—
F OR HIS SECOND MEETING with the Prof, young Dr. Jones came more heavily armed. Jones knew that England’s top radio-wave expert, Thomas L. Eckersley, a veteran research engineer with the Marconi Company, had once written a short paper in which he’d calculated that a very narrow beam might indeed bend with the curvature of the earth and, therefore, could be marshaled to guide a bomber from Germany to Britain. Now Jones brought along Eckersley’s paper, as well as some new bits of intelligence.
By way of further
Discouraged but not yet vanquished, Jones returned to his office to consider his next move. He arranged a second meeting with Lindemann for the next day.
----
—
A T ELEVEN O’CLOCK ON Thursday morning, Churchill again took off for France, for what would prove to be his last face-to-face meeting with French leaders. He brought Pug Ismay, Halifax, Cadogan, and Major General Edward Spears, the British liaison to the French army, and this time even Lord Beaverbrook, once again putting at risk a significant portion of Britain’s government. The airfield to which they were headed, at Tours, had been bombed just the night before. For Mary Churchill and her mother, the flight meant another day of anxiety. “I do hate it when he goes,” Mary wrote in her diary. “We all have a ghastly premonition that the French are going to give in. O God! France can’t do it! She must go on—she must go on.”
The field was deserted and desolate, cratered from the night’s raid. French fliers lazed among the hangars, showing little interest in the new arrivals. Churchill walked up to a group of airmen and introduced himself, in awful French, as Britain’s prime minister. They gave him a small touring car—hard for Churchill to fit into, let alone Halifax, who was six feet five inches tall. Thus crammed into the car, like characters in a slapstick movie, they set off for the local préfecture, which housed local representatives of the national government. Here they found just two officials, French prime minister Reynaud and his undersecretary for foreign affairs, Paul Baudouin. Reynaud sat behind a desk; Churchill chose a deep armchair and nearly disappeared from view.
Unlike at the previous meeting in Briare, Churchill made no effort to appear affable. He looked “extremely stern and concentrated,” wrote General Spears. Pug Ismay, no longer the lovable human canine, also wore a severe expression. Beaverbrook jingled coins in his pocket, “as if feeling for a coin with which to tip someone,” Spears observed. His face was flushed, his hair—what little he had—wild. “His round head looked like a cannon-ball that might be projected at any moment at Reynaud by the powerful spring his small, tense body provided.”
The French were clearly bent on surrender and seemed impatient to get the meeting over with. At this point, Reynaud said, everything depended on what the United States would do. He planned to cable Roosevelt immediately. “For the moment,” he noted, “the only move open to us is to put the situation to the American President with the greatest frankness.”
Churchill promised to do likewise, then asked for a moment alone with his colleagues. “Dans le jardin!” he commanded. They retreated to a bleak rectangular garden lined with a narrow path, and marched in repeated circuits. “I believe that everyone was too stunned to speak,” Spears wrote. “I certainly was.”
Abruptly, Beaverbrook broke the silence. All they could do now, he said, was wait for Roosevelt’s response. Fearing that Churchill might rashly promise anew to dispatch squadrons of RAF fighters, Beaverbrook urged him not to make any last-minute pledges. “We are doing no good here,” he said. “In fact, listening to these declarations of Reynaud’s only does harm. Let’s get along home.”
They returned to England at dusk.
----
—
F OR HIS SECOND MEETING with the Prof, young Dr. Jones came more heavily armed. Jones knew that England’s top radio-wave expert, Thomas L. Eckersley, a veteran research engineer with the Marconi Company, had once written a short paper in which he’d calculated that a very narrow beam might indeed bend with the curvature of the earth and, therefore, could be marshaled to guide a bomber from Germany to Britain. Now Jones brought along Eckersley’s paper, as well as some new bits of intelligence.
By way of further
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