The Art of Manliness - #594： How Churchill (and London) Survived the Blitz of 1940

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast a few months after

00:00:12.000 winston churchill took office as prime minister the german military began an eight-month-long

00:00:15.860 bombing campaign on the united kingdom which became known as the blitz the bombing which

00:00:20.120 lasted for 57 consecutive days and nights over london killed 45 000 britons what was life like

00:00:25.700 for the people who experienced the blitz my guest today zoomed in on this question by looking the

00:00:29.580 lives of winston churchill and his inner circle during this precarious year of the war his name

00:00:33.660 is eric larson and in his latest book the splendid in the vile he shows readers how the blitz could

00:00:37.880 be absolutely terrifying unexpectedly normal and strangely beautiful at the same time and does so

00:00:42.740 by profiling how churchill as well as his family members and advisors handle both the unexpected

00:00:47.220 horrors of war and the predictable pickles of interpersonal drama we begin our conversation

00:00:51.520 discussing the extent of the blitz and then spend the rest of our conversation discussing key members

00:00:55.560 in what churchill called his sacred circle we learn how churchill's wife clementine supported her

00:00:59.820 husband during the blitz how his son randolph created trouble with his gambling and affairs how

00:01:03.820 his teenage daughter mary managed to keep doing typically adolescent activities even while bombs fell

00:01:08.140 on london and how his advisors contributed to his leadership these characters offer a great lesson

00:01:12.680 how life goes on even in the midst of a crisis and how one can be fearless even in the face of a threat

00:01:18.440 after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash larson

00:01:22.160 all right eric larson welcome to the show thank you very much so you got a new book out the splendid

00:01:39.460 and the vile yes indeed a saga of churchill family and defiance during the blitz so there's been a lot

00:01:46.280 of biographies written about churchill i think he's like one of the most written about human beings from

00:01:50.780 the 20th century what were you aiming to accomplish by focusing on the blitz well you know the thing

00:01:56.260 that drew me to the story is not so much churchill not so much the blitz not so much world war world

00:02:01.900 war ii but what happened was that i had been living in seattle and my wife and i moved to manhattan

00:02:08.360 and when we moved to manhattan i had this epiphany about the nature of 9-11 right in seattle you know

00:02:15.980 like millions of people around the world we we watched the twin towers collapse in real time

00:02:21.380 but it was a very different thing when i got to new york i realized these people had seen the smoke

00:02:27.000 smelled it you know heard sirens the whole deal but above all they had that sense of violation of

00:02:33.740 their personal city of their home city and i started thinking how on earth if this 9-11 threw us for such

00:02:40.980 a loop in the city in particular how did people survive the bombing of london when it was 57

00:02:47.540 consecutive nights of bombs and then six more months of intensifying raids at somewhat longer

00:02:53.480 intervals but still you know very intense bombing attacks how do you survive that i started thinking

00:02:59.800 well i could get at that by talking about maybe writing a book about a typical london family

00:03:04.660 and then i thought wait why not the quintessential london family churchill and his family you know

00:03:09.760 his his his you know youngest daughter youngest living daughter mary his son-in-law randolph and

00:03:15.560 so forth and they're you know his own advisors take a look at exactly how they got through that year

00:03:21.380 which is what makes this very different than other things that have been done thus far

00:03:25.460 and that's one of these you mentioned your sources the source section of your book is that you

00:03:29.780 purposely went to look for those frivolous stories that often get thrown out or maybe just mentioned

00:03:35.840 in passing in other churchill biographies i'm glad you did it because like i remember reading those

00:03:39.480 things those little stories and other biographies and i always thought i wish they would go there's

00:03:43.800 more there and i want them to go right yeah well i mean it's not so much that i look for the frivolous

00:03:48.740 stories but that i look for i like to think of more as context is everything right and you know

00:03:55.420 there tends to be with churchill a tendency toward hagiography you know making him seem like he alone

00:04:01.640 won world war ii when of course that's that's not at all the case and and i wanted to look at just how

00:04:08.940 he went about his days during this period and how his advisors and family did and necessarily in terms

00:04:16.720 of context that means getting into some of the some of the little stories that you know like we all have

00:04:21.420 i mean even in the midst of the crisis of 9 11 we still had to take our kids to school and you know

00:04:26.740 we had all all that and so churchill was was no different so i did really try to hunt for those

00:04:32.420 things that would sort of shed light on what life was really like day by day so before we get into

00:04:39.800 churchill and his inner circle during the blitz let's talk about the blitz itself yeah because one

00:04:43.900 of the things that i think you did a really good job with this book is conveying how terrifying

00:04:47.880 how catastrophic the blitz was but also how weirdly normal it became so let's give listeners a bird's

00:04:55.060 eye view of the blitz yeah you mentioned 56 nights 57 consecutive nights of bombing after well so again

00:05:01.420 context so one of the things that actually i was i was a little bit surprised at in my own research i

00:05:05.760 mean i knew a little bit about the blitz and the bombing and the battle of britain and so forth

00:05:09.740 but i didn't realize was there was this this long slow ramp up essentially from when churchill became

00:05:16.320 prime minister to the point when the first bombers attacked made their first deliberate attack on

00:05:22.420 london and it was this kind of slow and i think fairly suspenseful accretion of you know hitler doing

00:05:30.440 one thing churchill being defiant one thing leading to another and only then did the bombers come to

00:05:36.680 london on september 7th 1940 until then hitler explicitly forbade the luftwaffe from making any attacks on

00:05:44.620 central london i mean deliberate attacks on central london there had been an accidental attack on august

