COURAGE OF LONDON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26532, 6 August 1947, Page 2

COURAGE OF LONDON

an unexaggerative tribute The Siege of London. By Robert Henrey. J. M. Dent and Sons. 18s. Robert Henrey’s account of London during, the war period, commenced with “A Village in Piccadilly” and continued with “The Incredible City, is completed in the author’s inimitably intimate style w;th The Siege of London. This last book in the trilogy deals with the anxious period of waiting for the great invasion of the Continent, and. when this had begun, the advent of death in a new form, the flying bomb, which, appearing without warning, struck blindly at a helpless population. This was probably London s greatest ordeal, for it came when, though victory was in sight the limit of endurance had almost been reached. It would be an exaggeration to state that there was no fear, but Londoners apparently developed the faculty of conquering it through concentrating on their individual everyda. tasks. Many stories of quiet heroism are recounted in this book, and the indifference to personal suffering which was shown on all sides provides not the least of them. Perhaps the attitude of the Londoners is best epitomised in the observation of a retired general, “Bombs,” he said. “They either kill you or leave you alone. There is no use worrying about them.” This philosophy may have been academically sound, but surpassing courage must have been needed to maintain it in practice. There is a complete absence of heroics in this tale of heroism. The author has looked at London objectively even while being in the heart of it, has recorded everything that a particularly discerning eye could see. and has described it with a facile pen. Superlatives, which might have been excusable in the circumstances, have been completely forsworn, and no situation, no matter how dramatic, has been tainted with exaggeration. E. C. C.