[jamesicus]

We all knew that things were really grave in the last week of May and the first week of June, 1940. The reins of government had changed hands -- Neville Chamberlain was out and Winston Churchill (WSC) was the new Prime Minister.

The waning days of May and the first week of June were indeed scary -- in the aftermath of Dunkirk there were rumblings afoot that the War Cabinet was debating whether to sue for peace with Hitler -- the unthinkable -- Surrender! Only later did we learn just how close we came to doing just that and of the colossal struggle between WSC and Lord Halifax (the Foreign Secretary and the leading Appeaser) in the desperate War Cabinet meetings.

There is now a superb book by Professor John Lukacs -- an eminent historian and prolific writer -- that covers the events and portents of this period in meticulous detail ..........

Five Days in London - May 1940, John Lukacs, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1999.

.......... it is an absorbing but chilling read. I don't think most people realize just how close we came to surrendering to Hitler in 1940 -- I didn't.