00:05:48.900 24th so there was this long slow run up which i found very very interesting and very sort of spooky

00:05:56.500 actually but then comes the blitz september 7th 1940 the first bombers arrive that afternoon at tea time

00:06:03.820 it's a beautiful day warm in the 90s people are you know the stores are full and piccadilly you know

00:06:10.680 suddenly these bombers arrive and start dropping incendiary bombs and high explosives on the city

00:06:16.860 of london it was it was incredibly incredibly shocking and terrifying the bombing continued

00:06:22.100 night after night after night for 57 consecutive nights as this happened people did begin to adjust

00:06:28.480 in some very interesting ways and that's part of the story you know is how how they began to adjust and

00:06:33.740 and you know for for for example for mary churchill who is my favorite character in the book

00:06:39.100 she's 17 at the start of the action she turns 18 you know life is still full of parties hanging out

00:06:47.200 with raf pilots dances there's this annual queen charlotte's ball which is sort of the debutante

00:06:53.620 ball which that year was held in an underground ballroom and it goes on anyway it goes on anyway you know

00:07:00.620 bombs are falling as this ball is underway that's how that's how that's how people did sort of normalize

00:07:06.760 the day yeah i mean you know business kept going on yeah and and it was just it was just so interesting

00:07:13.200 to see that that they were they manage like what do you think was going on there was it churchill's

00:07:17.760 leadership his rhetoric or was it just that's just human nature you somehow managed to adjust to even

00:07:22.420 crazy craziness yeah well you know i think it's a mix of all things i mean 57 consecutive nights of

00:07:27.960 bombing i mean what are you going to do stay at a high high state of terror for 57 straight nights i mean

00:07:33.120 you know you people people brought their own abilities to to to adjust to the program but it

00:07:40.400 didn't it didn't hurt that churchill i mean it actually helped helped immensely that churchill as

00:07:46.180 leaders true leaders should that churchill was out there trying to provide solace when he could

00:07:53.120 trying to show the people at all all opportunities how how courageous he was in hopes of transferring some

00:08:00.980 of that courage to them and i think it all went into the mix where where people began to to to

00:08:06.800 normalize their lives it helped also that the that the luftwaffe decided that daytime raids were just

00:08:12.100 too costly because the raf was really pummeling them on daytime raids bombers were slow much slower

00:08:17.800 than the raf about hurricanes and spitfires so the germans abandoned daylight raids which really helped 0.97

00:08:24.220 because then during the day people led relatively normal lives they came to work they they commuted to

00:08:29.540 work they left they left early enough to get home before the blackout they brought their gas mask to

00:08:34.300 work just in case you know that kind of thing so that helped also if you have if you were pretty

00:08:40.620 certain relatively certain or you could be relatively certain that during the day the bombers would not

00:08:46.300 come that kind of helped level out the day however the flip side of that was the equal certainty

00:08:52.280 that they would come that night almost for sure during that first period one of the i mean one of the

00:08:58.320 things you did you went to diaries written during this time and i thought one of the interesting

00:09:02.080 stories you pull out of that like love making affairs actually picked up during the blitz because

00:09:07.340 people would use the the the blitz as an excuse to like oh well i was gone i was taking cover yeah

00:09:13.240 yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean i mean you think about that you know i mean bombs are falling and it's it's

00:09:19.400 it's terrifying and you know you've you got to live your life and what have you got to lose you know

00:09:25.700 so so people were having affairs seemed seemed to be like everybody was having an affair you know there

00:09:31.080 was a lot of sex going on and that was one of the things that i found kind of delightful too in the

00:09:35.680 research so how many britons were in ended up being killed during the blitz okay so you're taxing my

00:09:41.380 my uh always faulty short-term memory but i believe it by the time the blitz ended the 1940 41 period i

00:09:49.600 think the number killed was 47 000 the number seriously injured was like another 50 000 so

00:09:58.220 yeah and as you talked about the destruction it was you could have you know one block completely just

00:10:03.860 annihilated right but the block over fine well yeah yeah because of the nature of the nature of the

00:10:09.720 inaccurate nature of of bombing and and and the and the character of of some weapons for example the

00:10:15.560 the germans the luftwaffe use what were referred to as parachute mines which were very large basically

00:10:23.220 explosive pallets that were dropped by parachute into a into a neighborhood if one of those landed in

00:10:28.780 your neighborhood went off you had no neighborhood i mean it would just destroy that that complete area

00:10:34.120 similarly they had the germans had a bomb 4 000 pound bomb 13 feet long which they named satan and

00:10:42.000 if that landed in your neighborhood you also lost your neighborhood but then the reality was

00:10:46.520 that you know two blocks away you could drive down a street that looked like there had not been a war

00:10:53.420 yet yeah well let's talk about the title of the book the splendid in the vial yeah where did that come

00:10:57.920 from so splendid in the vial comes from a diary entry by a key character in the book john colville who

00:11:03.960 was one of churchill's private secretaries he had a number of those all young men who were

00:11:09.980 very hard working and they're really sort of more or less like almost like assistant prime ministers

00:11:14.820 really john colville was one of the the hardest working one of the most interesting because he kept

00:11:21.060 a daily diary he should not have kept that diary it was a violation of national secrets act but he kept

00:11:26.720 a daily diary and one night he he writes about this in his diary one night during a particularly

00:11:34.540 severe raid he was looking out the window watching this from a bedroom as one does apparently and he's

00:11:42.740 watching this raid and he is struck by the beauty of the bombs and searchlights and guns firing and so

