Just before dawn …?

It was said to be Britain’s darkest hour, but God had other plans

It was Britain’s darkest hour. The events over the period of a few months in 1940 would determine the future, not just of our own country, but the whole World. The Nazi menace was on our doorstep, peering in and already salivating over the spoils. The odds were on their side, they had been proven invincible in Europe, each country falling in turn, like a cascade of dominoes. We were next. Defeat for us was unthinkable, no less than the destruction of a civilisation that had stood, unshakeably, for nearly a millennium.

In the spring of 1940 the Nazi Third Reich was one of the largest Empires the world had ever seen. It directly controlled or infuenced almost all of continental Europe, large parts of North Africa, and had not been defeated. Adolf Hitler seemed invincible. German casualties of war had been minimal and the people were mostly totally behind their deranged Fuhrer. On the 10th of May he launched his forces against France and Belgium. It was over in two weeks and the British army found itself trapped and encircled, mocked by the Nazi boast that it was moving in for the kill.

Our army, numbering over 300,000, was stranded and the only salvation was a full evacuation over the English Channel. This withdrawal, at Dunkirk, has been well documented and has the unique distinction of being both a day of national setback and national heroism. On the BBC website it is described as the ‘miracle’ of Dunkirk and Churchill himself called it ‘a miracle of deliverance.’ So what made this so special?

Deliverance by sea

Where shall we start? Firstly, the manner of the rescue. These soldiers weren’t just rescued by a convoy of warships, destroyers and transport ships, but also by a hotch-potch of vessels – yachts, fshing boats, rowing boats, motor boats – some taken there by their owners, eager to ‘do their bit’. It was a truly heroic civilian operation. Secondly, there was a curious decision made by Hitler to hold his troops back and not attack the trapped British army. This was later described by some historians as Hitler’s frst really fatal mistake of the war. Thirdly, there was the matter of the German airforce. It was stranded in Flanders, hemmed in by a furious storm and unable to attack the retreating boats. Fourthly was the fact that, despite this storm a few miles away, the English Channel was still and calm. Finally was the fact that, when some German planes did manage to attack, casualties were very low. A curious combination of factors that ensured that, for those who witnessed Dunkirk, miracle seemed to be the frst word that came to their lips.

We move on a few months to the summer of that same year …

Deliverance by air

No-one expected Britain to hold out, even the Americans contacted Churchill and asked if the Royal Navy would be sent to Canada when England fell. “We will survive, not surrender !” growled Winston Churchill, our wartime leader. It was brave rhetoric, as few believed him in their heart.

The German air-force – the Luftwafe – was poised. If the Nazis were to mount a successful invasion, there was a small matter of the British air force, the RAF, to deal with frst. It was a small matter, after all Germany had almost 2,800 operational aircraft, against some 900 British fghters. There were also few pilots in Britain, many had already been lost and numbers had to be made up with untrained youngsters and an overseas contingent from the British colonies and other countries. Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwafe, had promised Hitler that the Luftwafe could destroy the RAF prior to the landings in Britain, at which time some 260,000 German troops would then be landed along the English coast.

It began on August 13, with attacks on the British airfelds and radar stations. The Battle of Britain had started. These attacks on the airfelds continued through to August 24 and the RAF sufered greatly. Almost 25% of their pilots were lost then and, if the Germans had continued these attacks, the RAF would surely have been destroyed. But Goering then changed tactics, switching the attack from the airfelds to the control centres, which sustained major damage, severely compromising the command infrastructure.

Nevertheless, the Luftwafe were also losing many planes, but, as they had so many more than the British, they coped with this. Hitler was itching for the invasion and good weather for it would not last past September. They had to act soon. The writing was on the wall.

Then something strange happened …

A student of history comes across these instances quite often. The afairs of mankind are sprinkled with little accidents, unforeseen factors, errors of judgement, illogical decisions and the like. Sometimes they are insignifcant in terms of consequences, but occasionally they alter the course of major events.

