Brian Hodgkinson - Saviour of the Nation

Demands were made by Churchill for such facts

With brusque impatience. Any brief delay

Might jeopardise some action or command.

At sea he scorned to rest upon defence.

How could he use the power of Britain’s fleet

To bring to German hearts the dread of war,

And make the aggressor fear he had aroused,

From careless sleep, a new Leviathan?

His fertile mind conceived a strategy

Of startling boldness. By his naval staff

He ordered that a study should be made

Of how to send a force of battleships

Within the Baltic Sea, and threaten there

To bombard German coastlands, stop her trade,

Especially of the vital Swedish ore,

And even make a landing near Berlin.

In Baltic States the sight of British ships

Would hearten those now cowered by Germany.

Would such a stroke make Stalin hesitate

To strengthen his alliance with the Reich?

But naval experts were more sceptical:

They feared the U-boats, and lacked faith in plans

To strengthen ships against the threat of mines.

The Skagerrak might be the Dardanelles.

A second project then attracted him:

To wreck the Germans’ trade upon the Rhine

With floating mines. The French objected,

Fearful lest their factories would be bombed

In swift revenge. Nor would the Cabinet

Give their full assent. Though mines were made,

They were not used before it was too late.

The members of the House were ill at ease

With Chamberlain’s pursuance of the war,

And when he spoke there was but scant applause;

Whilst Churchill sat beside him on the bench,

A Chinese god of plenty, someone wrote,

With indigestion, circular and hunched.

His words were warmly greeted. With a grin,

He turned to the Prime Minister, and said:

‘I have at present no conception how

This odd change in my fortunes has occurred.’

As he went on, he sounded every note

From deep concern to carefree flippancy,

From resolution to sheer boyishness,

And word by word the members’ spirits rose.

For few had seen the temper of the House

So changed abruptly by a single speech.

Later they talked together in the bars:

‘We have now found our leader’, many said.

Meanwhile from Poland came the darkest news.

Stukas and tanks had overcome the Poles,

Whom gallantry alone could not defend

Against the Wehrmacht ’s mechanised assault.

Churchill’s broadcast strove to offer hope:

‘The heroes of Warsaw are not destroyed.

The soul of Poland lives. The rock remains;

Submerged by tidal waves, it still endures.

Though Russia has pursued its interests there,

Her armies make a strong defensive front,

Which Hitler, though her ally, must deplore.

For Russia would not welcome German moves

Towards the Baltic States, nor further east.’

It fell to Churchill, once again, to rid

The sea lanes of the world of German ships.

Concealed in ocean wastes, like beasts of prey,

They struck the slow and ill-armed merchantmen.

New groups were formed to hunt the Germans down.

Into the port of Montevideo

They drove the pocket-battleship, Graf Spee ,

Whose captain, under orders from Berlin,

Soon scuttled her, and shot himself forthwith.

Amidst the gloom of Winter, Churchill’s speech,

Describing how the Graf Spee met her end,

Warmed British hearts with hopes of victory.

On radio his now familiar voice,

With lisping sibilants, and mocking style –

Pronouncing ‘Nazi’ as in ‘marzipan’ –

Endeared him to the people. Few could doubt

The ruthless will his irony concealed.

Royal Navy sailors, victims of Graf Spee ,

Were held aboard the prison ship Altmark .

Evading all pursuers, she had reached

The fjord coast of Norway, on her way

To land the captives in a German port.

British destroyers intercepted her.

She fled to Josing fjord, seeking there,

Amidst the snow-bound slopes of vacant hills,

The safety of a neutral waterway.

But Churchill ordered Altmark to be searched.

A boarding party overcame the crew.

‘The Navy’s here!’ resounded through the ship,

As British sailors clambered onto deck,

Freed from the holds of dark imprisonment.

This incident sent ripples far afield.

In England it enhanced the First Lord’s claim

To prosecute the war aggressively.

In Germany it weighed on Hitler’s mind.

Though pressed by Admiral Raeder, he’d preferred

That Norway should remain a neutral power.

Now Churchill’s action led him to believe

That now she might submit to British plans

To occupy her ports, and interrupt

The flow of iron ore from the Swedish fields,

Upon which German armaments relied.

This latter scheme, indeed, had long appealed

To Churchill’s judgment. When the war began

He had considered how the Swedish ore

Could be denied to German industry.

In Winter, when the northern Baltic froze,

It was supplied from Narvik, down the coast,

Through neutral waters, safely to the Reich.

If these were mined, the ore-ships would be forced

To enter seas patrolled by British ships.

Persistently had Churchill made the case

That rights of smaller countries should not count

Against those measures from which all would gain.

Without the iron their armaments required,

The Germans could not much prolong the war.

Should moral scruples jeopardise those lives

Which would be lost on future battlefields?

But, in the British Cabinet, Churchill’s voice,

Demanding action, eager to engage,

Had failed to move the scruples and the doubts

Of those same men, who not so long before,

Had hailed, in vain, the Munich settlement.

The Russians meanwhile had attacked the Finns

To gain more ground for Leningrad’s defence.

Though Finnish bravery was much admired,

And many people favoured Allied moves

To go to their assistance, Churchill said

The main objective should be Swedish ore.

In London and in Paris long debates

Took place upon this issue. Plans were made

For Allied landings at Norwegian ports,

Anticipating Germany’s response.

Yet nothing was decided. Churchill watched,

Frustrated at the lack of leadership.

In France Edouard Daladier resigned;

To be replaced by Reynaud, one inclined

To fight the war with more audacity.

But still, in England, Chamberlain remained;

Although, when people talked about the war

In offices and factories, shops or streets,

The name of Churchill was upon their lips.

Affronted by the Altmark incident,

The Führer now accepted Raeder’s view

That holding Norway furthered German aims.

By sea and air the Wehrmacht would descend

Upon Norwegian ports and aerodromes.

The basic aim, his War Directive said,

Was that the Wehrmacht should appear to come

As mere protectors of Norwegian rights.

And yet surprise was vital. Any means

To break down all resistance would be used.

This Operation Weser would precede

The opening of offensives in the west.

Both surface ships and submarines could hide

Along the fjord coast. British blockade

Would be no more a threat; and Swedish ore

Would be secured throughout the Winter months.

So when at last the Cabinet gave assent

To mining the Norwegian waterways

And landings to begin at Narvik port,

They found the Germans had forestalled them there,