00:11:50.620 forth and he and he writes this beautiful beautiful entry in his diary which ends with how this was such

00:11:56.640 a this was a juxtaposition of of he called it natural splendor and human vileness as soon as i read

00:12:04.980 that that entry i thought yeah this is going to be my title the splendid and the vial that stayed ever

00:12:09.440 since i mean i had to fight for it a little bit but right now i'm glad you thought it was such a great

00:12:13.260 title because that that really does encapsulate war and sometimes we forget that the latin word for war

00:12:18.260 bellum like it's also bella beautiful yeah okay that's weird yeah it's weird um so let's talk about

00:12:24.960 this inner circle that churchill used i mean he he actually referred to it as secret circle it was

00:12:29.400 these are the people that buoyed him up during this time and we'll talk about john colville here in a bit

00:12:34.980 but let's talk about the one the ones closest to him and is one that played a big role in this book

00:12:39.420 was his wife clementine yes who was a character i mean i think she uh doesn't get the attention that she

00:12:46.040 probably deserves i think i said they're all characters in this book yeah they are anyway but

00:12:50.160 yes well let's talk about clementine she was a very interesting compelling compelling woman yeah i mean 0.99

00:12:54.500 what was her role in the blitz and during this first year in this in in this first year she really did

00:13:00.480 decide what her job was going to be was to support churchill that was going to be her job and you know

00:13:06.320 she she is sort of threaded through the narrative not as much as mary but she's threaded through the

00:13:12.420 narrative as supporting him but also she's a very it's a very independent person she had her own

00:13:18.260 bedroom and she she did not care that much honestly for for most of churchill's friends and she would

00:13:24.200 prefer some of these nights just not not to be around you know when he had his his parties but she

00:13:29.180 proved very very interesting in in this in a couple ways for one there was a point where churchill

00:13:35.680 in her view was starting to become even more inconsiderate than usual he had a real

00:13:41.080 inconsiderate rude side and his employees were starting to to chafe at this and and clementine

00:13:47.220 writes him this letter where she she says you know you are not as nice as you used to be and and advises

00:13:53.600 him on how he should be behaving and so forth which is very good sort of a nice nice break on on him

00:14:00.020 getting completely off the planet with his harassability and so forth but there's also a point where

00:14:06.100 she goes and visits all the shelters not all the shelters but a number of public shelters which were

00:14:11.440 a mess and she just she just ventures in clementine churchill ventures in and captures dickensian detail

00:14:17.980 about how awful these places were and that was that was very cool and she was a big part of the reforms

00:14:23.220 that happened in the in the shelters yes yes she was she was a very she was a big part of advising

00:14:27.720 churchill on the reforms that he he accepted that they her her views yes and so i mean you know some of

00:14:33.600 the things they talked about they just wanted people to be comfortable so they made sure they

00:14:36.700 got their tea well the tea was an interesting thing yeah i mean tea well tea runs through the whole

00:14:41.500 whole book also because tea was was everything tea was england but one of the characters frederick

00:14:46.080 lindamon churchill's science advisor you know ordinarily a cold fish but in one memorandum to

00:14:52.740 churchill he he tried to get the government to reconsider a decrease in the amount of tea available under

00:14:59.520 the racing program and it's a very interesting memorandum because he he makes the point that

00:15:04.740 tea is it was crucial to the underclasses in terms of their only luxury and and how important it was to 0.61

00:15:11.780 maintain at least that and and so so that was kind of a a very warm-hearted interesting interesting

00:15:17.760 memorandum so you talk about one of the goals of your book is to explore what family life was like

00:15:22.500 during the blitz and so besides managing a country during a siege there was family drama going

00:15:29.520 on uh with the churchills and a source of that a big source of that drama was his son randolph

00:15:35.340 yeah tell us about randolph churchill yeah so randolph randolph churchill was kind of a i guess the term

00:15:40.760 would be a wastrel i mean he's a very bright guy very handsome guy but he was a a very heavy drinker

00:15:47.400 and he was a um he was a spendthrope and uh an inept gambler he lost a lot of money and he was

00:15:55.420 married to uh young woman pamela digby digby who but you know she took his name so it's pamela pamela

00:16:01.820 digby churchill and their relationship um was you know fine at first uh when the action begins they've

00:16:09.660 been only married for a like about a year and you know she she loved him he he may or may not have

00:16:17.000 loved her i think he did but he also was a philanderer on the day that she gives birth to

00:16:23.040 their child winston jr he is in bed with somebody else's wife but so he was but he was a really

00:16:31.100 difficult character he was really sort of uh outrageously outspoken annoying

00:16:36.860 difficult character well i i think uh churchill once said that he loved he loves randolph just

00:16:44.620 doesn't like him yeah that's right yeah and i mean he was dealing this throughout the war he there'd be

00:16:49.340 something well randolph's got these gambling debts and and that pamela had it's the point where

00:16:54.240 pamela stopped telling stop telling the churchills about the gambling debts that church that randolph 0.92

00:16:59.300 was accruing so yeah i mean at one point she you know the debts were accumulating to the point where

00:17:03.660 you know they were really in hard straits she she they got a bail out at one point from churchill but

00:17:08.640 he said you know this better be the end of it and that was not the end of it so so there's one

00:17:14.040 moment where pamela's in harrods the famous department store and you know her her credit 0.97

00:17:19.620 line of credit with the store was suddenly withdrawn because of excess debts by randolph and

00:17:25.080 this was a tremendous humiliation she flees the store and in tears and their marriage through the

00:17:31.360 book begins to wobble and degrade and eventually to to explode well we'll talk about the explosion here

