On the afternoon of September 28, 1938, Britain prepared for war. As a fighter plane patrolled the skies above the capital, thousands of blind children were evacuated to the countryside and volunteers began digging trenches in London’s parks. In Whitehall, one observer came upon a large crowd, “silent and anxious”. At the Cenotaph people queued to lay flowers, their faces etched with worry.
In the Commons, an exhausted Neville Chamberlain reported that conflict seemed inevitable. After weeks of mounting tension, Hitler seemed determined to seize the German-speaking Sudetenland from neighbouring Czechoslovakia. Despite his well-chronicled yearning for peace, Chamberlain felt he had no choice but to oppose him. “Today,” he said bleakly, “we are faced with a situation which has had no parallel since 1914.”
Then,
