During one record night some 177,000 people sought shelter in London’s tube stations.

As the end of a very difficult 2008—a year of few highs and mostly lows—drew to a merciful conclusion, I was reminded that during the Second World War December was frequently a pivotal month during which great events—both triumphal and disastrous—seemed to occur. Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 come immediately to mind.

For Britain, December 1940 was one of the most significant months of the war, one that offered both hope and despair: good news and bad news. The British had been fighting losing battles against Germany since the war began in the autumn of 1939. It seemed like no sooner had one fiasco ended before another one followed: mounting shipping losses from the increasingly deadly and effective U-boats; the humiliating defeat in Norway in April 1940, followed in May by Dunkirk. The summer of 1940 saw the increasing threat of a German invasion of Britain and the commencement of the daily bombing of London and other British cities by the Luftwaffe. On September 7, 1940, the Blitz officially began, and there followed months of desperate battles in the air as the RAF fought Goering’s Luftwaffe to a draw – enough to stave off invasion and effectively win the Battle of Britain. Yet, the cost was extremely high. The bombing took a heavy toll of destruction and death. Parts of London became almost unrecognizable.

Londoners took refuge in the Underground, which became instant bomb shelters but even these were not altogether safe when bombs occasionally penetrated or roadways collapsed and water mains flooded and drowned people. During one record night some 177,000 people sought shelter in London’s tube stations. However, London was not alone in sustaining heavy damage and loss of life. Birmingham, Coventry, Bristol, Liverpool, Plymouth and other cities were also heavily bombed.

One of the few bright spots of 1940 was Operation Compass, which took place in the remote Western Desert of North Africa in December. For the first time in the war the British won a major victory when Wavell’s small but effective desert army attacked and routed a far larger Italian Tenth Army along the Egyptian-Libyan border. During the ensuing ten weeks British and Commonwealth troops of Lt. Gen. Richard O’Connor’s Western Desert Force advanced over 500 miles, capturing 130,000 prisoners, including 22 generals, and seized some 400 tanks and 1,300 artillery pieces. By the time Compass ended in early 1941 the Tenth Army had ceased to exist. For the first time in the war the British had recorded a badly needed victory. Unfortunately the decision to halt Compass in early February 1941 came at a time when the road to the key port of Tripoli was wide open and might have been captured. Instead a controversial and ultimately futile decision was made to divert British forces from North Africa to Greece, a venture that ended in disaster and another Dunkirk in the spring of 1941.

Although the success of Operation Compass sent a signal, however small, that Britain would fight Hitler and Mussolini to the bitter end, Christmas 1940 became a particularly grim time in London, a city without the voices of children, some 80 percent of whom had been evacuated out of harm’s way to the countryside, or to Canada and the United States. Also silent by government order were the church bells that would only be rung to warn of an invasion. And just as Churchill, and indeed all of Britain rejoiced over O’Connor’s great victory in North Africa, the Germans delivered the strongest reminder yet that control of the war was still in their hands. For three precious days after Christmas they refrained from bombing, but the calm ended with the great firebombing raid of December 29 that was rivaled only by the great fire of 1666 that destroyed most of the City of London and left 200,000 homeless. (* See note at bottom of page 2.)

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