They'll Never Quit Book

THEYLL NEVER QUIT By HARVEY KLEMMER WILFRED FUNK, INC. Publishers New York THIS book has not been censored. I purposely waited until I had left Eng land before writing it, as, although I sympathize with Britain in her strug gle against the Nazis, I did not wish to be hampered in my efforts to present to the people of America a true picture of the Blitzkrieg, No information contained in this book was secured as a result of my of ficial connection with the American Embassy in London. The opinions ex pressed are, of course, my own. THE AUTHOR Washington, D. C. February 6, 1941. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 1. BLITZKRIEG 1 2. BRITAIN AT BAY 9 3. OBJECTIVES MILITARY AND OTHERWISE 21 4. FIGHTING BACK 34 5. NEVER WAS So MUCH OWED BY So MANY TO So FEW 48 6. BEATING THE NIGHT BOMBER 64 7. TAKING IT 74 8. BOMB DISPOSAL 90 9. GONE TO EARTH 105 10. DIGGING THEM OUT 122 11. To ELL WITH ITLER 135 12. DIRECT HIT 146 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 13. MARX COMES TO MAYFAIR 156 14. COMMUTER 173 15. COUNTRY LIFE 187 16. THE 8 32 TO VICTORIA 201 17. MURDER IN THE BLACK-OUT 216 18. AMERICAN OUTPOST 232 19. HITLERS SECRET WEAPON 246 20. WILL THEYJINVADE 264 f- rf Vt 21. RECEPTION COMMITTEE 278 22. BRITAIN STANDS 289 23. AND Now WHAT ABOUT AMERICA 305 THEYLL NEVER QUIT Chapter I BLITZKRIEG ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1940, at five oclock in the after noon, a fleet of German planes swept up the Thames Estuary to the East End of London. They showered incendiaries on the warehouses and the houses of dockland. Three and one-half hours later the heavy bombers came. The Blitzkrieg was on. Not that this was Britains first experience of German bombers. They had been coming over for months. Bombs had been dropped many times in the South and the Southeast of England, in Wales, in the Midlands, in Scotland. The attacks, how ever, had been spread out and sporadic. It was very obvious, on the night of September 7, that the war had entered a new phase. 2 THEYLL NEVER QUIT We should have known what to expect. As re cently as September 4, Hitler had threatened Britain with indiscriminate bombing in retaliation for the Royal Air Force raids on Germany. Now the threat was to be fulfilled. It was just tea-time when the first planes arrived. They came in five waves. There must have been 500 of them altogether. The streets were jammed with throngs of Saturday afternoon shoppers. Men sat in the pubs enjoying thick beer, grimy pipes, and an occasional game of darts. Children played wherever there was room for them to play. Four thousand people were watching a football game in one field and, at another nearby, 6,000 milled about a greyhound track. Nobody paid much attention to the siren. It had gone many times before and, as before, undoubtedly would be followed by the All Clear in a little while. It wasnt. This raid soon took on a character different from the others. Perhaps it was the sav age fashion in which the Nazis fought their way into the city. The fact that it was Saturday also probably had something to do with the feeling of dread which gradually spread through the East End, Hitler almost always pulled his coups on week-ends. The Germans had been talking for a long time about the fate which they were prepar ing for Britain. Were they about to translate these threats into action BLITZKRIEG 3 It developed they were. To the east and to the southeast the guns began to roar. Little white rings of smoke took shape in the sky. Sometimes they materialized one at a time. At other times a group of them would spring into view. A wave of sound, a dreadful, angry sound like the buzzing of mil lions of bees, rolled over the city. Suddenly, over the rings, the bombers appeared. Until one has actually seen their handiwork, and felt the destructive force of their cargoes, it is im possible to appreciate the deadliness of these ma chines. They look like toys suspended from invis ible threads. In battle, they seem to swim like tiny silver fish...Read More