The skies were clear and the moon full and bright over Coventry, England on November 14th and 15th 1940. Perfect weather for the 509 Luftwaffe bombers streaming out of France as part of the Nazi high command’s plan to force Great Britain to sue for peace.
The Nazis believed that if they could demoralize British citizens through the systemic bombing that had started that August, it would force the British government to fall, leading to a negotiated peace. A peace with Nazis. Coventry was escalation of that plan with hundreds of tons of bombs and 29,000 incendiary devices dropped by German bombers. There wasn’t much left by the morning of the 15th and its population shattered.
The problem for the Nazis was Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He was having none of it. His warnings about Hitler’s intentions had dated back to the early 1930s; he had proved right, but few listened before it was too late. Continental Europe was a dark, dark place by the fall of 1940. Churchill knew well what the stakes would be if Great Britain fell. Messy democracy was always better than autocracy, especially one rooted in the vilest of ideologies.
And we here are, again, 84 years later, looking across a figurative English Channel at a dark choice that promises a freedom that isn’t freedom, scapegoating innocents, simplistic solutions to complex problems and a political platform based on revenge.
It would serve us well to remember the spirit of the Churchill who climbed on rooftops to watch the pitched battles between the RAF and the Luftwaffe, who with walking stick in hand, toured the rubble after bombings, who wept openly at the strength and suffering of British citizens. And who told Nazi Germany, no. We will not surrender.
