Traveling home
The day was long, and everyone was exhausted.
The historic and beautiful St. Paul’s Cathedral sits less than half a mile away from the Thames River. It is the pinnacle of English Baroque architecture, designed by famed Brit Christopher Wren.
In 1940, at the height of the Blitz — short for Blitzkrieg, a brutal attempt by Hitler’s Germany to conquer England and therefore the whole of Western Europe — St. Paul’s was under constant threat. A landmark of extraordinary importance to the English people, if it was destroyed, it would break their spirits and tank morale faster than a German tank could roll across London Bridge.
Our tour guide Kim Dewdney, an expert on the Battle of Britain, explained the absolute necessity of the Cathedral’s survival for all it meant to Londoners and to patiently observant Allies throughout the world. All eyes were on London.
“They used to say, ‘If St. Paul’s is still standing, we can take it,’” Dewdney said.
Today, I scaled the narrow and many stairs to reach the top of the Cathedral. London could take it. St. Paul’s stands proud and tall, still bustling with tourists, worshipers, and royalty — like it always has.
Efforts to thwart the Blitz and fend off the relentless German air strikes were commanded from a series of interconnected underground rooms near Parliament and St. James Park. The man tasked with saving St. Paul’s, with saving Western Europe, was the cigar-smoking, top-hat-wearing British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
In the underground war rooms, Churchill and a sizable handful of cabinet officers, phone and switchboard operators, and other government personnel facilitated the Allied victory.
Churchill called meetings every day in the Cabinet Room. He and his officers quarreled, bickered, and disagreed. During the Blitz, the weight of the world rested on the shoulders of the men in this room. There could be no room for disagreement.
“We have differed and quarreled before, but now we cannot,” Churchill commanded.
The rooms were social places, hubs of energy and efficiency, a skill that Churchill demanded. He labeled essential files with red stickers that shouted “ACTION THIS DAY.”
Under the constant threat of danger, he recognized that there was no time to waste. Should anything go wrong, Western Europe would succumb. It would have been over. It would have been Axis victory, fascism, anti-Semitism, mass murder camps, and dictatorship. Bloodshed and turmoil. A damning fate for humanity.
But Churchill’s red stickers and blunt orders led Britain, and eventually the nation, to Allied victory.
Winston Churchill’s legacy is complicated. Embedded within the Churchill War Rooms, a museum depicts Churchill’s life and its complexities.
Despite Churchill’s success in World War II, a new government was called as soon as the war was over. The British people had faith in Churchill’s leadership in wartime but knew he could not meet the nation’s needs in peacetime. He was stubborn and opinionated, often isolated by MPs for his controversial imperialist policies, which he staunchly promoted.
His strong imperialist sentiment reared its unfortunate head in Churchill’s involvement in the Middle East and India. He loathed Gandhi and the notion of Indian independence from the British Empire. His views were racist and troubling. Likewise, Churchill and England’s interference with the decades old Israel-Palestinian conflict only worsened tensions in the area.
Churchill’s complex legacy makes him a controversial figure in Britain’s history. A shameful racist and imperialist legacy no doubt haunts Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. But no one can predict what would have happened in the absence of Churchill’s leadership during World War II.
All historical figures are controversial and complicated, and Winston Churchill is not immune from posthumous criticism. Credit must be given where it is due, and it is due for his leadership role in defense against the German forces during the Blitz.
The Churchill War Rooms and Museum do not glorify Churchill, but they do not offer outright criticism either. It merely provides factual information, encouraging visitors to decide for themselves how they feel about Churchill.
Personally, I conclude that it’s complicated, and that Western citizens as a whole are not substantially educated in imperialism or Middle Eastern affairs, something that should change.
Our tour guide explained that the Thames River sparkled under a full moon, acting as the only guiding light for German air pilots as they dropped incendiary bombs and other explosives on the city of London, hoping Churchill would cave.
It’s a paradox: the life of the ancient city, the Thames, involuntarily attracted the mechanisms of death. From underground bunkers miles away, Churchill smoked his famous cigar as he and his officers mounted a defense.
We know how this war ended; we live in its spoils.
I walked along the luminescent Thames on Friday — St. Patrick’s Day, 2023. The city of London was alive. Londoners were out and about. They gathered in pubs and crowded Waterloo Station by the thousands. Survival. Prosperity. It was exciting.
Near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, I stood overlooking the water. The moon above was bright. I saw St. Paul’s Cathedral, alive and well, from a newly constructed pedestrian bridge over the river. London did not fall, and it’s hard to imagine that it ever could.