Today's Reading
An ordinary British citizen—even the aviation-minded people of Portsmouth—would be hard-pressed to identify a single German aircraft on sight right now. Yet in time, they will distinguish a Heinkel bomber from a Dornier from a Junkers. Not just by silhouette, but also by speed and wasplike engine drone and size and weight of bombs spilling out their bellies. For these warplanes are the greatest threat to England's security and sovereignty in more than a century.
The people of Great Britain well know their nation has never been safe from attack. Invaders from Europe have assaulted the island nation numerous times:
Julius Caesar and the Romans landed in 55 BC.
Vikings from Scandinavia raided for five centuries beginning in the eighth century.
William, Duke of Normandy, the illegitimate son of an unmarried French duke and his mistress, famously landed in 1066. William turned the Roman settlement of Londinium into his personal stronghold, building the fortress that would later become known as the Tower of London.
Seven centuries after William was crowned king, London's population was more than five hundred thousand. A century after that, its large port and magnificent buildings such as St. Paul's Cathedral made London the island's centerpiece. In 1707, the Kingdom of England, which included Wales, joined with Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Ireland would join the union in 1801.[*5]
Raids along the English shoreline never ceased, but successful invasion and conquest of Great Britain ended with William the Conqueror, as the bastard became known.
Naval power made the difference.
Initially slow to grasp the notion of strength on the seas, England was transformed by the establishment of the Royal Navy in 1546. A kingdom united by name and treaty became even more joined by the defensive wall provided by naval force. The English Channel and the North Sea—the cold, dark, watery bodies separating Great Britain from Europe—became the world's most impregnable moat. The British slept well, assured no foreign power would surprise them in the middle of the night.
Then came aircraft.
In January 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany authorized the aerial bombardment of England. The first attack on London was that May, killing twenty-eight people and wounding sixty. On September 8, 1915, motor- driven German Zeppelin L13 dropped a half ton of bombs on Central London. The Royal Navy's defensive cordon meant nothing, particularly to the twenty-two Londoners in Aldersgate who died that day. By the end of May 1916, five hundred fifty Britons had been killed by German bombs.
The terror of being killed from the skies was so great that the Treaty of Versailles, signed to end the Great War, specifically forbade Germany from possessing aerial weapons of war.
Too late. No treaty could diminish mankind's thrall for strategic bombing.
In the abstract, strategic means factories, bridges, barracks, airfields, and all other targets connected with military power. Inevitably, those German bombs also fell on churches, libraries, grocery stores, pubs, and people out for a Sunday stroll, turning ordinary citizens into pink vapor. This shattering of civilian morale gave a new definition to strategic.
But as the British learned in the summer of 1916, when their fighter aircraft used incendiary bullets to set Zeppelins ablaze over London, strategic also means stopping bomber aircraft from releasing their payloads by shooting them down first.
Thus, the Spitfire.
One month from now, on June 3, 1936, Britain's Air Ministry will order 310 Spitfires from Supermarine. Visionary Royal Air Force air vice marshal Hugh Dowding, leader of Britain's Fighter Command, is making the Spitfire, the Hurricane, and a new discovery known as "Radio Direction Finding" the cornerstone of his island defense.
A triumph.
Yet in the midst of this crowning moment, R. J. Mitchell's doctors have news: His cancer has returned.
CHAPTER ONE
March 20, 1039
London, England
10 A.M.
The next hour could forever change Geoffrey Wellum's life.
Or he might just be sent home.
This excerpt ends on page 17 of the hardcover edition.
Monday we begin the book Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World by Katie Arnold.
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