The story is told in vivid scenes, but facts and figures are carefully and accurately recorded, and it will surprise many people who have lived through these tremendous years to see, for the first time, laid out in order, what happened and why. . . . Things have been said about what we have done and how we behaved, which we could never have said about ourselves.1
W. S. Churchill
There can be no doubt that the positive contributions of the Merchant Navy and the Royal Navy toward preventing an invasion did not achieve full recognition because of their relatively passive and unpublicized roles in the summer of 1940. Their activities could not compete with newspaper headlines showing the enormous (and inflated) tally of downed German aircraft, and it is now time to assess the relative propaganda values of the maritime and air dimensions. The Battle of Britain became an Anglo-American media construct but the determining factors shaping this and the role of politicians, media figures, and others still require closer examination.
From the moment he became prime minister, Winston Churchill’s actions were geared toward bringing to bear the enormous industrial potential of the United States of America in the cause of the Allies.2 When France sought an armistice a few weeks later, the only realistic prospect of Britain continuing the struggle lay with the willingness of the United States to increase the flow of essential war supplies. In the longer term, the only chances of winning were either with the Soviet Union joining the fight (a seemingly remote prospect given the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 1939) or an American decision to send their army to Europe as in 1917–18. But with American opinion set firmly against direct involvement this could not be anticipated within the foreseeable future and might never happen. Churchill’s considerable oratory powers using highly charged emotional appeals would not persuade the cabinet to carry on the struggle unless he could hold out the prospect of continuing and increased tangible material assistance from this quarter. Government members such as Lord Halifax were initially in favor of negotiating with Germany but not without Halifax insisting “he would fight to the end if Britain’s integrity and independence were endangered, for instance if Hitler demanded the fleet or the RAF.”3
Unfortunately, Churchill had been given little or no encouragement from the United States since he had taken over as prime minister, and even the re-election of Roosevelt in November held out no prospect of significantly greater participation in the near future. At the end of 1940, Sir Walter Layton of the Ministry of Supply warned his superiors that U.S. industry had still not fully mobilized because they lacked full appreciation of the effort required. Consequently, American aid would not peak until 1942, hardly an edifying prospect for Churchill, who needed to hold out the prospect of imminent heavy assistance.4 Unfortunately, Churchill’s temperament and history were not ideal for the task of persuading the United States. Most Americans preferred Britain to Nazi Germany but the British Empire roused ambivalent feelings in those molded by the tumultuous events of 1776 and Churchill was the arch imperialist. Churchill and Roosevelt had met once during World War I but his rude manner had upset the U.S. naval secretary.5 As First Lord of the Admiralty at the time of the sinking of the Lusitania, Churchill was held by conspiracy theorists to have engineered the incident to inveigle the United States into World War I.6 Unfair as this was, it could only mean that Americans could only view his words and actions with varying degrees of suspicion. It probably did not help that Great Britain had long stopped repaying the 1914–18 war debt to the United States. Along with other debtor nations, Great Britain had ceased repayments to the United States in 1934 because of Germany’s repudiation of the Versailles Treaty and the need to re-arm. This still left an outstanding balance of $4.368 billion from Britain but as Churchill was out of office in 1934 he could not be held personally responsible for this.7
However, President Roosevelt had offered to correspond on matters of mutual concern when Churchill was at the Admiralty, giving the First Lord an opportunity of manipulating American fears of German expansion into U.S. spheres of control. As an enthusiast of all things maritime and dedicated disciple of A. T. Mahan, the president had earlier suggested sending Captain Royal E. Ingersoll of the U.S. Navy to London to set up contingency plans for staff talks in 1937.8 These spluttered out in an atmosphere of mutual distrust before hostilities commenced, but the signing of the Anglo-American Trade Agreement of 1938 following the Munich Agreement also demonstrated that both countries recognized the need for some broad display of Anglo-American solidarity.9 Roosevelt was broadly sympathetic to the British cause and may have been even more concerned than British politicians about Nazi intentions during the late 1930s. But he was by no means uncritical of British motives where the empire was concerned and was also looking to the “main chance.”10
In an American presidential election year, public opinion counted for a great deal. A vast number of American newspapers might be studied for insights into “public opinion,” including several written for ethnic communities in languages other than English. However, the question as to whether newspapers reflect or create “opinion” in liberal democracies is probably irresolvable. When most British newspapers were family-run concerns, the Fleet Street of Beaverbrook and Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, was dedicated to propaganda rather than financial gain.11 Deference to the upper classes was another problem tending to undermine confidence in the British press. The British social survey organization known as Mass Observation revealed little confidence by the British in their newspapers in early 1940, and it was also suggested in a Time article that current problems—including competition from informal newsletters—might make the temporary loss of confidence engendered by the British reluctance to report on the abdication crisis of 1936 more “long lasting.”12
Unlike Britain, the United States has never had a “national press,” and even if it could be accepted without reservation that newspapers reflect rather than shape opinions, no single newspaper could encapsulate the full diversity of American opinion. With a long and poorly protected western seaboard containing sizeable Asian minorities, Californians shared similar concerns over German intentions with the residents of Washington, D.C., but balanced these with equally substantial worries about Japanese expansion.13 However, some reasonable idea of the relevant American concerns of 1940 can be gleaned from the pages of the Washington Post. It was (and continues to be) regarded as an influential newspaper with a national readership, and includes syndicated columns to be found in other American newspapers. Rescued from bankruptcy in 1933 by financier Eugene Meyer, the Washington Post espoused high-minded principles including objectivity, independence, and being “fair and free and wholesome in its outlook on public affairs and public men.” Such worthy sentiments do not necessarily guarantee sales, which explains the modest circulation figures—54,000 in 1933 to 162,000 in 1943—and the fact it was continuing to lose money.14 Fortunately for the British, Meyer was friendly with British ambassador Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr, 1882–1940), who is generally credited with giving Meyer the scoop on the Mrs. Simpson–Edward VIII affair heralding the British abdication crisis. For all the Washington Post’s sentiments of independence and non-alignment, the tone of writing was pro-Roosevelt, and it is probably no coincidence that President Truman appointed Meyer the first president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1946. This newspaper usefully recorded Gallup polls relating to U.S. feeling throughout the country regarding aid to Britain, and its articles gave opinions about the international situation and how it was being influenced by factors such as the Battle of Britain.
The actions and attitudes of media figures including American war correspondents covering the Battle of Britain are very significant. These range from Eric Sevareid, an American journalist from the isolationist Midwest, to international media magnate—and British cabinet minister in 1940—Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook). As a controversial World War I minister of information and a press baron with interests in British and North American publishing concerns, it is unsurprising that Lord Beaverbrook became minister of aircraft supply during 1940. Churchill’s private secretary claimed “many people thought he was evil.”15 But this petulant Canadian entrepreneur with a reputation for dubious dealing was a successful propagandist. Beaverbrook confessed to preferring power to profit and ran his newspapers to that end. “What I want is power,” he said. In 1948, he told the British Press Commission, “I run the paper for the purpose of making propaganda and with no other purpose.”16 For these reasons alone his value to Churchill transcended his ministerial duties and his propagandist activities are examined here rather than his better-known role in aircraft production.
Brendan Bracken (1901–58) was Churchill’s former private secretary from the Admiralty before he became minister of information in 1940. Bracken had also been Beaverbrook’s protégé, giving the prime minister a wealth of journalistic expertise within his inner circle.17 Beaverbrook’s personal papers have been scrutinized for insights into the campaign to secure American aid and these reveal an interest in filmmaking as a method of putting the British case to the American public. Later on, it may have been Beaverbrook and Bracken who helped persuade Churchill to allow American film director Frank Capra to film him introducing the propaganda series Why We Fight. Churchill’s short introduction urged British cinema audiences to accept the series as a factual interpretation of the events up to the current stage of the war. Film number four in this series entitled The Battle of Britain was shown to U.S. servicemen and distributed in British cinemas in late 1942 after the U.S. had entered the conflict. As one revisionist writer has claimed, “no film about the events of 1940–41 in Britain reached such a vast audience.”18
There is no doubt that U.S. sympathy was on the side of the British. A letter to the editor of the Washington Post in July 1940 described a newsreel shown in a Washington, D.C., cinema portraying a German aircraft being shot down in flames by the guns of an aircraft carrier. To the embarrassment of the correspondent, the incident was “occasion for loud applause from almost the entire theater.”19 However, turning sympathy into positive action was another matter entirely. Although a significant amount of space in the Washington Post was devoted to stories of the air war and concern was expressed that the British might not hold out, there is little indication the air war was considered fundamental to this during July. An end-of-year summary article charting the rise of aid-to-Britain sentiment, written by Dr. George Gallup, director of the American Institute of Public Opinion, and based on polling data, does not use the term “Battle of Britain” as such, but he did indicate a 2 percent rise in sentiment—from 15 percent favoring the United States entering the war on 19 July “following re-organization of British strength in England” to 17 percent in October, following the “aerial blitzkrieg on Britain.” The high point of intervention sentiment was shown as being 19 percent on 14 June “following Italy’s entrance,” which was greater than the 14 percent recorded on 6 July “following collapse of France” and much more than the measly 5 percent polled in October 1939. The greatest fall in sentiment occurred in December 1940, apparently as a result of the successful British offensive in North Africa and despite the continuing virtually unopposed night bombing of London and other cities.
