Churchill and...War

Winston Churchill and
The Bombing of Coventry

Sifting Through the Rubbish Bin

BY PETER J. McIVER
FH 41, Autumn 1981

It has now become a matter of accepted fact, at least among the British public, that on the night of 14 - 15 November 1940, rather than compromise a decisive source of intelligence, Winston Churchill allowed the city of Coventry to be left to the mercies of the German Air Force.

This story has appeared in many books, numerous articles and letters to the press, but its present currency is due to the efforts of three men: William Stevenson, Anthony Cave Brown and F. W. Winterbottom, all of whom have written books.

In his book A MAN CALLED INTREPID, Stevenson claims that the Germans sent the order to destroy Coventry in the second week during November. Unlike previous "Ultra" messages, which had always given the name of the target in code, this message gave the name "Coventry" in clear type. Thus, Stevenson says, within minutes of the order being given, it was placed in front of the Prime Minister. Faced with the prospect of leaving the people of the city to die or evacuating them, Churchill turned to Sir William Stephenson ("Intrepid") for advice. What Stephenson advised was that "Ultra" was too valuable a source of intelligence to risk. By evacuating the city, the Prime Minister would be exposing the source and endangering its usefulness in the future. "Intrepid" told Churchill to let the city burn and the people to their fate.

This is much the same story as told by Cave Brown, but the latter fills in a few more details. For a start he says that Churchill had the message a full two days before the raid. Again Churchill decided that "Ultra" was too valuable a source of intelligence to be compromised and so the people were left to die.

The raid itself, Cave Brown asserts, was in revenge for one by the RAF four days earlier on Munich. The Coventry raid fell into three parts and went under the code name "Einheitopreis." The three parts of the raid also had individual code names and were directed against other cities in the Midlands. The other cities were Birmingham (code name "Umbrella") and Wolverhampton (code name "All One Piece"). The code name for Coventry was "Corn." To counter the raid the RAF mounted a series of air strikes against German air bases in Europe under the code name "Cold Douche." (BODYGUARD OF LIES pages 38-44)

But the originator of the prior warning theory was F. W. Winterbottom in his book THE ULTRA SECRET. Published in 1974, and written entirely from memory, this was the first book in English to reveal that the Allies had broken the German codes. Naturally with such a work it could not be without error. And historians with access to documents unavailable to Winterbottom have been quick to point out his errors.

According to Group Captain Winterbottom the name Coventry came through in clear type on an "Ultra" decrypt on the afternoon prior to the raid. According to the evidence presented in the book the name of the city came through at 3 PM on 14 November 1940 and was immediately telephoned by Winterbottom to one of the Prime Minister's private secretaries in Downing Street. (THE ULTRA SECRET pages 82-84.)

This briefly is the position of those writers who believe that the city of Coventry was left by Churchill to the mercy of the Luftwaffe, rather than reveal the secret that the German codes had been broken.

While at first glance these writers seem to be in agreement there are in fact considerable differences between them. For example, while Winterbottom says that he telephoned the information to Downing Street, Stevenson says that the news was given personally by "Intrepid" to the Prime Minister. According to Cave Brown Churchill knew about the raid for at least 48 hours before it took place. Wintertottom says that Coventry was identified as the target only a few hours before the raid.

Both men cannot be correct, though as I will show both are almost certainly wrong. Cave Brown's account has several errors independent from the differences with the other writers. The code name for the attack on Wolverhampton was "All One Price" and not as he gives it "All One Piece." The importance of this was not lost upon the Air Ministry, which quickly realized that the code referred to the sales slogan used by F. W. Woolworth & Co. "Everything at one price": Woolworth and Wolverhampton. This tied in with the code for Birmingham, "Umbrella," which was a reference to Neville Chamberlain (a former Mayor of Birmingham) who never seemed to go anywhere without his umbrella. That was the first code word to be cracked. Wolverhampton fitted because both cities were in the Midlands. But nothing connected "Corn" with Coventry.

