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

England is, of course,’ he told the nation, ‘the crux of the whole war. So far
it has failed conspicuously.’
Harold Nicolson’s Home Intelligence reports on morale suggested there
was no major cause for concern. There was shock at the bombing of
London, but little sign of defeatism. The people who were taking it the
worst were the elderly women of the East End. ‘Old women and mothers
are undermining morale of young women and men by their extreme
nervousness and lack of resilience,’ it was reported on the Monday. A more
general national survey suggested there was bitterness but increased
determination to ‘see it through’. There was dismay that there were not
enough anti-aircraft guns – in fact, there were only a third of the guns that
had been planned pre-war, most siphoned off to the navy. It was also clear
more rest centres, mobile canteens and improvements to public shelters
were urgently needed. A mass exodus from the East End was causing
concern, as were reports of rising anti-Semitism and class feeling because
the bombs had mostly landed in working-class areas.
As the week wore on, however, morale improved noticeably. General
Pile had had sleepless nights over what to do to improve AA fire over the
capital and on the 11th ordered his gunners that night not to worry about
aiming or accuracy, but to simply fire as much as possible. That night, his
thirty-five gun sites launched 13,221 rounds of heavy ack-ack – around one
every two seconds. It worked – the bombers pushed noticeably higher that
night and in many cases avoided flying over the city at all. More
importantly, the population were delighted. ‘Morale has jumped to new
level of confidence and cheerfulness since tremendous AA barrage,’ ran the
morale report on the 12th. ‘This is true of every district contacted, including
East End.’ Growing class resentment was diffused when on Friday the 13th
the grounds of Buckingham Palace were hit by three bombs whilst the King
and Queen were at home. After a week of heavy bombing, British morale
was showing no sign of cracking whatsoever.
Göring had suspected this all along. It was one of the reasons he had
been reluctant to launch these massed attacks on London. Based at his
mobile headquarters aboard Asia, the Reichsmarschall had asked
Jeschonnek, one of the foremost advocates of terror bombing, ‘Do you
think that Germany would cave in if Berlin was wiped out?’
‘Of course not!’ replied the Chief of Staff. He then realized what he had
said and quickly added, ‘British morale is more brittle than our own.’