00:17:38.340 in a bit because it was an interesting dynamic between the churchills and and pamela but let's go back

00:17:43.520 to john colville so this is a personal secretary he was keeping diaries during the whole entire time he

00:17:47.840 he didn't have to he wasn't supposed to do that what was so captivating about his story what do you

00:17:53.040 think his story tells about that you're trying to convey well the most important thing about john

00:17:57.760 colville is that his diary well there's a number of things about john colville but but really his diary

00:18:04.100 was the best insight into the daily functioning of of 10 downing street during during this 1940 41 period

00:18:10.820 he should not have been keeping the diet was essentially illegal it was a violation of national

00:18:15.680 security laws but he kept it kept it anyway but the thing i felt about john colville i mean i'm obviously

00:18:20.940 not the first person to use that diary not the first to refer to him he makes a cameo i believe in

00:18:26.820 the tv series the crown but i felt that john colville really needed to be sort of wanted to step forward and

00:18:33.880 become a more full-bodied character in a work of history about churchill nobody has done that really

00:18:40.820 until till till now and so to me you know i i wanted to know more about what his life was like you know

00:18:49.200 what you know it's one thing to be a secretary private secretary in churchill's office but what else

00:18:54.240 was going on so at one point i went in to take a look at his diary in the the actual diary at the

00:19:01.200 churchill archives center in cambridge the the there's the published version the fringes of power

00:19:05.920 which is very good very accurate very true to the original diary but in that he made a reference to

00:19:11.260 the fact that things he cut out were were he cut out trivialities trivialities so i was interested in

00:19:17.600 those trivialities so i set about trying to find out well what what did he cut it's very evident when

00:19:23.180 you go through the through the the two diaries but i don't think anybody else has bothered bothered to do

00:19:27.360 that honestly and i found that the things he cut out were certainly not trivialities at the time he

00:19:32.720 was in love he was in love and this is this is what this is what sort of defined his his his emotional

00:19:39.400 his emotional concerns in those days he was in love with this young woman gay margison and obsessed 0.59

00:19:45.480 with her really and she was not returning the favor so this runs through the book as well and and

00:19:51.340 you know again context to me is everything yeah it's one of those again it shows how life went on

00:19:55.820 even yes life went on exactly and what i also liked about uh colville is at the beginning when

00:20:00.520 he started working with churchill he wasn't really sure about him but then as his relationship with

00:20:06.040 churchill progresses he he starts deeply admiring yes yes and i'm important to know that colville

00:20:10.580 prior to to this he was he was a private secretary for for neville chamberlain and neville chamberlain

00:20:16.600 was a very different kind of guy neville chamberlain was um sort of a more austere character he his

00:20:21.680 nickname was the coroner or the old umbrella and then suddenly this dynamo churchill comes in and

00:20:27.740 colville ends up working for him and colville really liked and was loyal to chamberlain and he was like

00:20:33.760 oh yes this is this is going to be no this is he felt this was going to be a a difficult a difficult

00:20:38.920 thing to have churchill there as prime minister but over time he came to see the thing that the world

00:20:44.280 eventually came to see which is that churchill was was quite a brilliant leader in this period he was the

00:20:49.680 man for the hour i mean you can criticize churchill for a lot of things his you know his early 20th

00:20:55.920 century depredations as a you know a classic imperialist you know in in in in africa and so

00:21:02.140 forth and his post-world war ii you know actions in kenya and india and so forth but in this period

00:21:08.900 he was the man of the hour and colville came to recognize that how did churchill rely on colville did

00:21:15.740 you were able to see that that he leaned on colville you know he well he leaned on all of

00:21:20.220 his private sexism because believe me he without them he could not have done what he did these guys

00:21:23.860 worked their tails off yeah give him like an idea like they were working from like six o'clock

00:21:28.620 sometimes till two o'clock or three o'clock they weren't until two or three o'clock in the morning

00:21:32.480 you know and uh whoever was on duty was like was the appointment for for for all this and they

00:21:38.160 were you know they would they would they were you know helping him uh gather memoranda helping him

00:21:45.260 you know his his other secretaries took dictation for speeches and so forth but colville and the others

00:21:52.740 were responsible for putting this stuff in in shape for getting you know uh getting things published in

00:21:58.780 the in the appropriate places for talking to other ministers it was these these poor guys just just

00:22:05.980 they had no lives but and and again churchill could be incredibly rude he could be i mean overbearing he

00:22:16.280 could be very very much boorish but he had this other side to him that was so so so very warm and fun

00:22:26.040 and that's you know these no matter how hard these guys worked they loved him and they would they would

00:22:32.500 not have traded that whole period for anything that was this other interesting thing so churchill never

00:22:37.120 apologized he never he never said i'm sorry but he would do things after a blow-up that would

00:22:42.320 convey i'm sorry we're still good he never apologized he never apologized but he somehow managed to

00:22:48.200 communicate through whatever signal of the moment seemed appropriate that all was forgiven like beaver

00:22:54.740 brooks says at one point that that when this happened with churchill that that he might then after the

00:23:01.000 initial anger had subsided he might then in a moment put his hand on beaver brook's wrist just

00:23:07.860 gently and that was the signal that all is good you know it's a momentary blow-up it's over we're

00:23:15.620 gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show well let's talk

00:23:20.440 about lord beaver brook because this is another character what was his role during this first year

00:23:25.080 uh beaver brook's role during this this first year was really very important now beaver brook and

00:23:30.700 churchill had been friends off and on throughout the years but mostly friends and now at this point