The only tentative conclusions to draw from these figures is that only a small minority of those polled favored entering the war and British “successes” did not necessarily encourage U.S. war entry. In fact, as Gallup stated, “because of recent British successes, and because many think that our increased material assistance will turn the tide,” those favoring entry are now less than at the “height of the blitzkrieg last fall [the night blitz].” The interpretation of Dr. Gallup in terms of relating the question of immediate war to the 50 million Americans who voted in the November presidential elections meant that if a war vote were taken in December 1940, only 6 million would be in favor.20 Even after a further year of Axis triumph, a Gallup poll of 22 November 1941 revealed that only 26 percent surveyed were in favor of immediately declaring war.21 This suggests that even Pearl Harbor would not have been enough to prod Americans into the fight without Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States in December 1941.
Possibly, victory in a North African campaign resembling a “colonial war” was not something high-minded Americans could wholeheartedly approve, and while success in standing up to bombing evoked considerable sympathy and admiration; it was still something of a negative achievement. The “Britain-Can-Take-It” line employed by propagandists had limitations, and American correspondent Larry LeSueur has been quoted that it could not be used forever and he had never seen a boxer win a match simply because he could “take it.”22 Some shift in American opinion can be noted but it is clear that direct American intervention could never have been in the cards during 1940. Realistically, the British could only hope that an increasing number of Americans would favor more aid to Britain. In fact, the overwhelming numbers of Americans—approximately 88 percent—in July 1940 were in favor, and by November this had slightly increased to 90 percent.23
A trickier question was whether “it was more important to keep out of war ourselves, or to help England win even at the risk of war?” Undoubtedly, the British were heartened to see this steep climb in favor of helping Britain and risking war, from a modest 35 percent in May 1940 to a comforting 60 percent in November 1940. Support on this question had briefly stalled in the period immediately before the American presidential campaign when both candidates had tended to emphasize peace for the United States.24 This support had risen significantly through the period of the air campaigns but it seems likely the respondents were also weighing the risks to U.S. shipping and recalling the role that U-boat campaigns had allegedly played in U.S. entry to World War I. This does not imply a general acceptance that naval matters had played the dominant role in bringing America into this war. The causes of U.S. entry had been hotly debated in the 1930s, with the Senate’s investigation of the munitions industries (1934–36) blaming industrialists and munitions makers for dragging America into war.25
It was also asserted in the Washington Post that U.S. rearmament was failing to meet requirements, meaning that Americans always had to bear in mind British prospects of survival in deciding whether it was better to help Britain or keep the fruits of existing war production for the use of U.S. forces.26 A letter from fellow press baron Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, in North America to Beaverbrook in July 1940 stated the “pressure to rearm is terrific” and stressed the anxiety of people in government. Rothermere then accurately predicted the difficulty in getting “really big assistance from them.” Only when the Americans “have appreciated what this war means for them and when they fully understand this I think you will get a move for closer co-operation.”27
Another article gave useful information on the geographical diversity of attitudes relating to the United States entering the war. “Southern States” were most in favor of going in at 17 percent with the “West Central States,” perhaps because of their German communities and traditional conservatism, less enthusiastic at 9 percent. On the question of helping England, but at risk of war, it was again the southern states most in favor at 75 percent and again the Midwest states less favorable at 54 percent.28 Nevertheless, it was significant that even in the cautious Midwest there was still a majority in favor. It was certainly the feelings of the Midwest giving the most concern to the British-organized Inter-Allied Information Committee (New York) in June 1940. Their representatives, Mr. Hall and Mr. Powell, had toured this area and found “sympathy with the Allied cause is extremely unsatisfactory.” The people had been influenced by pro-German sources that were “extremely successful in promoting a feeling which is anything but favourable to the Allied cause.”29 The extent to which these figures reflected a “black vote” is unknown. It would be wrong to assume that black Americans automatically wished to support a fight against a radical racist state such as Nazi Germany. One newspaper focusing on “black interests” tended to view the conflict as “just another clash among rival groups of white exploiters” but how typical this attitude was among black people is impossible to say. The racial problems of the South were severe and it cannot be assumed that black people were permitted to participate in polling while “Jim Crow” was still in the driving seat. Black people would have been underrepresented anyway because of their low education opportunities. Critics have also claimed that “pollsters did not ask the ‘right’ questions, specify the characteristics of the respondents as precisely as one might wish, or repeat questions over time at suitable intervals.”30 None of this completely invalidates the results, but scientific polling was still in its infancy and whatever the limitations, Roosevelt needed to take these into account with an upcoming election.
Another Gallup article published as the air battle neared a climax suggested that an intensification of the crisis in Europe would aid Roosevelt’s election campaign. “If England is defeated between now and election time and it looks as though the United States might have to fight Germany, which candidate would you prefer for President—Wilkie or Roosevelt?” went Gallup’s ponderous question. If the election had been held then, while Britain was still undefeated, 51 percent would have voted for Roosevelt, but otherwise the result was 58 percent, a contrast showing a “substantial increase in Roosevelt’s popular strength in case war seems imminent.”31
An edition of the Washington Post on 20 December raised a concern that recent British successes, far from keeping Britain in the war, may ultimately have the reverse effect. It noted that some Englishmen in favor of a negotiated peace remained within the British government and these were the “propertied and hitherto privileged classes who fear social revolution in England that war threatens to cause, even if Great Britain wins decisively.” Arguing that Britain had stood up to air attacks, frustrated invasion, and beaten the Italians in the Mediterranean, it claimed British prestige had risen. As Hitler had put out peace feelers thus revealing his own lack of confidence in ultimate victory, then a favorable peace to Britain was obviously attainable. The alternatives would be more destruction, living like “wild animals,” loss of financial empire to the United States, and the possibility of social revolution at home. The source of this information was claimed to be diplomatic reports indicating “certain groups” were increasingly expressing such sentiments, and the columnist suggested these sorts of views might have influenced Ambassador Joe Kennedy’s pessimistic reports about Britain continuing the war.32
This represented a convincing scenario, and the “diplomatic reports” might provide some explanation for Roosevelt’s favorable response to the British government’s cash crisis at the end of 1940. It also provides considerable justification for the speculation surrounding the later flight of Rudolf Hess to Great Britain where it has often been asserted that Hitler was trying to contact the “Peace Party” within the British establishment.33 None of this appears in Churchill’s lengthy review of Britain’s position and appeal for financial aid to Roosevelt dated 8 December 1940, as he had learned the importance of not stepping too hard on American sensibilities.34 His earlier attempts in May 1940 to “blackmail” the United States for aid by using the possible fate of the British fleet in the hands of “appeasers, bargaining amid the ruins” had not been successful, and had led to serious U.S. discussion of seizing British and other European possessions in the Western hemisphere.35
Enough of this debate had seeped into the public domain by July 1940 for Gallup to poll the U.S. public on the question of seizing European possessions near the Panama Canal. This was conducted against the background of a U.S.-sponsored conference at Havana with the twenty-one American republics debating the fate of these territories. The poll showed a heavy majority—87 percent—in favor of the United States taking over these areas in the event of a German victory over England. A similar number—84 percent—were prepared to fight to keep the Germans out of these areas. Again a large majority, 81 percent, were prepared for the United States and the American republics to buy these possessions should Britain require more money for the war.36 These figures represented a mandate for action on the flimsiest of pretexts and it is not difficult to see how these results might have encouraged the significant Destroyers-for-Bases deal agreed in September. On the day the poll results were published the text of the Act of Havana was also announced. This revealed an agreement whereby, in any emergency, any country “shall have the right to act in a manner required for its defense or the defense of the continent.”37
In the circumstances of this forthcoming conference, Lord Lothian had already determined that offering these Caribbean bases to Washington “spontaneously” and generously might counter uncompromising American demands for rights in British possessions and gain something in return.38 Lothian was right about the Americans being prepared to demand these bases but important British figures including Lord Lloyd, the colonial secretary, were heavily opposed to making a deal as they saw the only way to involve America in the war was to maintain fears about security.39
Another article linked the Battle of Britain with Havana. Columnist Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) was an influential political columnist with his Today and Tomorrow column, syndicated nationally. Lippmann was also a friend of the British ambassador to the United States, Lord Lothian. As assistant to Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of war in 1917, Lippmann helped draft the Fourteen Points Peace Program. It is indicative of his standing that Lippmann was a delegate to the Paris Peace conference of 1919 and helped draft the Covenant of the League of Nations.40 His German-Jewish ancestry and the socialism of his youth obviously pre-disposed him against the Nazi regime.
