Truth rescued

“Grin and bear it” might have been the new motto for Britain, in which the ability “to take it,” rather than any significant victory, became a source of national pride, and even of optimism.

Michael Korda, Alone

Michael Korda

At Dunkirk in the spring of 1940, British and French troops weren’t alone in being rescued. As Michael Korda tells it in his book Alone (see my June 10 post), truth also returned to Britain.

It has often been said that truth is the first casualty of war, and that was the case at the start of World War II. The Ministry of Information practiced heavy censorship, supposedly to protect the British public from the terrible truth of what was happening in Western Europe as German tanks rolled through miles of Allied territory each day. When British troops withdrew from Brussels, it was termed a “readjustment of the front,” not a retreat, in The Times of London, Korda writes.

Words are easier to censor than maps, however. Korda says that perceptive readers could tell what was really happening by studying the printed maps of the position of troops. The rapid shrinking of Allied territory told a story different than that told by the headlines.

War news, if still propaganda to some extent, became more truthful with the Dunkirk evacuation. Here are three reasons:

1. The evacuation of nearly 400,000 troops from France before they could be killed or captured by the Germans was good news, and governments have less reason to censor good news.

2. Dunkirk was possible because of the contributions of hundreds of private sailors, ferry boat crews and others who helped bring those troops across the English Channel. How could the Ministry of Information have silenced so many people even if they had wanted to?

3. Prime  Minister Winston Churchill, unlike his predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, or anyone else in the government at that time, had a gift for rallying others behind him even when he told the truth and even when that truth wasn't pretty. The British may have been alone after France fell, but Churchill's speeches gave citizens, as well as soldiers, confidence they would prevail.

At the time that may not have seemed like the truth, but as it turned out, it was.