00:23:36.340 we're friends again and as soon as churchill becomes prime minister on may 10 1940 he makes

00:23:42.820 beaver brook his minister of aircraft production very important job beaver brook is is at this point

00:23:47.860 he's a newspaper mag that he publishes newspapers he doesn't know really know much about manufacturing you

00:23:52.460 hard things but uh churchill recognizes in him this kind of galvanizing energy that's going to be

00:23:58.480 necessary to to step up production of fighter aircraft which churchill rightly recognized from

00:24:03.960 the get-go was going to be the crucial ingredient in trying to hold off any effort to invade england

00:24:11.580 by hitler and that that threat of invasion at this time was was a very concrete thing there were

00:24:18.380 concerns that you know hitler the german air force and army could invade the next day you know on any

00:24:23.560 given day that one day you'd be sitting there in hyde park and and you know a hundred paratroopers would

00:24:29.360 descend you know around the serpentine in the park you know it was a very real possibility but

00:24:34.440 churchill recognized that the way to stop that the way to deny the luftwaffe air superiority which is

00:24:40.640 what they would have needed if they were going to try to invade if the germans were to try to invade 0.94

00:24:45.640 england he recognized that fighters were the only way to do that did not have enough fighters

00:24:50.160 what points beaverbrook minister of aircraft production beaverbrook works what amounts to

00:24:57.060 sort of an act of magic over time radically steps up production of spitfires and hurricanes not as

00:25:03.420 radically as he would like to think but he radically stepped up production and really sort of saved the

00:25:08.300 day at the same time he was an irascible potentially cantankerous cataclysmically energetic guy demanding

00:25:18.240 peevish toddlerish in the course of 1940-41 he resigns 14 times mainly to get attention from

00:25:26.920 churchill and but churchill churchill knew him he knew his his man he knew that that that max and

00:25:34.320 max was his real name lord beaverbrook you know styled uh lord beaverbrook max aiken was his real

00:25:39.220 name he knew that max was going to be a problem he knew he was going to be a problem but that's what

00:25:44.220 he wanted he wanted him to be a problem he wanted him to sow conflict because he wanted aircraft

00:25:49.540 production um juiced up as much was possible and he gossiped like a church lady he what he's a gossip

00:25:57.400 like he loved to gossip about what was going on he loved that he loved as i as i talk about in the book he

00:26:03.860 loved to collect secrets secrets he he loved to collect other people's secrets he liked knowing

00:26:09.600 the things that were in people's closets and then manipulating those people if he if he could he was a

00:26:15.760 real a real talent in that respect and that that didn't hurt either you know in terms of well i mean

00:26:21.240 it hurt some people but it didn't hurt in terms of getting things done well uh this happened like

00:26:27.040 pamela randolph's wife eventually went to beaverbrook for the debt problem that she was having well yeah i

00:26:33.260 mean when when yeah and that was when when pamela realized that the debts that she thought had been

00:26:39.240 paid off by by churchill but that there was actually like were actually not fully paid off because there

00:26:45.040 were other debts in the pipeline which is horrifying to her she went to beaverbrook and told him the story

00:26:50.920 and wanted to get help with with the debt and in the process sort of put herself into the the sway of

00:26:57.660 his of his world in a very interesting way and in the end you know he did help her but you know

00:27:04.800 sort of the devil's bargain right randolph even told her don't ever go to beaverbrook i've had told

00:27:08.640 her before don't ever let yourself get under under under beaverbrook's control i think to give some

00:27:14.000 context to some of the things that that surprised me because whenever i think whenever i imagined you

00:27:18.840 know people from a long time ago i always imagined like in their 30s or their 40s pamela was only 21

00:27:25.400 when this when this was going on so i couldn't imagine being 21 years old new baby and you've

00:27:31.240 got hundreds i mean what today would amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt right

00:27:35.820 right right right yeah and and and she was and she was i mean she seemed much older than her years

00:27:41.820 she was 21 but she was she was a very flirtatious very easy way with people and sexually knowing 1.00

00:27:48.640 person very much sort of i i would say coveted by by by men and and knew what she had and was very

00:27:57.560 willing to to to to use that to to help her help her get away so she was a very dynamic character and

00:28:04.560 when their marriage began to fail which it did quite spectacularly and once she recognized that she

00:28:10.900 was on her own she she really took very concerted steps to just carve carve her own way and one of the

00:28:17.660 ways she did that one of the people that entered into the churchill secret circle was an american

00:28:22.860 harriman yes avril harriman what was his story what was his role there so so avril harriman was a was a

00:28:29.220 businessman from america he was actually the founder of sun valley the resort in idaho really to

00:28:35.600 founded that to try to get increased rail travel for his his family railroad in the winter time

00:28:42.480 harriman harriman was an immensely attractive man tall very handsome very very athletic he was sent

00:28:51.620 by roosevelt president roosevelt franklin d roosevelt to london to administer the so-called lend lease

00:29:00.660 program after it had finally been passed which was a long saga in itself nominally his mission was to

00:29:07.760 was to to determine who got what aid and how they got and what was done with it and so forth but

00:29:15.300 really he was he was sent by roosevelt to kind of report on what was really happening with churchill and

00:29:23.460 with the war and to send back reports about what was really really happening but it turns out that

00:29:30.580 yes he had that mission but then churchill recognized that he was roosevelt's

00:29:34.960 emissary he said about really bringing him into his inner circle like so almost like the courtship

00:29:40.540 of a woman brought him into his into his innermost circle to try to you know to try to to by by by