Lippmann saw the measures agreed at Havana as deriving “their whole significance from the struggle between Great Britain and the Nazi domination of continental Europe.” If it were not for the possibility of breaking the blockade, and the Axis achieving “something like naval supremacy in the Atlantic Ocean” and adding the British assets of “industry, shipbuilding, foreign investments, and finance into the totalitarian system, the problems discussed at Havana would not exist.” The rest of the article dealt at length with how British naval power was protecting the United States from the problems of competing on equal terms with a “totalitarian monopoly.” The fall of Britain would mean the disappearance of “the last free market outside the Americas.” Axis naval supremacy, including control of the massive British merchant fleet, would mean the South American states “especially of the temperate zone” would then have to carry on three-quarters of their trade with the European monopoly. The crucial importance of sea power was asserted in the “battles around Great Britain and Gibraltar.” These were stressed heavily as they would “decide whether the independence of the nations of this hemisphere can be defended in the future as it has been in the past.” There were also references to the west coast of Africa, the Cape Verde Islands, the Azores, and Greenland all being used as “stepping stones to domination of any part of this hemisphere.” Economic dependence would also mean “fifth column” uprisings in South America, all of which would be further prejudicial to American security. Lippmann went on to claim that “the Battle of Britain will therefore decide whether the United States must maintain permanently a very large army and whether American industry must be regimented permanently on military lines.” In the circumstances of a British defeat, very little prospect was seen of the United States achieving “even parity, much less mastery in the Atlantic Ocean.” Consequently, the United States would be driven to maintaining a large army, introducing conscription, and changing its way of doing business.41
The precise impact of this article cannot be gauged and it may not have resonated with high-minded Americans preferring moral arguments to those centering on economic self-interest. However, it did home in on traditional American insecurities. It also showed signs of being influenced by Lord Lothian’s speech to Yale University alumni (which included Lippmann) on 19 June 1940, where very great play was made of the historical importance of the Royal Navy to the United States.42 Lippmann’s emphasis was very much on how a British defeat would impact on U.S. economic interests and the American way of life. As the worst deprivations of the Depression were only a recent memory, sensitivity to threats to American recovery was particularly high. In any case, the shibboleth of “free trade” has always been central to any discussion of American foreign policy, and concepts of regimenting economic life are even more alien to the “American way” than to the British.43 Conscription is controversial in most liberal democracies but the prospect of maintaining a large standing army in “peacetime” was as awkward for 1940s Americans as it had been for earlier generations of Britons. As many Americans were descendants of British colonists, they retained some shared cultural memories with the British in that, unlike navies, large standing armies were potential instruments for powerful minorities to inflict their tyrannical will upon the majority. Furthermore, compulsory military service concepts inevitably impinge on individual freedoms, raising tricky constitutional issues. Roosevelt had undermined this during the 1930s by forcing a quarter of a million young males into the Civilian Conservation Corps under semi-military conditions, and his alleged dictatorial tendencies had already been spotlighted in his infamous clash with the U.S. Supreme Court over abuses of presidential power.44 The power of these fears of fifth-column activity in South America helps to explain their successful manipulation by British intelligence in order to gain an easing of the Neutrality Act later in the war. One intelligence specialist believed Roosevelt was happy for this disinformation to be circulated in 1940–41 and turned a “blind eye.”45
Also reacting to Havana and American press attitudes toward these U.S. fears, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering gave an interview to one of the few pro-German American journalists, Karl von Wiegand. Goering stressed that although “German air power is supreme in Europe” the United States is isolated by “ponds” more than “3,000 miles wide and another 5,000 miles on the other, [the United States] cannot possibly be invaded either from the sea or air.” Scorning the idea that Greenland could be used as an air base, he pointed out that it was so unsuitable it was given up as a base by commercial firms running the transatlantic air route. Showing his awareness of U.S. industrial potential he stated that America “will be a match for any Power or combination of Powers.” Characteristically, Goering also boasted about German airpower dominating the Atlantic but conceded that airpower was very young and “has certain limits.”46 The article made valid points, and even though Greenland was not the only potential “stepping stone” it was still a fairly accurate assessment of the situation. However, it seems to have made little impact on American thinking.
These articles were written when the air campaign was in an early phase, but this initial American view of the Battle of Britain was far more wide-ranging and naval determinist in nature. Airpower was not prominent in any context whatsoever. For Americans, this naval dimension was at the very core of their concerns. For all the encouragement given by Churchill to Roosevelt regarding British determination to win, even the Battle of Mers-el-Kébir near Oran on 3 July 1940 did not seem to have completely calmed American fears. Here the Royal Navy had ruthlessly removed any possibility of the French fleet joining an Axis combination by bombarding and sinking their former ally’s warships at anchorage. In retrospect, some of the fears articulated by Lippmann and others seem vastly exaggerated and underrated the nation’s vast industrial potential to out-build any enemy fleet combination. Numbers alone could not properly evaluate the potential superiority of a combined European fleet, and the difficulties of welding together a massive fleet of disparate nationalities and equipment and with questionable loyalty to Germany would have been significant factors.
American fears about the future use of the British fleet were finally laid to rest with the announcement of the Destroyers-for-Bases deal reported in the Washington Post on 4 September 1940. The British were reported as “rejoicing” over the deal and American congressional opinion was cautiously quoted as “evoking commendation,” though isolationist leaders expressed anger. According to Sen. David Worth Clark, Democrat from Idaho, “[t]ransfer of the destroyers amounts substantially to an act of war.” The only adverse aspect of the deal that Roosevelt’s presidential opponent, Wendell L. Wilkie, seized upon was the secrecy surrounding it. Given that his policy was also for “helping the British,” it was perhaps his only opening for exploiting Roosevelt’s weakness of perceived dictatorial tendencies. Secrecy was inevitable given the fact that negotiations had been protracted and marked by mutual distrust. The British Foreign Office, clearly worried about the effect in Britain of being seen to conclude a poor deal, described the pledge never to sink or surrender the fleet if UK waters became “untenable” as a “parallel development,” but it seems doubtful if anyone was fooled. Roosevelt had already prepared for internal criticism by submitting the report of Attorney General Robert Jackson supporting the deal. Apart from allowing some temporary encouragement to the British public in terms of allowing a sense of transatlantic solidarity, it is hard to divine very much tangible long-term political or practical advantage to Britain from this deal, given the appalling state of the American destroyers and Jackson’s opinion that “the acquisition from Britain implies no future promise from the United States. It is not necessary for the Senate to ratify an opportunity that entails no obligation.”47 Roosevelt was emboldened by the deal’s “success” to propose subsequent aid packages such as Lend-Lease while continuing to press for the liquidation of British overseas assets, but the extent to which this agreement paved the way for such initiatives is impossible to ascertain.