There’s a huge list of them – The Charge of the Light Brigade, Custer’s last stand, Napoleon’s Russian campaign, Hitler’s Russian campaign, all attempts at taming Afghanistan – to name but a few. Military and World leaders who overstep the mark sometimes manage to shoot themselves in their foot, through a combination of madness, pride, or sheer bad luck.

So what did happen to derail Hitler’s ambitions? One single German airman, a simple bomber, altered the course of history. Stuck in a fog over London and tired after a long day of mayhem, he mistakenly dropped the remainder of his bombs over the City of London on August 24 – a civilian rather than a military target. Winston is incensed and the RAF responds by mounting a major raid on Berlin on the following night. Causing only minor damage, this raid embarrassed Goering, who had promised Hitler that Germany would never be bombed. Hitler, enraged at this, ordered Goering to switch the bombing campaign to London civilian targets in retaliation.

On September 7 the Blitz began. German bombers appeared in force over London and for the next ffty-seven nights, night-time raids would pound Britain’s cities in an attempt to break the will of the British to fght. Although a tragedy for the civilian population, it released the pressure on the RAF, who were unexpectedly given time to replenish airplanes and trained pilots. The key day was September 15.

Hinges of history

Churchill, in his War Memoirs, gives September 15 as “the culminating date” in the Battle of Britain. He tells how he visited the RAF Operations Room that day and watched the progress of the battle in the skies, as the Luftwafe attacked and attacked. At one point he asked the Air Marshal, “what other reserves have we?” The answer came. “There are none.” Then another fve minutes passed, and he later wrote “it appeared that the enemy were going home. The shifting of the discs on the table showed a continuous eastward movement of German bombers and fghters. No new attack appeared. In another ten minutes the action was ended.” The Luftwafe had had enough and decided to go home, snatching defeat from the hands of victory!

It was, in fact, the end of the Battle of Britain and, soon afterwards, Hitler ordered the indefnite postponement of his invasion plans. So Hitler was thwarted in his plans for Britain. His plans were certainly achievable, historians are clear on this, but we’re not all eating bratwurst at McGoebbels or attending compulsory Wagner recitals at the Royal Adolf Hall. So what went wrong (or right, depending on your perspective)?

When we review the facts of that momentous year we can identify two key moments, hinges of history, when the most signifcant events took place. The frst was in late May, when the British army were evacuated at the ‘miracle’ of Dunkirk. The second was on September 15 (now known as ‘Battle of Britain Day’) at that crucial moment of the Battle of Britain when the Luftwafe just gave up.

Prayer works!

Believe it or not there is one single act that ties those two dates together, an unprecedented decision of the reigning royal, King George VI, to call the whole nation … to prayer. This he did two days before Dunkirk and seven days before ‘Battle of Britain Day’. Two days when the churches of Britain were packed to the rafters, with Westminster Abbey boasting the sort of queues that wouldn’t embarrass an Ariana Grande concert nowadays. Now Christianity was in decline in those days, many smarting over the carnage of the First World War and blaming God for the loss of a generation of young men, lost in the trenches of Flanders. But a spark remained and these were trying times, so, on those two days in 1940, Christian Britain prayed like never before.

So they prayed and the deliverance at Dunkirk occured. Then they prayed again and the Battle of Britain was won. What can we say about this? Deliverance didn’t seem possible at the time, just read Churchill’s diaries for the evidence of this. Joseph Kennedy (the father of JFK), who was the American ambassador to Britain in 1940 was in no doubt that Britain would fall. In May he urged all Americans living in Britain to go home, as he did himself shortly afterwards. But deliverance came, despite the low expectations and we have to ask whether the prayers had any efect on the outcome.

After the war, Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, Commander-in-chief of Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain noted that “even during the battle one realised from day to day how much external support was coming in. At the end of the battle one had the sort of feeling that there had been some special Divine intervention to alter some sequence of events which would have otherwise occurred”.

You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. (Psalm 77:14)

These ‘National Days of Prayer’ are no more in our country, perhaps we don’t discern the need for them. Churches (and no doubt synagogues and mosques too) were fuller than usual after the London bombings in July 2005, but that was down to individual choice, rather than a national movement. These days only pop stars have the power to motivate us to action on a national scale.

It’s a funny old World, isn’t it?