Overview:
This is an account of World War 2 from the British and German perspectives. From Churchill’s, and Hitler’s perspectives. How the people were impacted by the air forces, and the bombs. How each adapted to their situations. Each side had various assumptions about the capacity of the opposition. They were not sure if the capacity was actual, or fiction. Hitler thought that the British would accept a peace treaty, while no British trusted Hitler to uphold any treaty. As Hitler wanted peace with the British, the air raids were initially meant for military and strategically valuable targets. But after a German bomber got lost, they inadvertently raided London without thinking that it was London. The attack on London, provided the moral justification to reciprocate an attack on Berlin.

The air raids became likely, and predictable. The British peoples changed how they organized their time. They went to work in the morning, and returned to public shelters at night. Some shelters even started their own publications. The German peoples had access to the British public broadcasting stations, and were listening to them. The German propaganda claimed this was an act of sabotage. Rather than deterring people from listening to the broadcasts, the German people found them irresistible, and kept this listening behavior secret.

Churchill’s Persona:
As Chamberlain had to resign as Prime Minister. The resignation meant that there were two people favored to take the post. It was going to go to either Halifax or Churchill. Halifax was seen as more stable than Churchill. Halifax was thought to be an individual who could prevent another catastrophe. Halifax acknowledged a personal limitation in the ability to lead during a time of war, and therefore did not want to the position. Some blamed Hitler for the rise of Churchill, because it was Hitler who declared Churchill an enemy, thereby making Churchill the hero for the British and U.S.

Churchill’s character was predictably unpredictable. Churchill was able to compartmentalize information, had perspective, and was able to change attitude quickly. Was seen as taking dynamic actions, in various decisions, contemporaneously. An agent of too much change, too quickly.

When Churchill wanted an answer to problems no matter how complex they were, everything else had to be dropped, and the responses to arrive quickly. Communication had to change, to provide the information needed without unnecessary claims, so that a lot of time and energy was not needed in deciphering the vital information.

Churchill updated the public with speeches that gave an account of facts tempered by reasoned optimism. While avoiding what was happening would have been foolish, it would have been more foolish to demoralize the people.

The Need For Allies:
The British did not think that France would fall to the Germans. France was meant to limit German invasion capabilities by reducing the reach and lethality of the bombers. When France did fall, military forces had evacuated from Dunkirk successfully. Using the strategy of many boats of various types had been effective, but could also be used in reverse. The lesson learned was that a German invasion would be more difficult to prevent than the British assumed.

Churchill understood from the start, that the war could not be won without the participation of the United States. Alone, Britain could endure and prevent German expansion, but could do more without the industrial might and armed forces of America. Churchill wanted to get the United States into the war quickly, because they believed that the British air force was inferior to the German air forces.

The Germans also thought America would shift power, and did not want to get America involved. Germany’s also thought that their air and navy capacities were deemed far greater and better than the British. German forces were able to prevent various supplies from reaching the British.

The American public did not want to be in any war. They had an isolationist stance, and opposed a declaration of war.

Searching For Peace, And Reprisals:
Hitler was not very interested in invading England. Hitler assumed that the British forces were completely out matched and in disarray. Hitler also thought that Churchill would see the inevitable, thereby stop opposing Hitler, and submit. Hitler used various secret channels to ask Churchill for peace. Hitler’s goal was Soviet Russia, and did not want a war on two fronts.

Hitler ordered the air force to focus on British air forces and various military industrial targets. Did not want to attack London and other civilian districts, to not only prevent potential reprisal raids on Berlin, but also the hope for a peace deal with Churchill. The British did not understand why the German air raids went after the military targets without much a focused pattern, while leaving London alone.

After the inadvertent attack on London, and the reprisal on Berlin, Hitler was no longer reluctant to attack London. Still wanted to focus on strategically valuable targets to prevent a mass panic, but understood that the inaccuracy of the bombings meant that the attacks would inflict damage on civilian districts. Hitler still wanted peace with the British, rather than seeking their destruction. The problem was recognized that for a peace agreement to be considered, would require assurance that Hitler would honor the agreement, while nobody believed that Hitler would adhere to any treaty.

Caveats?
The focus is mostly narrative and personal experiences, which means there was not many explanations of the content and information on the rest of the war. Although there were some German perspectives, but the book focused mostly on Churchill and those who surrounded Churchill. There was barely any information of the other nations involved in the war. ( )

[water damaged hardback]

It was quite engaging. ( )

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: 2/25/ 2020; 978-0385348713; Crown; First Edition; 608 pp. (including list of references))
(Digital: Yes.)
Audio: 1/22/2002; 978-0593167182; Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group; Unabridged; Duration 17:57:21 (15 parts); Unabridged.
(Film: no. at least not yet).