00:29:48.840 proxy win roosevelt's intervention ultimately in the war um he hoped that roosevelt would intervene

00:29:55.300 and of course pearl harbor comes along and he does but harriman also was a was a you know again he was a very

00:30:02.040 very attractive guy and at one party he meets uh pamela churchill who at this point is convinced

00:30:08.820 that her has decided her marriage is done and they during a during an air raid they go down to his

00:30:16.040 his apartment which is deemed to be safer it's in this hotel called the dorchester and one thing

00:30:21.700 leads to another and dot dot dot and did churchill did the churchills know about it to be fair yeah i i

00:30:28.500 believe the churchills did know about it not immediately but they did know about it um i don't

00:30:33.860 think anybody really seriously doubts that that they did but they did not make a big thing about

00:30:37.940 the affair when later later randolph got really annoyed when he found out about the affair that

00:30:44.380 that his parents had been sort of you know wittingly supporting a cuckold in the in the cuckolding him in

00:30:53.120 in the in the in the in the churchill family so do you think he would i mean was do you think to what

00:30:57.780 randolph accused him like did churchill kind of use pamela as a as a political you know connection

00:31:02.500 or i'm sure he did once he realized that i mean he was he was very very good at at this courtship

00:31:09.480 of america i mean it's like a like a like an ace fly fisherman using every single technique he could

00:31:14.860 that just sort of reel roosevelt closer and closer and closer and when he found out and i have no doubt

00:31:21.420 that he found out that pamela and and harriman were having an affair i'm sure he was delighted

00:31:26.420 you know this is like all the family you know especially now well i think churchill was used

00:31:31.080 to that sort of thing i mean his mother was how would you say she got i mean she was she did that

00:31:36.560 she was unfaithful she was known as a i don't know courtesan i mean basically yeah well basically 1.00

00:31:42.420 in this time everybody was unfaithful i mean that's one of the things that comes through in my in my work

00:31:46.000 actually it almost doesn't matter what era i'm looking at um there's a lot more sex going on

00:31:51.620 that you would ever imagine right and so the sort of the happy ending with that i mean if you can

00:31:55.440 call it a happy i mean it's kind of a happy ending with pamela and harriman they eventually they

00:31:59.280 go their separate ways they stay married to their respective spouses but then well she she eventually 1.00

00:32:04.280 divorces yeah she divorces but decades later they end up getting married well that's that's true 0.99

00:32:10.320 that's that's it's very sort of it's kind of a romantic story romantic also in the sense that

00:32:14.740 that harriman did stay with his wife despite the revelation of this affair and and they actually

00:32:20.080 grew closer and closer over the years and when his wife died decades after after the war harriman was

00:32:27.120 was absolutely crushed and at one point though he is invited to a party at uh catherine graham's house

00:32:33.700 the uh you know the owner of the washington post reconnects with pamela and the next thing you know

00:32:39.480 they're they're married this this long saga has you know come full circle in their their their

00:32:45.280 husband and wife so you mentioned uh mary mary churchill was your favorite character why was she

00:32:49.700 your favorite character mary was my favorite character because well first of all she's brand

00:32:54.500 new in terms of churchill scholarship i when i was granted thankfully permission to look at her diary

00:33:02.240 by her daughter i was one of two scholars who had been given that opportunity i don't know who the

00:33:07.680 other scholar was but mary has not been you know heavily written about in any work on churchill until

00:33:14.040 until now and what i really liked about her was that you know she was again context she was this

00:33:21.920 very charming smart pretty very intelligent 17 year old who whose life followed a very interesting

00:33:33.760 arc in this time she was a she she was a very compelling counterpoint to what was going on

00:33:40.060 in the world like she she loved her father and she commented on on the action day by day and in her own

00:33:47.280 daily in his daily diary and it was really a really a a wonderful insight not just into what was actually

00:33:53.640 happening on the broader world stage but also what was happening in her life the context

00:33:58.840 snogging in the hail off with the raf pilots you know that kind of thing and and uh the raf pilots 0.99

00:34:05.360 at a nearby base bomber pilots you know these are young guys in their 20s you know 1920 21 22

00:34:11.840 they knew mary was at checkers the prime ministerial estate in the country outside london they knew mary

00:34:18.500 was there they knew her friends were there and they would engage in a process that she refers to

00:34:21.980 repeatedly in her diary as beating up which is when the bombers would fly over at treetop level

00:34:27.620 and just buzzed the girls they were thrilled they loved this and i mean as you read her diaries

00:34:32.940 life went on for her too she was she got proposed to and she had to you'd see the agony of like whether

00:34:38.280 to accept or not and the the tension between her and her mother about whether to accept or not

00:34:43.080 no i mean this so i mean she she follows a very uh a very interesting arc through through a book i mean

00:34:49.460 i don't want to just like give away exactly what happens but suffice it to say that you know one

00:34:55.160 reason this book this book takes place in that first year of his prime minister ministership

00:35:01.260 premiership may 10 1940 to may 10 1941 but it was not that year per se that drew me this is not a book

00:35:09.240 about the first year of the prime minister this is a book that i did because the action happens to

00:35:15.080 match conveniently that first year on may 10 1941 three different narrative threads all converge

00:35:23.360 and end on that day which almost never happens in the world of you know historical writing and one

00:35:28.900 of those was was her particular saga right what i find interesting about mary when i read about her

00:35:34.980 seems like out of all the churchill children she was the most well-adjusted she didn't have like the

00:35:40.140 personal drama like a randolph or even her older i think she had older sister as well yes yeah yeah she 0.99