Without doubt, “the fleet guarantee was exceedingly important to Americans” and Churchill was thinking “in terms that allowed him to consider the exchange as a down payment on further aid.”48 Nevertheless, the “intangible factors” argument is not an entirely convincing one even if staff talks between the nations intensified from then on. The deal did not mean that Americans were necessarily confident that the worst was over and Britain would win, but might easily be viewed as encouraging the British to divulge as much useful military information as possible before British capitulation. An end-of-year article focusing on Churchill’s revival of British spirit remarked that “Britain has just about weathered 1940, but 1941 promised to bring an even greater ordeal” and mentioned that most military writers expected an invasion attempt the following year. Much of the article praised German military achievements and noted that Hitler’s detractors were still waiting for him to make a mistake.49
While the above articles viewed the Battle of Britain in naval terms, the Washington Post was not always consistent about this, especially as fears of Axis naval power began to decline. Reviewing the conflict on 1 September 1940, another article asserted that the “great air battle is not a prelude, a preliminary round in the Battle of Britain. It is the main bout.” It was claimed that if the “British can take it” and the “Royal Air Force can continue to dispute the skies with them until the bad weather sets in, Adolf Hitler may rue the day that he drew his sword and marched into Poland.” It was further suggested that time was on Britain’s side as warplanes and aircrew were now increasingly being provided in the United States and countries of the British Empire. This was only partly true as very few aircraft came to the RAF from America in 1940.50 September was certainly the month most likely to see an invasion and the air conflict was now moving toward its climax. But on 1 September, Hitler was still holding back the Luftwaffe from all-out terror bombing on London and other cities. However, as the RAF was already attempting this over Germany, retaliation must have been expected soon.
As shown in previous chapters, the air campaign was going badly for the RAF at this time, but censorship in Britain and the American desire to provide upbeat pro-British coverage were clearly having a subtle and cumulative effect on writing. This was understandable as it was much easier for reporters to cover the air war. Typical of the coverage derived from American war correspondents was an article dated 3 September by “an International News Correspondent,” its front-page headlines stating, “Pilots Have What It Takes: RAF Oblivious to Odds, Small Force Takes on 200 Nazis.” Here the correspondent described his witnessing of a fearless attack by a “small force of Spitfires and Hurricanes” against “200 roaring German bombers and fighters and beat them.” A captured German fighter pilot was dubiously quoted: “These Spitfires are really terrible. They’re much too good for us.”51
The previous day, the Washington Post had given front-page coverage to Churchill’s message to Bomber Command that “the command of the air is being gradually and painfully, but nonetheless remorselessly wrested from the Nazi criminals.” This was ostensibly meant to express cabinet satisfaction “that so many important military objectives in Germany and Italy have been so sharply smitten.” The article also claimed that Messerschmitt “was once a word to conjure with” in England however, it “has lost much of its luster today.” On the other hand, this piece did allow a sharp decrease in the ratio of German to British losses—now less than 2 to 1 as opposed to earlier battles of “3, 4 or even 5 to 1,” and noted an improvement in the German technique of increased fighter protection.52
An article reinforcing American perceptions of heroic (if eccentric) British stereotypes told of a Hurricane pilot who left his cockpit to accept the commanding officer’s offer of a cup of tea. Within a few minutes German bombs had destroyed his plane on the tarmac, implying the quaint British tea-drinking habit had saved his life. This pilot later told the war correspondent he had just scored his twenty-second victory. Commenting further, the pilot mentioned that a captured German airman recently told him that his bombing missions were personally motivated by a desire for revenge over the British bombing of Cologne, his home city.53 This piece could only promote the idea that German participants were acting out of base revenge motives and, despite the irony, highlight evidence that RAF bombers were striking back.
With grossly exaggerated scores reported in British and foreign papers climaxing to between 175 and 185 German aircraft destroyed on 15 September, when the actual figure was closer to sixty, “the few” must have seemed like superheroes to the newspaper readers of Britain and America.54 Indeed, an end-of-year article reviewing the conflict stated “England could not be defeated until Germany could control the air over the islands, and the ‘tough guys’ in the air force went aloft daily and drove the invader away.” It continued: “Some observers felt the British fighting planes were superior to the German. Others did not. But all agreed the English airmen were superior to the Nazis.”55 No wonder that Sir John Slessor had written from Washington about the “intense interest” of the American press in the exploits of the RAF in December 1940.56
While these stories put British pilots in a very positive light, it would not have been obvious to more reflective readers that the RAF was going to survive—indeed the reality of the situation in early September was that Fighter Command was losing the battle over Kent and Sussex. An Air Ministry claim that the Luftwaffe had lost nearly two thousand warplanes over Britain in the first year of war was recorded on page five of the 3 September edition of the Washington Post. Most of these were claimed within the previous two and a half months. No direct mention was made of the pilot crisis, but British losses were acknowledged as “considerable” even if the “ratio was in Britain’s favor” and “many British pilots are saved even when their machines are lost.” However, the newspaper balanced the British claim with German counter-claims that nearly 1,200 British planes had been destroyed in August alone. Success was claimed in the “steady night bombing of Germany” and it was here that the American public was probably most misled.57
Notwithstanding the role that raids on Berlin allegedly played in changing the focus of Luftwaffe attacks to London, it is now generally accepted that these early British efforts to bomb Germany were ineffectual. This was because of problems relating to lack of fighter escort, small bomb loads, poor defensive gunnery, navigation, and bomb aiming. Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Pierce concluded in late 1940 that “on the longer-range targets only one out of every five aircraft which [he] despatched actually found the target.”58 A Washington Post report on 31 August claimed that “Berlin shook this morning and late last night under the most intensive Royal Air Force bombing raids since the war began.” The raids were described as “one phase of a tireless mass offensive.” Numerous military targets were claimed as hit.59 A report on later raids, stating that hidden armaments factories and munitions stores were hit in dense woodlands on the outskirts of Berlin, suggests a positive spin was being put on RAF bombs exploding harmlessly into rural areas outside of Berlin.60 It was naturally very important that the British were not seen merely as passive victims of German attacks. Being seen to simply soak up punishment could not maintain a favorable impression indefinitely. Yet the bombing offensives of the two combatant nations were not yet remotely comparable in terms of actual efficiency, and coverage of the RAF bombing offensive did not reflect the limited damage caused.
