When Prime Minister Winston Churchill left London on a Friday evening in May 1941, to spend the weekend at Chequers Court, he was not in a cheerful mood. The fortunes of war did not favour his fellow countrymen. The British army had been evicted from the continent a year earlier, and France – Britain’s most powerful ally – had surrendered shortly afterwards. After the disasters in May and June 1940, Britain had almost been forced out of the war. Only the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the obstacle presented to the Germans by the Channel, allowed her to battle on. Nevertheless, the war so far had been one of setbacks, defeats and disasters.
After the week that had just passed, the situation looked even bleaker. The Blitz still persisted. A bomb had recently wrecked the House of Commons and many surrounding buildings. In the Atlantic, the German submarines became more and more aggressive and a few days earlier a convoy had lost seven merchant ships in a single attack. In North Africa and the Middle East the situation was no brighter. An insurrection in Iraq threatened the vital British supply of oil from the region and in Libya a German general, Rommel (who was yet to become famous), had advanced from the Sirte to the border of Egypt and laid siege to Tobruk.
The latest crisis that had occurred was at Crete, which had been assaulted by German paratroopers and where a violent battle ensued in dust and heat. At first news had reached the British Prime Minister that the German attack might have failed. The enemy had suffered serious losses and initial reports reaching London presented a bright picture. But the situation changed. Suddenly he had to face the fact that defeat was not only a possibility, but a likely one.
To make matters worse still, news had reached London that the brand new German battleship Bismarck had been sighted in the Kattegat, accompanied by a heavy cruiser. She had anchored at Bergen in occupied Norway, only to slip away in the poor weather. For the moment no one knew where she was. Was she heading back towards Germany, after a concluded mission, or did she intend to break out into the vast expanses of the Atlantic? The latter scenario could mean catastrophe to the British convoys that were plodding along the routes over the Atlantic. Churchill was concerned especially about a major troop transport heading for the Middle East.
Churchill’s bad mood was not alleviated during the dinner with his family and the invited guests who were at Chequers Court. Almost silently he ate his food, pondering on the gloomy situation for the British Empire. He uttered a few sentences to Averell Harriman, the envoy of President Roosevelt who had come to Britain to administer lend-lease weapons and ordnance, and to generals Ismay and Pownall, who were to stay at Chequers during the weekend. After the meal, Churchill’s son-in-law went to the piano and began to play the ‘Apassionata’ by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Possibly thoughts about the high casualties suffered at Crete were foremost in his mind, when Churchill turned to his son-in-law and said in a high tone: ‘Not now, Oliver! The last I want to hear tonight is a funeral march.’
‘Why?’ asked the baffled son-in-law. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘No funeral march in my house,’ said the Prime Minister, who obviously confused the piece of music with something else. The family and the guests smiled at the situation.
Later in the evening, news reaching the Prime Minister slightly cheered him up. The Suffolk had sighted the Bismarck on the way towards the Atlantic. The Suffolk, assisted by the cruiser Norfolk, had immediately begun to shadow the German squadron. Admiral Lancelot Holland was already at sea, with the battlecruiser Hood and the brand new battleship Prince of Wales. His squadron was on a course to intercept the Bismarck. Hopefully the German battleship could be brought to battle sometime after midnight.
Could this be the chance for a victory, to offset the negative political consequences of all defeats suffered thus far? Of course, in a naval battle almost anything could happen, but if the two British capital ships, together with Norfolk and Suffolk, could attack Bismarck and her lone cruiser, the outcome seemed to be clear. Churchill had a direct telephone line to the Admiralty and the First Sea Lord, Dudley Pound, who had promised to stay at the Admiralty until the operation against the Bismarck had ended. The Prime Minister would be informed as soon as anything particular happened at sea.
The hours passed without the phone ringing. Churchill’s wife and the rest of the family went to bed; Ismay and Pownall too found the hour late. The Prime Minister stayed up together with Harriman for a few hours after midnight, but just before 3.00 am they, too, went to bed.
When Churchill woke up the following morning the sky was grey and unusually strong winds swept over England. Rain rattled on the windows behind the curfew curtains.
Surprised, the Prime Minister blinked at the secretary who had just woken him. Then he remembered.
‘Have we caught her?’ he exclaimed. ‘Have we caught the Bismarck?’
The secretary shook his head.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘but unfortunately the Hood has been sunk.’