The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

hearing news that things were looking up in France then that was not
because of any deliberate hoodwinking on the part of the Government, but
because the BBC and the press, and in turn those running the War Office
and at the Ministry of Information, were not fully in the picture at the time
the news was given out. As Harold Nicolson noted on 21 May, ‘The
situation is terribly obscure’ – and he was now working as Parliamentary
Secretary for the Ministry of Information.
Nicolson had been asked to join the Ministry of Morale – as it was
known – on 17 May, one of the last of the junior ministers to have been
given a post. Having just heard the news of the calamitous German
breakthrough at Sedan, he received a telephone call and a moment later the
Prime Minister was on the line.
‘Harold, I think it would be very nice if you joined the Government and
helped Duff at the Ministry of Information,’ the PM said to him.
‘There is nothing I should like better,’ Harold replied immediately.
‘Well, fall in tomorrow. The list will be out tonight. That all right?’
‘Very much all right,’ said Harold.
‘OK,’ said Churchill and then rang off.
As asked, he was at work the following day at the Ministry’s offices in
Senate House at London University, and had been given the post of
Parliamentary Secretary with the specific job of keeping tabs on civilian
morale. There was a War Room, in which there was a large map full of pins
and different-coloured wool marking out the positions of the armies and
kept as up to date as possible. Twice a day there were conferences, at 10.30
in the morning and 5.30 p.m., and a press conference at 12.30 p.m. ‘I have a
nice sunny little room,’ noted Harold, ‘and if the bombing starts, I shall
sleep here. They say that the shelter under our tower is proof even against a
direct hit.’
Despite his excitement at being part of the Government and able to do
something useful, Harold and his colleagues faced a difficult task. Unlike
Churchill, Chamberlain’s Government had insisted on bullish optimism.
Both the defeat in Norway and now the unfolding disaster on the Continent
had staggered the majority. ‘It must be remembered that the defence of the
Low Countries had been continually built up in the press,’ ran one public
opinion survey. ‘Not one person in a thousand could visualise the Germans
breaking through into France.’ By 22 May, the Ministry had set up a Home
Morale Emergency Committee to work on measures that might prevent a