Another story on page one of the same edition mentioned a British claim that the Germans were using “four-motored flying barns” in the assault on London.61 In fact, there were no Luftwaffe aircraft in 1940 that could be described as such. In all probability, this was a British attempt to scare the more “jittery” members of East Coast communities into thinking the Luftwaffe had large long-range aircraft capable of raining bombs on cities such as New York and Boston. The prospect of new Luftwaffe bases in Britain and Ireland could only increase this possibility. A letter in July from Beaverbrook’s fellow press baron and former wartime cabinet colleague Lord Rothermere suggests this rumor may have been in circulation for some time. “I have spoken to Americans who talk about moving 100 and 200 miles away from the coast. To me these fears are whimsical.”62
Despite the above, Americans would surely have been reassured by Secretary of the Navy (and publisher of the Chicago Daily News) Frank Knox’s statement in Honolulu dated 7 September that “Britain has a better than even chance now of withstanding the blitzkrieg.” He reportedly stated “he would not have said this 30 days ago.” Significantly, he attributed his confidence to “Britain’s superior navy.” He also said that Germany would not “gain complete mastery of the air to launch an invasion,” a remark failing to convey the damage already done to Fighter Command’s infrastructure mentioned in the previous chapter.63 While he was at Honolulu, Knox told Admiral J. O. Richardson, C-in-C, U.S. Pacific Fleet, that he thought the United States would be at war by the following spring, which suggests he was genuinely upbeat about British survival prospects and was assuming Roosevelt’s re-election would soon lead to direct U.S. participation.64
As the year drew to a close, the more optimistic predictions of British survival seemed to have been vindicated not so much by events but by non-events. The Germans had not invaded and the British did not seem about to drop out of the war as a result of the bombing. Further reassurance was given by Major General James E. Chaney (1884–1967) of the U.S. Army Air Corps on his return from England in December. By now, Chaney was the latest of a long list of U.S. civilian and military advisors sent to assess British prospects of survival and to obtain technical information useful to the American rearmament program. It was essential for Roosevelt to show the public tangible benefits for the support he was giving the Churchill regime, and Chaney would not have disappointed him. Great play was made of the “information that will aid us in our own rearmament efforts . . . things that might be worth hundreds and millions of dollars to us.” Speaking in some detail of the “aerial blitzkrieg,” he said that the early phases were decisively won by the “speedy fighters of the RAF” but “a large measure of the success . . . was attributed to the plane detecting system employed.” Without mentioning any of the RDF/command and control shortcomings detailed in an earlier chapter, Chaney described a “thorough and able” system for aircraft detection that allowed fighters to remain in position until they knew details of the enemy height, speed, and direction. The current phase of night bombing and daylight fighter-bombing attack was described as causing “much material damage but could never win a war.” He also believed the current loss ratio was “1.9 German craft for 1 British plane.” This would only have been a small exaggeration had he meant the whole period but Chaney was wide of the mark for the current fighter-bomber/night-bomber phase, in which German losses were much reduced. A valuable lesson drawn from the conflict was that American fighters and bombers all needed more guns.65
Mostly this statement was accurate but the claim that any phase was “decisively won” was dubious. Much valuable information was being given away for very little tangible benefit. He was right about the current German bombing tactics not winning the war on their own, although it was rather early for Chaney to draw this authoritative conclusion. British RDF research was ahead of the Americans at this time but the claims for the efficiency of the command and control system originating from Watson-Watt and Dowding were clearly being taken at the same face value as the inflated scores of downed aircraft. The extent to which British expertise and more tangible assets were being surrendered was the subject of a letter from Beaverbrook to Churchill a few weeks after Chaney’s departure. Beaverbrook’s immediate concern was articulated over an American demand for “our South African gold” and the proposal “to collect and carry it away.” In no uncertain terms he stated, “That is a decision which I would resist very strongly and seek to destroy by every means in my power.” The Americans “have conceded nothing . . . they have extracted payment to the uttermost,” and Beaverbrook further complained “they have taken our bases without valuable compensation.” He also fulminated over the delays in the American armament programs resulting in “negligible” deliveries, but at the same time “we find ourselves, having provided the necessary money for munitions and aircraft, with deliveries delayed but no suggestion of any return of moneys advanced on the basis of performance of contract.” A series of examples were then provided, including the surrender of machine tools for the manufacture of 700 Hispano Suiza 20-mm guns a month. Some 650 were to be manufactured for Britain but the administration later refused to supply these on the grounds they were needed for U.S. forces. “So we lost our machine tools and we lost our guns too.” Reference was also made to the Tizard mission “and all the secrets transferred to the Americans.” Beaverbrook was also scathing about the supposed “benefits” of the Purvis Mission, the British purchasing mission in Washington led by Arthur Purvis, who “has nothing to his credit except a kindly position on the part of Mr. [Henry] Morgenthau [U.S. secretary of the treasury] and that is easily bought at such a price.” His suggested solution was typical of the entrepreneur’s distrust in the ability of bureaucratic agencies to handle crucial matters. His proposed independent mission dealing directly with the American public would advocate a fairer deal for Britain and put pressure on the Roosevelt administration “to carry out some of the pledges and promises so freely given.”66
Beaverbrook’s files also include a document apparently prepared by Churchill’s secretary back in June. This asked for advice on the question of a “policy of full and frank exchange with the U.S.A.” It indicates that the prime influences on Churchill to agree to this came from the political heads of the navy and RAF, Mr. A. V. Alexander and Sir Archibald Sinclair. Their argument was summed up as a need to overcome an American feeling about “our stickiness” about British secrets and the fact that the enemy now knew many of these anyway. The benefits of cooperation would be having essential RDF parts made in the United States as “insurance” (presumably against bombing), and the British would get information on ultra-shortwave technology should the Americans know more about this. Finally, as the Americans wanted to know about British gun-turret technology, “If we could tell them, they could fit [the technology] into machines to be delivered to us.”67
This correspondence reflects Beaverbrook’s discontent with—as he saw it—the one-sided treatment that Britain was receiving from the Roosevelt administration. Beaverbrook’s own advice to Churchill back in June is unclear but his continued possession of the “Précis for Prime Minister” suggests he was holding it as ammunition against Sinclair and Alexander in case—as seemed likely—their policy backfired at a later date. The arguments articulated by this Précis are vague and not altogether convincing, but only Alexander and Sinclair could have said whether they had been accurately quoted. Of course, the ultimate responsibility belonged to Churchill, who tried to hold a quid pro quo bargaining position that could not be sustained.68 It meant the “kindly position on the part of Mr. Morgenthau” was essential even if he was probably already scheming to replace the pound with the dollar as the prime international currency for trade. The Washington Post reported that Morgenthau had testified to the House Appropriations Subcommittee in Washington on 17 December 1940 that Great Britain would be unable to place further orders for war materials without financial assistance.69 Despite the alleviation of U.S. naval fears in the summer, a London Times report inferred there was still enough mileage in these insecurities to ease the passage of Lend-Lease through the American government machine. In January 1941, and probably at Morgenthau’s instigation, Knox was supporting this in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee by stating that the United States “would be heavily outnumbered by the fleets of the Axis, if British sea-power should be destroyed.”70 Whatever his true motivation, Morgenthau needed to make efforts to convince his skeptical countrymen, as an earlier message from the British ambassador in Washington confirmed. In defending himself against criticism for revealing the British cash crisis to American reporters, Lord Lothian claimed that American public opinion “is saturated with illusions to the effect we have vast resources available which we have not yet disclosed.” He also recounted a third-party conversation with Roosevelt whereby the president “believed we could go on paying to July 1943.”71
The same edition of the Washington Post contained Roosevelt’s announcement on his proposed scheme to lease the British war equipment using the parable of the fire-hose, but it would be March 1941 before the Lend-Lease bill gained Senate approval.72 In the circumstances of late 1940, Churchill was in no position to resist U.S. demands for anything. The emphasis on personal testimony from American military and political leaders such as Knox, Chaney, and Morgenthau about British prospects (and value) was likely to have had more impact upon the American public than official “propaganda” press releases from Britain’s Ministry of Information. Yet it was the work of the neutral war correspondent most likely to sway opinions among the public. After the air campaigns had subsided, the Council of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association entertained many of these correspondents at the Savoy Hotel, with Quentin Reynolds and Harry Hopkins on the guest list. Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere, then chairman of the council, expressed his admiration for the way American correspondents had worked through the dangers of the blitz “to see things for themselves.” They had been “the best propagandists of Britain in America.” Mr. John Gilbert Winant, the American ambassador to the UK, concurred, pointing out that the London correspondents “more than any other group . . . taught America to be forewarned and forearmed.” Alluding to the problems of official censorship, another American speaker demanded “news when it was news and not some time after the Germans had had a chance to put their coloured interpretations before the public.”73
Despite British attempts to flatter the correspondents it was clear that representatives of the British and American press were using the occasion to take a public swipe at the Ministry of Information and the official procedures for controlling the flow of news. Substance was given to some of these complaints by correspondence with the chairman of the BBC. Back in April 1940, Mr. W. Will, chairman of the Newspaper and Periodical Emergency Council, had complained to Sir John Reith criticizing the chaotic censorship system, the preference given by the Air Ministry to the BBC over newspapers, and unnecessary delays with Admiralty censorship. Some censorship reorganization subsequently took place but it was still not enough for American correspondents.74
Mr. W. G. V. Vaughan of the MoI General Productions Division had forwarded this criticism in July to the MoI Policy Committee. He stated there was a “considerable demand, particularly from the USA, for stories from RAF pilots or the Navy of exploits.” Unfortunately, the RAF was said to have delayed these for up to a month and even then sometimes produced unsuitable material. The Admiralty was slightly better but could still take a fortnight.75 In November, Drew Middleton of the Associated Press of America had published a long list of complaints in American newspapers, citing rigorous censorship and “British capacity for understatement working overtime.” The London-based Times, however, did not think the censorship was as severe as the Americans described; journalists were allowed to be direct in military matters and American correspondents often failed to balance bad news with British successes abroad.76 British successes in the Mediterranean did not seem to be as newsworthy to American correspondents as a “review of the dark days at home.” Despite these peevish British claims there was some justification for American complaints. It was the job of the MoI to “present the national case to the public at home and abroad,” and it was also responsible for “the preparation and issue of National Propaganda” together with the issue of “news” and to control information in accordance with the requirements of security.77 One problem for the MoI appeared to be the initial lack of interest in propaganda shown by Churchill, from whom one minister of information claimed, “No interest was ever shown in the subject.”78 The role of the MoI in managing news was inevitably going to be seen as an impediment to correspondents, and as Churchill, Bracken, and Beaverbrook had all worked within the British media, it was unsurprising there was skepticism over the ability of bureaucracy to handle the task of persuading the United States.
