Britain enters the chapter already convinced that German bombers will eventually strike. Military and civil planners draw this expectation from the First World War, when German zeppelins bombed Britain, and from the rapid improvement of aerial warfare since then. Larger bombs, faster aircraft, and the belief that air defenses could not stop them lead officials such as Stanley Baldwin to conclude that civilians cannot truly be protected from bombing.

Because leaders expect a catastrophic first assault, British civil defense planning becomes extraordinarily grim. Experts predict that London could be shattered in a single blow, with hundreds of thousands dead and mass panic among survivors. Officials therefore prepare not only for rescue but for mass burial, emergency coffin substitutes, trench graves, and the decontamination of bodies and clothing in case poison gas is used.

After Britain declares war on Germany on September 3, 1939, these fears turn into practical nationwide measures against bombing and invasion. The government circulates invasion instructions, adopts the code word “Cromwell,” silences church bells except as an invasion alarm, removes signs, restricts maps, and urges civilians to disable vehicles if enemy troops land. Gas masks are distributed on a vast scale, mailboxes are altered to signal poison gas, and blackout rules transform daily life into one of darkness, confusion, and constant low-level danger.

At the same time, people take anxious comfort from geography and from the assumption that France will hold the line against Germany. British strategy depends heavily on French resistance, so the possibility of France’s collapse is scarcely imaginable. By May 1940, however, fear intensifies so sharply that Harold Nicolson records it plainly and Vita Sackville-West discusses suicide rather than capture. The chapter closes by stating that a chain of unforeseen forces soon does bring the bombers to London, beginning on the evening of May 10, 1940.