Saviour of the Nation by Hodgkinson Brian

Author:Hodgkinson, Brian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shepheard-Walwyn
Published: 2015-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

15

The Blitz

Autumn 1940

‘We’ll raze the British cities to the ground.’

Thus spake the Führer, in his bitter rage.

The aerodromes were saved, but in return

The price was paid by unarmed citizens.

A heavy daylight raid had been repulsed

By British fighters. Night would now conceal

The droning bombers, pregnant with their loads.

What could protect the Londoners by night?

No more could fighter pilots hunt their prey

In sunlit skies or silver-ribboned clouds.

But now, beyond the fearful whistling noise

Of falling bombs, explosions, crackling fires,

Came suddenly, one evening, deeper roars

Of anti-aircraft guns, whose deafening bursts

Did much to raise morale – however slight

Their impact on the enemy unseen.

Now narrow cones of searchlights pierced the sky

And briefly lit a cross-marked fuselage.

Night-fighters prowled through darkness. Tracer lit,

For fleeting seconds, scores of blackened wings.

Beneath the aircraft – havoc. In the docks

Incendiaries raised myriads of fires,

Of wood and rubber, sugar, tar and oil,

Grains and other foodstuffs, paint and gas.

The molten tar obstructed rescue work,

And sulphurous clouds of smoke made rumours spread

That German planes were dropping mustard gas.

From burning factories swarms of rats appeared.

As mooring ropes caught fire, the smouldering craft

Were soon adrift upon the shining Thames.

On moonlit nights the German pilots saw

The wharves and houses well-defined below.

Always the snaking river showed the way,

And then the fires, whose ruddy glow was seen

By shocked observers on the Sussex Downs.

East Enders’ homes were burning. Families fled

To brick-built shelters, schools or underground,

In basements or in cellars, where they slept,

Or waited open-eyed to hear the sound

Of ‘all-clear’ sirens. Soon the bombing spread,

To central London, to the West End shops,

To Buckingham Palace and to Downing Street.

The King and Queen were shaken by a bomb

Within the courtyard, thirty yards away.

Whilst, after Churchill told domestic staff

To move to shelters under Downing Street,

A bomb destroyed the kitchen. He himself

Would often climb to have a rooftop view,

Where, unconcerned, he’d watch the bursting shells,

The dotted lines of tracer and the glow

Of many fires in the proximity.

One night he quoted to his startled guests,

Who’d been invited to this lofty scene,

A verse, most apposite, of Tennyson:

Hear the heavens fill with shouting,

and there rain’d a ghastly dew

From the nations’ airy navies

grappling in the central blue.

He visited the stricken Londoners,

When fires still raged, and ruined buildings stood

Like skeletons amidst the rubble heaps;

Where tiny paper flags –the Union Jack –

Waved bravely on some workers’ shattered homes.

A crowd of people, mainly very poor,

Had gathered where a shelter was destroyed,

And forty had been killed. When Churchill came,

Unsure of his reception, he was mobbed.

‘Good old Winnie!’ many of them cried.

‘We can take it. Give it to ’em back!’

A woman shouted, ‘See he really cares.’

She’d seen that he could not restrain his tears.

Luftwaffe concentration on the docks

Meant East End families suffered most of all.

As death tolls rose, with many others maimed,

Some grew resentful that they bore the brunt,

These manual workers in their meagre homes,

Which were most vulnerable to blast and fire.

‘If this goes on’, one close observer said,

‘There will be revolution.’ Churchill thought

Of when, so long before, he had attacked

The bastions of landed privilege,

And, as a Liberal, coveted support

From all who worked by hand or heart or brain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.