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

Chamberlain, who she wished would be kicked out of office as soon as
possible. Two days before, on 7 May, as the Norway debate had begun, she
had wondered whether Chamberlain would be let off the hook, as it seemed
to her he always was. ‘If we allow him to remain in office,’ she typed in her
diary, ‘I feel we might just as well save what we can and come to terms
with Hitler at once. It is amazing – the blindness of this man – he seems so
completely enveloped in the fog of his own complacency.’
A few days earlier, most in Westminster would have agreed with Daidie
that Chamberlain had been unlikely to lose his job as a result of the debate.
And yet what had begun as an attempt to censure the Prime Minister now
looked to have escalated so much that, despite a whopping majority of more
than 240 seats, the Prime Minister had been left fighting for his political
life. Daidie was delighted – and even more so to read in the paper that
Thursday morning that Herbert Morrison had been one of the politicians
leading the attacks the day before.
Later that day, Daidie did find someone in the village who was willing
to discuss the news with her, however – a neighbour and former pacifist
Daidie called ‘Mrs G’. Despite what the papers were saying, Mrs G told
Daidie she still thought it very unlikely Chamberlain would go. ‘You know
how obstinate old people can be,’ she said. Hitler had made him look silly.
‘If he resigns it means that to all intents and purposes Hitler has got the
better of him again.’ Then Daidie asked her what she would do were there
to be a German invasion of England. Her friend looked at her blankly for a
moment then burst out laughing. ‘Oh but that’s absurd,’ she said, ‘a
ridiculous idea.’
Watching the Norway debate from the Commons gallery was the 51-yearold
United States Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy, a
dapper man, with a broad face, pale eyes, a high forehead and round, hornrimmed
spectacles. Joe Kennedy had been posted to London two years
before. An enormously wealthy businessman, he had made his fortune on
the stock market and in commodity broking, before turning his hand to real
estate, bootlegging from Canada during Prohibition, and then moving to
Hollywood, where he created RKO Pictures. In the 1930s he had made a
move into politics, providing much of the funding for Roosevelt’s first
successful bid for the Presidency in 1932. He had been rewarded, not with a
Cabinet post, but with the position of the inaugural Chairman of the