The Royal Navy did not allow war correspondents on board their ships and “throughout the war naval censorship remained the toughest.”79 At first, the RAF did not allow them at their airfields but in any case the fighting was clearly visible from most parts of southeast England. In general, soldiers and politicians have been wary about allowing civilian reporters close to the fighting because of the potential security threat they represent, and the possibility of unwelcome criticism from these quarters. On the other hand, civilian reporters had become a “necessary evil,” as a well-founded public cynicism over the accuracy of official pronouncements required some third-party validation.80 A great deal of pressure has often been placed upon correspondents to “toe the official line” and the pressure is often effective. Unsurprisingly, correspondents from neutral countries proved more difficult to handle, and those from the United States were much less willing to accept censorship than their British counterparts because of their aggressive reporting culture. Minutes of the MoI Policy Committee show that U.S. correspondents wanted “as many facilities as they could get” and they wanted to be able to broadcast their own personal verification of people’s suffering. However, disquiet was raised about a possible public “revolt against making an exhibition of our sufferings from air raids.” It was finally agreed that more facilities be granted to the Americans but not without expressions of concern over the potential loosening of control over the British press.81
Fortunately, since the Anschluss crisis, the Foreign Office recognized that “a large part of the [American] press is very sensible and there is widespread genuine friendliness toward us, and genuine dislike of the totalitarian systems.”82 It has been pointed out that “by far the biggest volume of reporting came from American war correspondents” and they were pro-British “to a man.” This sentiment “naturally coloured American reporting and it prevented most correspondents from giving their readers a balanced view.”83 From what has already been said together with a perusal of the memoirs of a correspondent from the “isolationist heart of the United States,” this seems largely correct. Eric Sevareid clearly disapproved of many aspects of 1930s British life, writing at length about the iniquities of the “English class system,” but none of that stopped him from describing approvingly the “hysterical adulation” showered on the “average Londoner” from the United States. Neither did it prevent him from describing the pilots as “a small group of the semi-professional, the elite who seemed to us like shining knights, the airmen who could come to grips with the enemy,” The others, he said “could only take it and resist with their hearts and minds, not their hands.”84 Edward R. Murrow had originally hired Sevareid to make radio broadcasts from London to New York in 1939, and it is Murrow that Sevareid credits with best representing the British cause to America, claiming he was not only more influential than the American ambassador in London, but he was the ambassador. For Sevareid, it was the Columbia Radio Network (for which Murrow was the London chief) that first recognized that the “rigid traditional formulae of news writing” had to be discarded and replaced with “a new kind of pertinent contemporary essay [that] became the standard form.”85
Sevareid comes over as a hopeless romantic for his view of a vicious air war that had little in common with notions of chivalry. But the slightly effusive claims made on behalf of Murrow had some basis. Apart from his innovative skill in the presentation of news reports to the American public, Murrow was influential not only as an associate of the president’s envoys to Churchill, Harry Hopkins and “Wild Bill” Donovan, but also of Roosevelt himself.86 In fact, it was probably one of Murrow’s broadcasts in October 1940 that made it easier for Americans to sympathize with the British cause. Here he suggested the old Britain, for which Americans still had ambivalent feelings, was now dying as a result of the social pressures brought on by the blitz. Ordinary people were now questioning authority and demanding answers to questions like: “Why must there be 800,000 unemployed when we need shelters?” Broadcasts like this seemed to prove that American correspondents had more freedom than their British equivalents in getting information past the censor.87
A further contender to Sevareid’s nomination of Murrow for the title of unofficial ambassador to the UK would have been Quentin “Quent” Reynolds (1902–65), associate editor and war correspondent to Collier’s Weekly. Reynolds was sufficiently important to merit a London Times obituary on the occasion of his death in 1965. Reynolds became popular with the British public through the BBC’s Postscript Schicklgruber broadcast. The obituary claimed he “identified himself wholeheartedly with the British war effort” but noted that “not all American journalists were seen to be sympathetic to the British cause.”88 Strangely missing from the obituary is Reynolds’ narration of the eight-minute film documentary Britain Can Take It! (1940). This graphic depiction of London during the blitz was widely credited with helping Roosevelt gain public support for helping the British, and according to Beaverbrook was “the finest piece of propaganda that I have ever looked upon so here are my congratulations.”89 Reynolds later used his fame to make an introductory tribute to the feature film Eagle Squadron (1942) about American flyers in the Battle of Britain and with a theme of Anglo-American cooperation. Although some Americans fought in the RAF during 1940, the Eagle Squadron was not operational until 1941 and attempts to use the real pilots as actors were frustrated by the deaths in combat of all those selected to play the leads. Though viewed as a propaganda success, historian Nicholas J. Cull noted the Hollywood treatment offended the real members of the Eagle Squadron.90
Reynolds’ personal involvement in Eagle Squadron suggests the theme may have developed from the circumstances surrounding a telegram to Walter Winchell, a well-known columnist of the New York Daily Mirror during August 1940. It conveys Reynolds’ enthusiastic nature and indicates that there was a “certain number of American newspaper men here who as individuals are extremely well aware that Britain is fighting our battle.” The document also reveals Reynolds and Lord Beaverbrook’s collusion in an illegal fund-raising scheme for newsmen to buy a Spitfire out of their own pockets. Eight hundred dollars had been raised from them so far and a Spitfire was thought to cost $20,000. Reynolds credits Beaverbrook, who had only joined the War Cabinet on 2 August, with the idea for it to be flown by one of the twenty-six Americans in the RAF and have it “christened” by the king. In a typical Beaverbrook flourish, he suggested naming it after the “great newspaper man Heywood Broun” (1888–1939). It was also emphasized that the fundraising had nothing to do with the Association of American Correspondents, London. The telegram acknowledged it was “contrary to outdated neutrality laws but this [is] not [the] time [to] split hairs.”91
What became of this scheme is unknown and it seems likely either the legal problems mentioned by Reynolds may have proved insurmountable or the monetary sum proved too great a strain on the pockets of a few individuals, but it illustrates his commitment to the British cause. Winchell was influential in media circles and corresponded regularly with the director of the FBI. More significantly Winchell has been linked to William Stephenson, who led British secret intelligence service operations in the Western hemisphere, and also to the White House.92 For all the potential snags, including the blow to morale if (or more likely, when) the “Heywood Broun” aircraft was shot down, it was still a clever idea with the potential for strengthening Anglo-American ties bearing in mind Heywood Broun’s father was an English immigrant to the United States.93
Official agencies were working in the same direction at this time. As Cull notes, RAF heroism seemed Britain’s “greatest propaganda asset” by late August. The Foreign Office wrote to Sir Maurice Peterson of the MoI on 17 August mentioning a BBC broadcast by an American pilot. The memo stated “publicity of exploits of individual American pilots in our service, even if exaggerated, would have an excellent effect, and would give the hero-worshipping public of the United States a feeling of identity with the conflict.”94 The plan was to build up the image of Pilot Officer William Fiske III of New York. Unfortunately, the death of Fiske the very day of this memo as a consequence of an earlier encounter with supposedly vulnerable Ju 87 Stukas restricted the propaganda opportunities considerably.95 Perhaps wisely, with the heavy attrition rate for airmen, the British made no attempt to find a propaganda substitute for Fiske. Given the “hero-worship” paid to the American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh by the American press and public, the idea for promoting an American air ace in the British cause was understandable, given that the pro-Nazi Lindbergh was using his fame to speak against American aid to Britain in 1940.96
The advantage of the air battle was the ability to clarify the “British predicament in the United States” and express British prospects “in a simple statistic: the ratio of the losses of the Luftwaffe to the losses of the RAF.” Lord Halifax at the Foreign Office wrote to the Air Ministry: “Whatever you can do to give the American correspondents an inside view of your organisation and personnel, may, I firmly believe, have the most important influence on the help we get from the United States in the near future.”97 Some of the pro-British correspondents were still skeptical of Air Ministry claims. Gottfried Keller, president of the Foreign Press Association in London, once demanded to check the British score of twenty-six by seeing and counting the German wrecks. Having been told to cooperate fully with neutral correspondents, Barry Cornwell, south-eastern regional press and liaison officer of the MoI, drove Keller around the countryside. After fourteen wrecks, Keller was exhausted by scrambling around fields and fences and conceded defeat.98 There was simply no viable way to validate either Luftwaffe or RAF claims and most correspondents seemed content to swallow reservations and publish British figures without qualification. No wonder that following the “urging” of the Foreign Office, Churchill made his now famous tribute to “the few” in his House of Commons speech on 20 August 1940.
