March 28, 2013

Finest Hour 155, Summer 2012

Page 47

Hi-Tech Britain in World War II

Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources, and Experts in the Second World War, by David Edgerton. Allen Lane, hardbound, illus., 464 pp., $34.95, Kindle $19.22. Member price  $27.95.

2024 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 41st International Churchill Conference. London | October 2024
More

By William John Shepherd

Mr. Shepherd is Associate Archivist of The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.


Here is a reasoned revisionist work on “war science” with a refined argument, well documented with extensive endnotes and bibliography, maps and tables. It amounts to a profound reinterpretation of the role and legacy of Great Britain and Churchill in the Second World War.

Edgerton, a British historian, develops iconoclastic themes from his previous works, challenging the conventional history of science and technology relative to war, economy, and society. He argues that Britain practiced “liberal militarism” (73) and was a “warfare state” before it was a “welfare state” (299). It gave priority to military capability, especially research and development in the arms industry, as well as on health care and social security.

The author disputes the familiar image of underdog Britain resisting German might. He argues instead that Britain was a rich and well-armed country, commanding a global economic system. It had the most mechanized military forces in the world, with a large empire and numerous allies fighting on several fronts, and was well supplied with food, arms and fuel. Led by the technological visionary Churchill, the British created and deployed a range of machines from mundane to bizarre to support the war effort. This included the (American) Liberty ships, radar, four- engine heavy bombers, floating harbors (Mulberries), and an underwater fuel pipeline (PLUTO).

Despite early defeats by less well- equipped enemies, the British vision of modern war was vindicated with a relatively cheap victory (shared with America), compared with other combatants on both sides. Misleading depictions of wartime Britain result from the convergence of several elements, Edgerton explains. The Blitz of 1940 continues to evoke popular cultural images of British distinctiveness from their European neighbors, while liberal academic histories overemphasize the notion of a people’s democracy triumphing and enacting a cradle-to-grave welfare state.

Edgerton also presents a revised view of Churchill as more than a Victorian adventurer and antediluvian romantic: He had, for example, a lifelong interest in science and inventions (86-88). He was even criticized in 1942 for an overemphasis on new gadgets (137). Churchill, the author argues, presided over what Edgerton calls the most “technically oriented” government Britain ever had (138). He has a favorable view of the controversial Frederick Lindemann (Viscount Cherwell) as a confidant and scientific adviser to Churchill (104); and of the strategic bombing guru Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, whom he calls, in the spirit of Gilbert and Sullivan, the “very model of a modern warrior” (290).

This is a well packaged critique of the way British history has heretofore been written and makes a convincing case for a fuller portrait of Churchill beyond the Hero of 1940, so often characterized as out of touch with his country’s development and progress.

A tribute, join us

#thinkchurchill

Subscribe

WANT MORE?

Get the Churchill Bulletin delivered to your inbox once a month.