00:35:45.580 had two sisters diana and sarah what do you think went on there like why did the other churchill's

00:35:49.320 children kind of end up have all these personal problems and mary didn't i don't know i mean you

00:35:54.300 know i didn't spend a lot of time obviously thinking about looking into the the other the other

00:35:59.060 sisters i wanted to focus on a few important characters but you know i mean three three four

00:36:06.920 five times a charm i mean as she was the youngest and and uh and was doted upon by her parents i don't

00:36:13.220 know maybe that's part of it so you mentioned checkers that was the the prime minister

00:36:19.080 state out in the country outside of london and that seemed to play a pivotal role that's where

00:36:24.340 churchill would convene his inner circle yes and not only continue they continued to work there but

00:36:29.440 they also blew off steam there what were some of the stories that one of you know a few of your

00:36:33.400 favorite stories from checkers that you really showed that really conveyed that inner circle

00:36:37.160 so checkers really did become kind of a character in the book i was fascinated by checkers fascinated

00:36:42.820 by how churchill used it checkers was this lovely old house on some sprawling grounds outside london

00:36:51.960 that had been donated to the government by a very generous guy and the rule for the house was

00:36:59.080 supposed to be that prime ministers were not supposed to do any work there it's supposed to be a place

00:37:04.700 where you just recharge mentally psychically the idea being that maybe the house would help

00:37:10.600 improve the governorship government of the governing of of britain and then churchill comes along and

00:37:18.020 churchill is like he's not going to not work he's he lived for work you know so so every weekend this

00:37:22.820 place is filled with guests and i think my favorite story about checkers is when one night you know he

00:37:30.760 had these dinner parties for all these dignitaries and people from abroad and whatever there's a lot of

00:37:37.740 booze and a lot of a lot of fun and uh after one of these uh churchill in the great hall at checkers he

00:37:43.880 puts on the gramophone to play military music and then he proceeds to begin doing a series of

00:37:51.380 very seriously for him bayonet drills using his manlicker rifle with a bayonet attached to the end but

00:37:56.960 the thing is he's wearing at this point his pale blue siren suit which honestly makes him look like

00:38:03.140 a pale blue easter egg you know the siren suit was this one piece jumpsuit he had designed so that

00:38:08.140 it could be pulled on at a moment's notice so he's wearing that but he's also wearing his gold dragon

00:38:13.220 silk dressing gown so here he is at checkers with this rifle pursuing these these bayonet drills you

00:38:20.840 know on the on the on the great hall of of checkers with all his guests gathered around just in

00:38:26.760 hysterics you know but because here's the prime minister of england doing this thing in this purple

00:38:32.260 in this light blue this light blue jumpsuit you know it's tremendous i love the stories i mean i

00:38:38.200 think you mentioned at one point you said that churchill churchill never stopped being a boy

00:38:41.560 churchill there's no i yeah i really feel like he never stopped being a boy and that was part of

00:38:45.480 his charm part of what made his private secretary's tolerate that sort of intense work schedule so

00:38:52.120 another thing you do throughout the book is make these cuts to german leaders and they're sort of

00:38:56.920 their thought process during this what were you hoping to convey with those cuts i thought it was very

00:39:01.580 important to get the german input because it because it's important to know what they were

00:39:08.440 thinking about as all this unfolded because the british as you know luftwaffe began attacking first

00:39:16.060 attacking and sort of in a way that really sort of mystified the raf the british were having trouble

00:39:23.120 understanding exactly what the luftwaffe was trying to do and i felt it was important then to understand

00:39:29.580 what the luftwaffe was trying to do not just as a way of saying okay this is this is how they saw it

00:39:34.780 this is what they were actually this is what herman gering head of the luftwaffe was actually trying to

00:39:39.280 trying to do at this point but it was important also to in terms of suspense because because if you

00:39:44.900 know that they're planning okay the next giant raid on on a city in in england and you know of

00:39:52.100 course that the british don't know or maybe have a sense that something's coming through their

00:39:55.700 intelligence network um that's suspense that's suspense you want to find out what happens you

00:40:00.800 know you know this is going to happen because the germans are are talking about it the british don't

00:40:06.200 and and you know that's that's one of the essences of crafting suspense i also liked how you conveyed

00:40:13.240 i mean sometimes like the surprise by the germans about how defiant the british were they just thought

00:40:18.100 that they would just roll over yep but they never did and they were always they were in there they're

00:40:22.120 trying to figure out how to spin this yeah constantly the the germans really did think

00:40:26.420 that the that the british would would cave after this this this punishing aerial attack they were

00:40:31.640 stunned each time that that churchill would not give in and churchill did not give in churchill

00:40:37.680 churchill just grew more and more defiant which in turn annoyed the germans no end especially hitler 0.72

00:40:44.500 and it was ultimately his you know intransigent defiance that led hitler to finally approve

00:40:52.080 the bombing of uh of central london the bombing of civilian parts of cities which hitler previously

00:40:59.160 had had banned he he had explicitly said you cannot to to herman gering you cannot bomb london you cannot

00:41:05.220 bomb central london because churchill because hitler did not want to so galvanize the the british

00:41:12.860 people and and churchill that they would not consider coming to the peace table and churchill was

00:41:18.280 you know absolutely defiant there's no way he was going to do that right and so one thing leads to

00:41:23.040 another and then churchill the hitler finally says finally authorizes attacks on london and and

00:41:28.760 massive attacks on london you know and now the strategy has changed to try to bring churchill to

00:41:33.960 the peace table by just sheer brutality you know and once again it fails but but this is what was

