If Britain Had Fallen by Norman Longmate Read Free Book Online Page B

unit, which patrolled the area on horseback, to search for ‘arrows supposedly acting as pointers for incoming German bombers … cut in the middle of areas of standing corn’, which, it was believed, an observer on horseback could detect more easily than anyone at ground level. She made no more exciting discovery, however, than a courting couple, meeting secretly because of parental disapproval. 2
    The really suspicious figures at this time, however, were nuns, it beingwidely believed that Holland had been captured by battalions of tough storm-troopers descending from the skies dressed as members of religious orders. The Dutch foreign minister, who started the story, also told a press conference in London in May of invaders arriving disguised as nurses, monks and tramcar conductors, but these categories never enjoyed the same popularity as fifth-columnists. Before long everyone knew someone who had encountered a nun in a train who had worn heavy jackboots beneath her skirt, or when trodden upon had uttered a manly oath, though why the Germans, with so many alternatives to choose from, should have selected a form of fancy dress that was both conspicuous and impractical was never explained. As one woman, involved in anti-invasion preparations in a remote village in Essex, remarked, any nun arriving there even in peacetime and by bus, let alone parachute, would have set the villagers speculating for days.
    Among the measures taken to frustrate the knavish tricks of fifth columnists was the taking down of all the signposts in the country, ordered on 31 May, and the removal of milestones, station nameboards, place names on war memorials, and any other sign that could enable a town or village to be identified, a measure that could not have caused more trouble to the defenders, and less to the potential invaders, if it had been the inspiration of Hitler himself. Punch reflected the traveller’s problems when it published in late July a cartoon showing a small boy telling a group of obviously lost staff officers, clutching maps, ‘I’ll tell nobody where anywhere is’.
    Other restrictions, like the ban on carrying a car radio, caused less concern and one change introduced in May 1940 was positively popular, the identification by name of announcers reading the news, prompting many ponderous imitations by humorists declaring with an exaggerated, supposedly German accent: ‘Hier ist ze news and hier ist Alvar Lidell reading it.’ The possibility was, however, less fanciful than it seemed to the general public for (although the British government did not wish to advertise the fact) already four ‘black’, i.e. unacknowledged, German radio stations were bombarding the British Isles with misleading information, each claiming to be operating ‘underground’ as part of a secret resistance movement against the British government. The New British Broadcasting Station, which used as its signature tune ‘The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’, had been broadcasting since February, and it was followed in July by Workers’ Challenge, which depicted the war as a capitalist ramp, Caledonia, appealing to nationalist sentiment with a Scottish accent and ‘Auld Lang Syne’, and the Christian Peace Movement, pleading for an armistice on pacifist grounds. The stations also did their best to spreadfear by describing air-raid injuries in horrifying detail, and by prophesying the use of such secret weapons as a death ray and artificial fog, under which airborne troops could drop unseen. As the appointed date for the invasion drew nearer the stations grew more frenzied, urging their supposed fellow-countrymen to hiss Churchill when he appeared on the newsreels and break the ‘warmongers’ ‘ windows. The broadcasters also did their best to confuse the British commanders by mentioning a whole range of possible targets for an attack, Glasgow, the Black Country, South Wales and Ireland all being suggested, and, since its omission would