It was probably the medium of film that proved the most useful tool for communicating with ordinary people, and the popularity of the cowboy film helped identify American cultural preferences for British propagandists. Bill Boyd (who played Hopalong Cassidy) and Roy Rogers were among the best known actors of the period and it is a testament to the popularity of the cowboy genre that Boyd and Rogers appeared in twelve films during 1940 alone. Nevertheless it was a genre in need of modernization and it seems likely that Americans mentally projected their cultural values onto “the few” by putting the cowboy into an aircraft cockpit. The references by more than one senior British figure to the “hero-worshipping” tendencies of the Americans and the American press indicates a sharp culture clash between upper-class Britons and ordinary Americans during the 1940s. But these cultural preferences had to be accommodated and manipulating the image of the RAF pilot provided a golden opportunity. Back in 1916, the French had astutely exploited the old American revolutionary alliance by forming a squadron of American volunteers and naming them the Escadrille Lafayette after the Revolutionary-era French military advisor to the United States, the Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834). Painted on the aircraft fuselages and resplendent in war paint and feathers was a whooping Native American symbolizing not just the links between France and the United States but also between the aviator and the Wild West. In 1918, “balloon-busting” American ace Lieutenant Frank Luke Jr. from Arizona would die heroically clutching his smoking revolver in the classic manner of the Wild West hero after refusing to surrender to surrounding German troops.99 It was surely these virtues of self-reliance, fearlessness, and rugged individualism inherent in the American pioneers and cowboys that helped modern Americans readily identify with “the few” in 1940. Americans were not alone in this. Aviation appeared so modern and exciting between the wars that Germany, Italy, and Great Britain also seemed to be projecting their cultural ideals upon the aviator.100
Much of the support given to Britain from the United States in 1940 came from individuals acting either on their own initiative or willingly complying with the activities of British agencies. Reynolds’ role in Britain Can Take It! was partly to conceal the Ministry of Information’s Crown Film Unit authorship. He was originally recruited by the film entrepreneur Sidney Bernstein through the latter’s contacts with the American press corps in London, and this was said to mark the climax of MoI efforts to secure cooperation with the Americans.101
It must not be supposed that films covering aspects of the “aerial blitzkrieg” made up the entire cinematic propaganda output. Lord Louis Mountbatten had a lifelong interest in film and founded the Royal Naval Film Corporation. It was his adventures portrayed by Noël Coward in the feature film In Which We Serve (1941) that went some way to restoring the navy’s reputation with the British public after the “failures” of 1940.102 The Sea Hawk was premiered in London on 1 August 1940, shortly before the Luftwaffe intensified its campaign over England. This adventure starring Errol Flynn showed how Elizabethan England had raised its fleet specifically to counter Imperial Spain’s ambitions for world domination. The parallels were obvious as the New York Times noted: “Count on Warners to inject a note of contemporary significance.”103 Warner Brothers was an American company and Beaverbrook’s letter of invitation to the premiere asserted the company was “whole-heartedly devoted to the British cause.” The Sea Hawk was recognition that “more than 350 years ago, England faced conditions similar to today’s: King Phillip of Spain set out to conquer the world, and only England stood in his way.” England then created “the foundation of today’s navy.” The film was made in the United States but it was stressed that “its setting, its spirit, and most of the principal players are British.”104 The text of Queen Elizabeth’s climactic final speech was an example of “classic propaganda” designed to resonate with “high-minded” Americans and talked of one man’s ruthless ambition engulfing the world.105 The motivations for making The Sea Hawk were clearly altruistic in part. Harry M. Warner’s anti-Nazi feelings undoubtedly stemmed from his Jewish background, though Jewish producers were initially cautious because of fears of an anti-Semitic backlash.106 The theme of Jewish film producers turning America against Germany was one frequently asserted by isolationists such as Lindbergh.107 The Sea Hawk was in a similar genre to the later The Young Mr. Pitt (1942), made in Britain, where comparisons between Pitt (an eighteenth-century prime minister) and the Napoleonic Wars and Churchill and the Battle of Britain were made very plain. The British connections were obviously stressed in the hope that Beaverbrook, as a well-known figure on both sides of the Atlantic, might give the takings a boost by publicly endorsing it. The slightly desperate tone of the letter also reflects the resistance put up by the MoI against Warner’s overtures owing to the fear of alienating his competitors.108 Attempting to “arouse the world to the active and ever-expanding menace of Nazism in every country from within,” Confessions of a Nazi Spy presented a semi-documentary account of “actual facts of German operations in America” even before the war had started. It was emphasized that Warner Bros. did not make it for financial rewards, and where German coercion had caused some countries to ban the film, Harry M. Warner had tried to undermine the pressure by offering to give the box-office takings to the Red Cross. These films effectively put out ideas to Americans with reflective temperaments and an interest in historical precedent but may not have connected with the rest of the population.
One novel feature of the Why We Fight series was Churchill’s personal filmed appearance commending the films as an authoritative version of events. A clear break with precedent was now being seen. Unlike the media-conscious public figures of the late twentieth century, newsreel appearances by British politicians were something most of them wanted to avoid partly because the British media had never demanded this of them. A letter to Beaverbrook in June 1941 from Commander A. W. Jarratt, deputy chairman of the Royal Naval Film Corporation, complained bitterly of the “lukewarm support given by the Ministers of His Majesty’s Government to the efforts of the British Film Industry for propaganda films to be sent to the United States.” Jarratt claimed the MoI had been told that Americans needed to see the ministers speak in newsreels occasionally but also, “not only did the Ministers refuse to be photographed but the Prime Minister was not favourable to the idea.” Harry Warner was quoted as being particularly concerned that Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden had refused to appear. Fortunately, Jarratt managed to see Brendan Bracken who persuaded the prime minister to speak from the screens of America. He warned that unless politicians changed their attitude “Americans will lose all their enthusiasm with [British films on] the screens of America and we shall find ourselves shortly in the position of making films and not having them shown.” A further grumble lay in the lack of coordination in distributing film propaganda, with all departments having their own film propaganda.109 All this confirms an Anglo-American culture clash in terms of a British failure to project personality and emotion on film together with the existence of a celebrity culture more strongly established in the United States than the UK. Deference was still a defining characteristic of British society, and public-school-educated politicians, more inclined to make a virtue of hiding their feelings, found the American media culture intrusive.
Perhaps more than any other individual, the American film director Frank Capra was most responsible for cementing the concept of the Battle of Britain as an exclusive air campaign to prevent invasion. The reasons why Capra had made the Why We Fight series are clear and some appear within his autobiography The Name Above the Title. A well-known director of feature films during the 1930s, Capra had been charged by General George S. Marshall, the U.S. chief of staff, with making documentary films for the purpose of showing why we are fighting and to explain the principles.110 Without prior experience of documentary filmmaking, Capra viewed Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda classic Triumph of the Will, together with other enemy newsreels, and borrowed from them the exciting techniques of German filmmaking in war. The Why We Fight series was aimed at recruits to the U.S. Army but was also used by the other armed services in America, Britain, and the British Empire, and Churchill was credited with the order for it to be shown in British cinemas.