00:41:38.620 now happening and i mean that's what eventually led to the dresden bombings too like well you know

00:41:43.240 tit for tat i mean you know what preceded the september 7 1940 the first deliberate raid on

00:41:49.940 central london the first the the night that is typically credited as being the start of the blitz

00:41:54.860 what preceded that was a raid on august 24th 1940 when bombs did fall on central london nobody in london

00:42:05.420 understood at that point though that this was an accident this was from a for lack of a better i mean

00:42:10.720 i don't want to use the german terminology a german bomber squadron had gotten lost and had dropped

00:42:17.580 bombs on central london this was a jarring shocking thing incredibly shocking but it also gave

00:42:23.760 churchill moral justification now start bombing berlin that was what he decided you know that

00:42:29.820 that's what he wanted to do he was waiting for moral justification to do that then comes you know

00:42:34.600 september 7 1940 and this tit-for-tat you know bombing raids you know luftwaffe against british cities

00:42:43.200 um raf against german cities you know just continues to intensify it through the war until

00:42:50.000 yes the the major campaigns against german cities like dresden and so forth that order of magnitude

00:42:59.220 worse actually than what the luftwaffe did to london and there's some other great stories from out of

00:43:03.740 the german side that i mean that's what i love about this story because there's so many different

00:43:06.880 little stories and then one of them my favorite i'm not going to talk about it too much but it's

00:43:10.360 like this renegade nazi officer who goes rogue to try to to broker a piece right which is a lot of fun

00:43:16.920 i mean what do you hope readers walk away with after they finish this book like what do you want them to

00:43:21.620 you know my feeling is my goal always with my books first of all is to to invite readers to sink 0.51

00:43:29.580 deeply into the past and and experience it as if as if almost they were there to try to have a visceral

00:43:37.200 experience and maybe emerge from the book later feeling like maybe they have a better appreciation

00:43:42.020 of history or even feeling somewhat somewhat changed but i think also i didn't intend this

00:43:49.320 really at the beginning i mean i started this book about five conception maybe five years ago four and a

00:43:55.680 a half years ago but really i i think what the book provides is a kind of a kind of a refuge for

00:44:02.900 people who it's it i think it reminds people of what real leadership looked like at a time when

00:44:11.220 that reminder is very handy you know because we don't have a lot of it right now so i think that

00:44:17.060 that's that's what the book i think could serve as a could be valuable for people and one thing i took

00:44:22.660 away from this and i don't know this was one of your intentions but that maybe i'm capable of doing

00:44:26.880 what they did too right like go even in this in the face of adversity like that we can still continue

00:44:33.260 to build a build a life yeah yeah yeah well i mean there is that of course i mean the idea that you

00:44:39.920 know i always think of churchill as having taught people the art of being fearless and i do feel that

00:44:47.960 in some ways uh not not courage per se but fearlessness of being able to venture into a

00:44:54.360 situation that is everything tells you is not the situation you should be venturing into you know and

00:45:00.820 to venture in there without fear i do feel that that can be it's kind of a learned experience you

00:45:07.380 know i mean and and you learn by observing others and one of the things that churchill was very very

00:45:12.900 good at he understood the power of symbolic acts he understood the power of visiting bombed out

00:45:18.940 neighborhoods he understood the power of instead of cowering in a shelter when an air raid happened

00:45:24.180 he more often than not would climb to the nearest roof and watch that air raid you know and and it

00:45:30.160 and it became known of course that he did that so you know the the art of of fearlessness can can i

00:45:38.580 think i think can be taught and when you're in your in your darkest hours and you think about how

00:45:43.380 these guys got through this whole thing and how they did it and i think that can help you too well

00:45:48.440 eric is there some place people go to learn more about the book and your work you know website yeah

00:45:52.500 um yeah i have a website eric larsonbooks.com and i've neglected it badly for the last three weeks

00:45:58.880 of book touring but that's going to change so that's that's good but more than anything i just say you

00:46:04.480 know read it fantastic we'll put a link to it on the show notes eric larson thanks

00:46:08.500 for your time it's been a pleasure thank you very much it was i very much enjoyed it my guest today

00:46:13.140 was eric larson he's the author of the book the splendid and the vile it's available on amazon.com

00:46:17.120 and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about the book and his work at eric

00:46:20.860 larsonbooks.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash larson we find links to resources

00:46:26.040 we can delve deeper into this topic

00:46:27.540 well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast check out our website at artofmanliness.com

00:46:39.100 where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles we've written over the

00:46:42.140 years about pretty much anything get a whole series about winston churchill on there go check

00:46:45.580 it out and if you haven't done so already i'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us

00:46:48.480 review on apple podcast or stitcher it helps out a lot if you've done that already thank you please

00:46:52.360 consider sharing the show with a friend or family member you think you get something out of it and if

00:46:55.900 you'd like to enjoy ad free episodes of the a1 podcast you can do so on stitcher premium head

00:46:59.440 over to stitcher premium.com sign up use code manliness at checkout you get a free month trial

00:47:03.660 stitcher premium once you're signed up download the stitcher app on android or ios you start enjoying

00:47:07.880 ad free episodes of the a1 podcast as always thank you for your continued support until next time this

00:47:12.920 is brett mckay reminding not only listen to the a1 podcast but put what you've heard into action

00:47:25.900 you

00:47:26.940 you

00:47:27.360 you

00:47:27.940 you

00:47:28.940 you

00:47:29.440 you

The Art of Manliness - March 18, 2020

#594： How Churchill (and London) Survived the Blitz of 1940

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript