Taking London: Winston Churchill and the Fight to Save Civilization

“Although the subtitle of the book credits Churchill with the fight to save civilization, in the end Dugard makes clear that is was the courageous pilots of the RAF . . .”

England and its allies recently celebrated the successful though costly landings on Normandy beaches on the 80th anniversary of D-Day. The success of D-Day and the subsequent Allied victory over German forces in Western Europe would not have been possible without the victory almost four years earlier in the Battle of Britain. Fought between the summer and early fall of 1940, the Battle of Britain saved England from invasion and preserved its use as a springboard for Allied military forces to invade Northwest Europe.

Martin Dugard, who co-authored with Bill O’Reilly the popular “Killing” series of history books, has branched off on his own with a “Taking Series” of history books about events in World War II. His latest is Taking London, which highlights the bravery and heroics of the RAF fighter pilots, the British air marshals, the aircraft designer of the Spitfire, and, of course, Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime leader who, in John Lukacs’ words, saved Western civilization.

Dugard writes crisply, with short sentences and vivid descriptions of people and places. The chapters are short and each focuses on the bravery and heroics of a particular RAF fighter, or something American journalist Edward R. Murrow said in his “This Is London” broadcasts to America, or the bureaucratic struggles and plans of Air Marshal Hugh Dowding who headed-up Fighter Command, or the cowardly appeasement of Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, or steadfastness of King George VI, or the grace of young Princess Elizabeth, or the stirring words of Churchill.

William Manchester in The Last Lion, described Churchill as an “artist who knew how to gather the blazing light of history into his prism and then distort it to his ends.” During the Battle of Britain as German warplanes attacked British airfields, dockyards, industrial plants, and later cities, Churchill compared the moment to “the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel, . . . or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon’s Grand Armee at Boulogne.” As Murrow once remarked, Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

It was Air Marshal Dowding who planned the defense of Britain from the German bombing campaign of 1940. Dugard explains that he divided Britain into “four geographical air groups” that featured Operations Rooms and map tables. The groups were further divided into sectors to defend airfields, and those sectors had Operations Rooms and map tables, too. Finding Towers were established to provide advanced warnings of attacks. A Filter Room determined the number and location of German bombers and their likely targets. That information was passed to each Operations Room in each group and sector, and fighters were scrambled.

Former British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin once prophesied that “the bomber will always get through,” and during the Battle of Britain many of them did. But some did not thanks to Dowding’s defense system and the RAF fighter pilots. In deciding which pilots to feature in the book, Dugard explained that he selected Peter Townsend, Richard Hillary, and Geoffrey Wellum because of the books they wrote after the war. He selected American volunteer pilot Billy Fiske, who died after suffering terrible burns after being downed by a German Stuka.

Those pilots benefited from flying R.J. Mitchell’s Spitfire, a speedy fighter plane that along with the Hurricane frustrated Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Goering’s efforts to win the air battle over England. That frustration led to Hitler’s decision to bomb cities (the so-called “Blitz”) instead of airfields, just as the depleting ranks of RAF pilots and the losses in fighter planes could have given Germany command of the skies over England.

Dugard is full of praise for King George VI and his young daughter Elizabeth for their courage in the midst of the battle. King George toured bombed-out areas of London, while young Elizabeth broadcast sympathy and hope for children who like her and her sister were separated from their parents and homes for their own safety. He contrasts their courage with the cowardly appeasement of Joseph Kennedy who Dugard claims at times was rooting for a German victory.

Although the subtitle of the book credits Churchill with the fight to save civilization, in the end Dugard makes clear that it was the courageous pilots of the RAF (including some Americans who volunteered to fight with England) and their superior fighter planes that won the Battle of Britain and prevented Hitler from “taking London.” Which is why Churchill told his countrymen: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much, owed by so many, to so few.”