Capra claimed the series became the definitive answer to: “What was government policy during the dire decade 1931–41?” Marshall’s advice had been that if Capra was unable to get a clear official answer to what policy was on any aspect during this time—“and this was often”—he was to “make [his] own best estimate, and see if they don’t agree with [him] later,” inferring considerable latitude in film content. Capra later remarked, “By extrapolation the film series was also accepted as the official policy of our allies.”111 Capra also suggested it was Churchill, whom he had met through Sidney Bernstein, then head of the MoI Crown Film Unit, who put forward the idea to personally present a foreword “to introduce your great films to a grateful British public.”112
The Battle of Britain opened to a “Disney-style” animated map followed by newsreels showing the inexorable march of German troops progressing to Paris, Dunkirk, and Calais. Over this came an American voice stating the British nation was “the one obstacle that stood between him [Hitler] and world conquest.” In case the point had not been made sufficiently it was reiterated that Hitler had to “crush the island” as this would be “the way open for world conquest.” Yet Hitler had to be careful as “a slip now might ruin the timetable for world conquest.” Once Britain was defeated, the combined fleets of Germany, Britain, Italy, and Japan would “hem us in.” As the film progressed the narrator described an invasion fleet of “high-speed barges” and spoke over a “Disney” map of the Channel showing animated warships. “The British knew it would be suicide to use the fleet in the English Channel without control of the air.” The climax of the day fighting over London on 15 September 1940 was shown with images of swooping fighters accompanied by a statement that 185 enemy aircraft had been shot down, forcing the Germans to adopt night attacks from 6 October. The contribution of RDF was ignored, with the early-warning system represented solely by ground observers using visual and audio detection equipment. While bombs fell at night, “the RAF wasn’t much help—just German bombs against British guts.” Bombs were said to “fall alike on the East End and Mayfair rich.” The Luftwaffe leveling of Coventry was portrayed as vindictive revenge for a successful RAF raid on the legitimate military target of Bremen’s submarine yards. Toward the end of the film statements were made to clarify the idea that it was a clash of democracy versus totalitarianism. “In a democracy it is not the government that makes war, it is the people.” Also, “they knew it was the People’s War . . . a regimented people met a free people in a new kind of war . . . they won for the people of the world.”113 The use of Walt Disney’s animation techniques and real action shots of air combat from newsreels made thrilling and compulsive viewing that is just as dramatic today as it was in 1942.
There was enough truth in this account to be convincing, though whether American audiences preferred to believe it was the Battle of Britain that saved the world rather than U.S. entry in the wake of Pearl Harbor may be doubted. Churchill had consistently refused to state specific war aims except for a terse “victory,” but the film, indeed the whole series, obviously helped fill a vacuum he was unable to cover as leader of a political coalition.114 A fight for “freedom” was suitably vague and could mean whatever one wanted it to mean. With its heavy focus on the air campaigns and an unintended diminution of the navy, the “aerial blitzkrieg” was no longer simply part of the Battle of Britain. Now merged with the daylight battles it was the Battle of Britain. Although Capra did not mention it, the MoI would have given him the best-selling official HMSO pamphlet Battle of Britain, which was officially described as how “a thousand anonymous young men had fought one of the decisive battles of the world.”115 The conspicuous absence of RDF from the film, also missing from the HMSO pamphlet, suggests that Capra may have been heavily reliant on this publication.116 He would also have been influenced by accounts read in the American press.
The idea that Hitler had a “timetable for world conquest” has already been challenged in an earlier chapter, as has the idea that the British fleet could not survive in the Channel. Far from being made up of high-speed barges, the invasion fleet was an improvised armada of unseaworthy towed river barges. Furthermore, the exaggerated scores of 15 September 1940 and hence the importance of Fighter Command were flawed ideas again rammed home in this film. The undeniable failure of Fighter Command in the blitz was given a positive spin by creating an opportunity for the British to show their admirable stoic heroism in the face of adversity.
Naturally, a propaganda film such as this was hardly going to point out that it was the RAF that had begun the indiscriminate war on a civilian population and that the German decision to do the same only came later. Neither was it mentioned that London’s East End working class had suffered disproportionately in the blitz. However, a strict adherence to the actual facts is not part of the propagandist’s job. That the British believed these to be the actual facts was because the prime minister had personally assured them that facts had been accurately recorded and the American narration had paid them generous compliments. From this point onward Capra’s view of the conflict set the legend into stone and for this reason the film was undoubtedly far more important to the British public than to the American servicemen for whom it was originally made.
That the Battle of Britain became an Anglo-American media construct is clear but it was less Anglo than American. An aggressive American press culture ensured U.S. correspondents hunted for a wider variety of news angles than the lines fed to them by official sources, and the dearth of quality news forced them to be more innovative in their methods. This culture was characterized by loud and assertive complaints when demands went unmet, something alien to British correspondents in the 1940s.117 Neither the British nor the American press held implicit faith in the veracity of the controlled information doled out by a necessarily cautious bureaucracy, but desperate political needs ensured that American newsmen received more active cooperation and less official obstructionism when out and about pursuing stories. “Hero-worship” was the perceived American susceptibility that all wished to exploit and the British were dragged along in the wake of the American press’ inspired efforts to meet it. This imbalance was less noticeable in the area of film but it was an American film based on an HMSO publication—publicly commended by the prime minister—that was to have the greatest impact on the legend’s formulation. With former journalists at the center of British political power there were no precise divisions within the construction. Ultimately it was a fusion of effort by artists, politicians, press figures, academics, and civil servants of both nations all acting within hazy parameters and without a coherent overarching plan for maximizing U.S. involvement.
Analysis of the newspaper articles suggests that for the American press the term “Battle of Britain” was a flexible one. It was largely a generic term but for several weeks simply meant the battle for the British fleet to remain “in being” as an obstacle for Axis expansion into American spheres of interest. Initially it had no air dimension whatsoever and as air activity increased during August the common American press term for the air campaigns was “aerial blitzkrieg.” Fears subsided following the mandate for seizing British, French, and Dutch possessions in the Caribbean and Central America, agreed at Havana in late July. These fears fell further with the fleet guarantees given in early September, and Americans could now concentrate on the aerial blitzkrieg that only entered intensive phases during August. Along with the defensive war waged by Fighter Command and covered by sympathetic American correspondents, there was substantial coverage of Bomber Command’s parallel efforts to destroy targets in Europe—suggesting that in 1940 at least this was also perceived as part of the Battle of Britain.
With summer passing and the likelihood for invasion receding until 1941, attention naturally focused on whether the British would give way under unprecedented air bombardment and negotiate peace with Germany. Some writers were therefore beginning to see the “aerial blitzkrieg” of London as the real Battle of Britain. Cinemagoers were also subjected to a series of historical feature films drawing parallels between the naval battles of previous centuries with the Battle of Britain in 1940. For most Americans, including those who did not closely follow current affairs in their newspapers, Frank Capra and Winston Churchill clarified everything in 1942. With America now in the war, everyone needed to fight in order to ensure the success of the “free” over the “regimented.” That the struggle had continued was only because the RAF and the British people prevailed in the air campaigns known as the Battle of Britain, allowing the United States time to rearm. This version has proved so attractive to the British public it seems unlikely to be relinquished whatever holes academics might shoot through it.
For all the various stratagems adopted, the propaganda failed to bring the United States into the war in 1940. On the contrary, the opinion poll evidence suggests considerable U.S. public complacency in view of British “success” at the close of 1940. British naval power was the main bargaining chip Churchill had to play with in the first weeks of his premiership but he did not play it with conspicuous skill. As the Americans gradually curbed their naval fears through British concessions, “technical expertise” and “sympathy” became the only political cards left to play. The Foreign Office and the MoI, aided by friendly correspondents, fought for U.S. sympathy by manipulating American hero-worshipping tendencies. In the event, most Americans managed to place their sympathy and their interventionist inclinations into separate watertight compartments. At least helping Britain with aid meant jobs and profits accruing to American industry, together with the “free” research and development information essential for speedy rearmament. It may also have eased any pangs of guilt. For Roosevelt, it was also an opportunity to strengthen U.S. power and weaken imperialism abroad at British expense in line with his navalist beliefs, and his cards were played with more skill. The British experiences of having to fight the “aerial blitzkrieg” assisted the American rearmament program but in the short-term British gains were ephemeral and mainly limited to the boosting of their self-esteem.118 Immediately prior to 7 December 1941, Roosevelt seemed no nearer to direct intervention—only Hitler’s declaration of war following Pearl Harbor achieved this. Where the propaganda had succeeded was in allowing Roosevelt to propose a series of initiatives to circumvent neutrality laws preventing credit for purchasing war supplies. Not that this resulted in much material help yet, but the drive for Lend-Lease had begun, enabling the fight to continue during 1941.