The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

by Erik Larson

Church belfries went silent throughout Britain. Their bells were now the designated alarm, to be rung only when “Cromwell” was invoked and the invaders were on their way.

Eerie

The full moon and its waxing and waning gibbous phases became known as the “bomber’s moon.”

I feel like I've heard that phrase

Coveting power for power’s sake was a “base” pursuit, he wrote, adding, “But power in a national crisis, when a man believes he knows what orders should be given, is a blessing.”

From the very start, Churchill understood a fundamental truth about the war: that he could not win it without the eventual participation of the United States.

Impressive line he walked

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

He worked on his radio speech until the last minute, from six to nine that night, before settling himself in front of a BBC microphone.

Wow - unrehearsed - amazing given how good of a speaker he was. One of the best!

From time to time, Thompson recalled, Churchill would abruptly brandish his revolver and, “roguishly and with delight,” exclaim: “You see, Thompson, they will never take me alive! I will get one or two before they can shoot me down.”

Amazing mental image. I found this: https://images.app.goo.gl/H8EX3nXuqnLJdM7L6

The ministry’s array of “secret transmitters,” masquerading as English radio stations but based in Germany, were now to be deployed, “to arouse alarm and fear among the British people.” They were to take pains to disguise their German origins, even to the point of starting broadcasts with criticism of the Nazi Party, and fill their reports with grisly details of air-raid deaths and injuries, so that when the first air raids against England took place, the populace would be primed for panic.

Fake news! Formerly known as propaganda.

“You knew the fate of civilization was being decided fifteen thousand feet above your head in a world of sun, wind and sky,” she wrote. “You knew it, but even so it was hard to take it in.”

“It is curious,” Colville wrote, “to see how, as it were, he fertilizes a phrase or a line of poetry for weeks and then gives birth to it in a speech.”

One of my favorite insights from this book - how he's constantly testing messages on everyone around him for weeks before deploying it.

WHAT THE ATTACKS ON London seemed clearly to unleash was a new sexuality, as Joan Wyndham’s lover, Rupert, had already found. As bombs fell, libidos soared. “No one wanted to be alone,” wrote Virginia Cowles. “You heard respectable young ladies saying to their escorts: ‘I’m not going home unless you promise to spend the night.’

The raid—subsequently dubbed “the Good Friday Raid”—lasted six hours, during which the bombers dropped nearly two hundred tons of high explosives and thirty-seven thousand incendiary bombs, killing 180 civilians and wounding another 382.

37,000 bombs!!!

Harriman noticed that as Churchill moved among the crowds, he used “his trick” of making direct eye contact with individuals. At one point, believing Churchill to be out of earshot, Harriman told Pug Ismay, “The Prime Minister seems popular with the middle-aged women.” Churchill heard the remark. He whirled to face Harriman. “What did you say? Not only with the middle-aged women; with the young ones too.”

Most politicians seem good at the eye trick

He told the audience that he tried to get away from “headquarters” as much as possible to visit bombed areas, “and I see the damage done by the enemy attacks; but I also see side by side with the devastation and amid the ruins quiet, confident, bright and smiling eyes, beaming with a consciousness of being associated with a cause far higher than any human or personal issue. I see the spirit of an unconquerable people.”

Among the people around him he saw only an interested calm, which astonished him. “They acted,” he wrote, “as if the bombing were like a thunderstorm.”

Keep calm and... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On#/media/File:Keep-calm-and-carry-on-scan.jpg

Bombs fell; clothes were shed. As a friend later told Pamela’s biographer Sally Bedell Smith, “A big bombing raid is a very good way to get into bed with somebody.”

By now, what had long been clear to Churchill was also clear to Harriman: that Britain had no hope of winning the war without the direct intervention of the United States. Harriman understood that it was his own role to serve as a lens through which Roosevelt could see beyond censorship and propaganda into the heart of Britain’s war-making architecture. He knew aircraft totals, production rates, food reserves, and the disposition of warships; and, thanks to the many visits to bombed cities, he knew the scent of cordite and decomposing bodies. Just as important, he understood the interplay of personalities around Churchill.

Smart

“Those in the plane were transfixed with delight to look down from the windows and see the amazing spectacle of a whole city lighted up. Washington represented something immensely precious. Freedom, hope, strength. We had not seen an illuminated city for two years. My heart filled.”

“Winston Churchill was stark naked, a drink in one hand, a cigar in the other.” The president prepared to wheel himself out. “Come on in, Franklin,” Churchill said. “We’re quite alone.” The president offered what Thompson called an “odd shrug,” then wheeled himself in. “You see, Mr. President,” Churchill said, “I have nothing to hide.”

Old school