Jan 2, 2006
Churchill Overruled: Innocent Lives Spared
With a new year comes the disclosure of new state secrets. After sixty-three years, wartime cabinet documents just released show that Winston Churchill wanted the RAF to wipe out German villages in retaliation for the Nazi massacre of Czech civilians in the village of Lidice. He proposed 'three for one' bombing of German villages and abandoned the plan only in the face of opposition from cabinet colleagues, who feared that the lives of aircrews would be placed needlessly at risk. Clement Attlee, the dominions secretary and future Labour prime minister, said he believed it unwise"to enter into competition in frightfulness with the Germans". On June 15 Churchill conceded, saying:"My instinct is strongly the other way ... I submit unwillingly to the view of cabinet against."
The story from today’s Guardian carries other interesting stories from the notebooks kept by Sir Norman Brook, the wartime deputy cabinet secretary, who recorded cabinet meetings. Churchill wanted Adolf Hitler executed"like a gangster" in an electric chair borrowed from the Americans, if the dictator were captured alive by British troops; German PoWs in British hands shot if the Nazis began killing British captives; and Mahatma Gandhi allowed to die if he went on hunger strike while interned.
British troops were told to show respect for the US army's racial segregation policies by showing"reserve" when meeting black troops stationed in Britain during the war. The guidance was issued after anguished debate in Churchill's cabinet over how to deal with discriminatory American rules. The Guardian explains that hundreds of thousands of black troops, mostly from colonies, were expected to be treated equally in the British Empire's armed forces, while white US soldiers ate and slept separately from their black comrades.
The story from today’s Guardian carries other interesting stories from the notebooks kept by Sir Norman Brook, the wartime deputy cabinet secretary, who recorded cabinet meetings. Churchill wanted Adolf Hitler executed"like a gangster" in an electric chair borrowed from the Americans, if the dictator were captured alive by British troops; German PoWs in British hands shot if the Nazis began killing British captives; and Mahatma Gandhi allowed to die if he went on hunger strike while interned.
British troops were told to show respect for the US army's racial segregation policies by showing"reserve" when meeting black troops stationed in Britain during the war. The guidance was issued after anguished debate in Churchill's cabinet over how to deal with discriminatory American rules. The Guardian explains that hundreds of thousands of black troops, mostly from colonies, were expected to be treated equally in the British Empire's armed forces, while white US soldiers ate and slept separately from their black comrades.