SERIES:
No

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Winston S. Churchill – Prime Minister of Britain.
Clementine (pronounced Clementeen) Churchill – Winston’s wife.
Mary Churchill – Winston’s youngest living daughter—17 at the commencing focal time of this book, 1940.
Diana Churchill Sandys – Winston’s eldest daughter – 30 at the commencing focal time of this book, 1940.
Duncan Sandys – Diana’s husband.
Sarah (Mule) Churchill – The second daughter – age 25 at the commencing focal time of this book, 1940. (an actress)
Vic Oliver – Sarah’s husband – age 41 (an Austrian actor)
Randolph Churchill – 4th child of Winston and Clementine – age 28 at the commencing focal time of this book, 1940.
Pamela Digby Churchill – Randolph’s new bride from the year before the commencing focal time of this book – age 20.
Judith Ventia Montagu – Mary’s close cousin – age 17.
Walter Henry Thompson – Scotland Yard’s Special Branch Detective (“a ‘dogsbody’, in the parlance of the time.”)
John (Jock) Colville – Assistant private secretary to Prime Minister Chamberlain, and then to Winston.
King George VI
Queen Elizabeth
Neville Chamberlain – former Prime Minister of Britain
Franklin D. Roosevelt – U.S. President
Joseph Kennedy – American ambassador to Britain
Lord Halifax – Foreign secretary
Hastings (Pug) Ismay – General military chief of staff
(William) Averell Harriman – Franklin’s special envoy to Europe (and Pamela’s love interest)
Robert Meiklejohn – Harriman’s secretary.
William Maxwell Aitkin - Lord Beaverbrook – Minister of Aircraft Production
Frederick Lindemann – 1st Viscount Cherwell – British physicist – prime scientific advisor to Winston.
Harry Lloyd Hopkins – Franklin’s advisor on foreign policy – supervised the Lend-Lease program of military aid to the Allies.
Adolf Hitler- Austrian-born German politician – dictator or Germany – leader of the Nazi Party.
Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s chief propagandist
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess – Adolf’s Deputy Fuhrer
Hermann Goring - Chairman of a new six-person Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
Erik tells us that he didn’t truly comprehend the affect of 911 on New Yorkers until he moved to Manhattan and lived among those whose homeland was attacked, and it started him pondering, how Londoners withstood 57 straight days of bombing….and so he had to research it and share it with us. A generous gesture indeed. He adds a lot of fact and texture to the stories of the many lives we are, to varying degrees, familiar with.
One of the many issues this book led me to consider, was America’s resistance to assist Britain in its struggle against a hostile take-over by a country lusting for blood, even of its own citizens, until America itself was attacked.
For me, it fueled my belief that sometimes security and comfort can instill a false sense of superiority. It seems that is easier to be a moralist (war—sending one’s citizens to kill and be killed—is evil) when one is comfortable and under no threat. When, in retrospect at least, it seems the evil was in making no effort to protect Allied countries from being overrun, terrorized and crushed by a country with no regard for humanity eager to instill fear and suffering, and supplant cultures of rich intellect, beauty, and joy, built over centuries, with what would have amounted to hostile enslavement, until the threat arrived at our own front door. I’m sure there were factors of which I am unaware, and hindsight if 20 20 vision, but I’m just sayin’.
If, like me, you enjoy audio books, this one is masterfully narrated by one of my favorite narrators, John Lee. But pick up a copy of the book and read the acknowledgements, because, like the forward (entitled, “A Note to Readers”), it is an essential part of Erik’s story-telling genius in this work.

AUTHOR:
Erik Larson (1/3/1954). According to the book’s end fly-leaf, “Erik Larson is the author of five national bestsellers: Dead Wake [read it], In the Garden of Beasts [read it], Thunderstruck [read it], The Devil in the White City [read it], and Isaac’s storm [what? I missed one?] which have collectively sold more than 9 million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries [nearly?].”

NARRATOR(S):
John [Rafter] Lee. As I mentioned in my last review where John was the narrator, oddly, Wikipedia and IMDb (Wikipedia’s source, so no wonder) make no mention of the many books John has narrated, but instead list his filmography (nothing I have seen, but probably because he is British), television roles, and video game roles. Apparently, he is also a playwright and producer.

GENRE:
Non-fiction, history, biography

LOCATIONS:
London, Chequers, 10 Downing Street

TIME FRAME:
1940-1941

SUBJECTS:
WWII, 1939-1945; Bletchley code breakers; Radar; fighter planes; bombs; family; romance; London; community; resilience; finances; foreign relations; America’s attitude toward joining WWII; Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965; Prime Ministers; Great Britain; Campaigns; Social aspects of WWII in Britain

DEDICATION:
“To David Woodrum –for secret reasons”

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
“’All of a sudden about midnight [I] heard a rain of objects on the roof and against the building and saw bright flashing blue lights through the drawn curtains, he wrote in his diary. ‘Took a look out and saw dozens of incendiaries sputtering around in the street and small park below, making a bluish light like electric sparks, my first close contact with incendiaries.’ As he watched, he heard noises in the hall and found that his neighbors were heading down to the shelter in the building’s basement. A visiting airman had advised them that incendiaries were invariably followed by bombs.
‘I took the hint,’ Meiklejohn wrote. He put on his treasured fur coat---‘I didn’t want it to get blitzed.’—and headed downstairs to begin his first-ever night in a shelter.
Soon high-explosive bombs began to fall. At one A.M. a bomb landed just beyond a corner of the building, igniting a gas main that lit the night so brightly, Meiklejohn believed he could have read a newspaper by its light. ‘This caused considerable stir among those who knew what it was all about,’ he wrote, ‘because it was almost a sure thing that the bombers would concentrate on us with the fires as a target.’
More incendiaries fell. ‘Then the bombs started coming down fast after a while, in ‘sticks’ of three and six that sounded like gun salvos.’ The upper floors of neighboring buildings caught fire. Detonations shook the building. Several times during lulls in the bombing, Meiklejohn and a trio of U.S. Army officers left the building to examine the accumulating damage, careful not to venture more than a block away.”

RATING:
5 stars. It must have been such a tremendous challenge to weave so many quotes from diaries, correspondences, reports, and what-not, from such a huge cast of characters, into so robustly comprehensive and cohesive a rendering of these lives and times; striving, all the while, to add unique and as-yet untold peeks into the hearts and souls of those who shepherded nations through the war and into the future, with such panache.

STARTED-FINISHED 7/7/21 - 8/8/21 ( )

Very good book. Erik Larson is one of my favorite authors. About Winston Churchill and the Blitz. ( )