By mid-November the Air Ministry had information that the German Air Force was planning a new type of raid against targets in Great Britain. It appeared to the Air Ministry that the Germans were having difficulties with the Knickebein radio direction beam used to direct bombers to their target, and it seemed likely that they would use the more accurate X-Gerat system installed in Luftwaffe unit K.GRl00, which would act as a pathfinding fire raiser for less experienced pilots. The Air Ministry reached this conclusion when reports were received that the Germans had been attacking isolated targets in England with flares instead of bombs.

On 11 November the Air Ministry decoded a German message referring to a raid with the code name "Moonlight Sonata." This was the message in which the word "Corn" first appeared. Because of where the word appeared in the message Dr. Jones, one of the Air Ministry scientists working on the problem of the German bombers, felt that "Corn" referred not to a target but to the appearance of radar screens when jamming was present. (R. V. Jones, MOST SECRET WAR page 201.) The overall code name for the operation "Moonlight Sonata" indicated that the raid would take place on a night when there was a full moon. That meant that it would take place between 15-20 November. "Sonata" indicated that the raid would be in three parts and the Air Ministry considered that this meant that the first part would be the fire-raisers and the other two parts would be normal bombing raids. (Public Records Office AIR2/5238.)

No one at the Air Ministry felt that "Sonata" referred to three quite separate targets on three quite separate nights. The 11 November decrypt referred to four targets labelled 1-4. It also mentioned that Marshal Goering himself had been involved in the planning of the raid - an indication of how important this particular raid was viewed in Berlin. In an Air Ministry appreciation of this message the feeling was that the four targets were all in the south of England, particularly London. This was not just because of Goering's involvement but also because of other quite separate intelligence. (Public Records Office AIR2/5238.)

In particular the Ministry was concerned with a captured German map which had four target areas marked on it, all of them in the south of the country. As the decrypt mentioned four targets and the map showed four targets, the two items were put together as referring to

the same thing. Intelligence gathered from a POW that Coventry and other targets in the Midlands were targets for a future raid was not connected by the Ministry with the "Moonlight Sonata" decrypt. (P.R.O. AIR2/5238.)

In the early hours of 12 November Dr. Jones received a decrypt of a German message which indicated that there was to be a raid against Coventry, Wolverhampton and Birmingham. But there was nothing in this second message to connect it with "Moonlight Sonata"; nor was the connection made. (Public Records Office AIR2O/2419.) And as early as the morning before the raid the connection had not been made and the Ministry were still expecting a raid on the capital.

But what of Winterbottom's signal at 3 that afternoon? Dr. Jones, who was given copies of all "Ultra" decrpyts at the same time as Winterbottom, states that there was no such message. In fact in his book he recalled traveling home that night and wondering where the raid was actually going to end up.

Certainly Churchill thought that the raid was going to be over London. As he was preparing to leave Downing Street for Enstone in Oxfordshire he was handed a report from the Air Ministry which he took with him to read in the car. He did not get very far. On reading the document he ordered his driver to turn around and go back to Downing Street, explaining to his aide that the Air Ministry expected a major German raid on the capital that night. (Sir John Martin letter to The Times 28 Aug.76; Longmate, AIR RAID pages 57-58). After sending his staff away to a shelter, and accompanied by General Sir Hastings Ismay, Churchill went to the Air Ministry roof and there waited for the bombers which never came.

Proof enough that no one left the city to burn for reasons of high strategy is the fact that on the afternoon before the raid Bomber Command attacked 27 enemy airfields and even Berlin. The unfortunate fact is that the raid was expected over London, not Coventry. Even so, 119 aircraft were launched to protect the city once the bombers were seen to be heading for it. Coventry, as the historian Ronald Lewin has written, is a twice-crucified city: once by the bombers and then by those writers who, despite the evidence to the contrary, spread the lie that the city was martyred to protect "Ultra."