Becoming 'war conscious'

7th July 1940: The British are adjusting to the threat of invasion, even if some find aspects of it humorous

Captain Alexander Savitsky leading a group of Home Guard officers and men along a road in Selsey

A road barricade at Tolworth in Surrey on the route to London.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, in the knowledge that no invasion ever came, it’s impossible not to look at some of the improvised arrangements without a sense of the absurd. But things looked different at the time.

The pioneering American war correspondent, Virginia Cowles¹, had just left France, where she had reported on the last days before Paris was occupied by the Germans. She returned to England to find herself very much still on the frontlines. But she was ‘flabbergasted’ by the contrast between French and British attitudes.

On the 29th June she broadcast on the BBC to a radio audience in America:

Reports current in America that England will be forced to negotiate a compromise - which means surrender - are unfounded and untrue. Anyone who knows England knows just how untrue.

The Anglo-Saxon character is tough. Englishmen are proud of being Englishmen. They have been the most powerful race in Europe for over three hundred years, and they believe in themselves with passionate conviction. Throughout English history the Guards regiments have fought to the death.

When an Englishman says: 'It is better to be dead than live under Hitler, heed his words. He means it.

But she also saw people preparing for the expected invasion had ‘a certain amount of humour mingled with determination’.