My obligatory photograph in front of Big Ben
As I mentioned in my first post, I have never been outside of the United States before. Having now been in Europe for a little over a week, I can say – with some confidence – that I now feel like an experienced traveler. My trip began with my flight into Ireland, three days before the official start of the World War II Program in London. I was initially apprehensive about taking my first flight ever (and my first trip abroad ever) all by myself, but my entrance into the city of Dublin quickly calmed my fears. Everyone I ran into was extremely helpful and patient. After being dropped off in the middle of Dublin (without any idea of where to go) by an airport shuttle bus, one woman saw that I looked lost, and she quickly walked over and opened Google Maps on her phone to give me directions to my hostel. The three days I spent in Ireland left me convinced that the Irish are the friendliest people on the planet. I’m glad I made the early trip, since it got me acquainted with life in Europe before I flew into the hustle and bustle of London.
Over the course of my week in London, my schedule was packed full with visits to various historical and cultural sites in the city. I made the obligatory visits to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, and other tourist-y spots. This being a program focused on World War II, of course, I traveled with other program members to sites specific to the war – the Churchill War Rooms, the HMS Belfast, the RAF Bomber Command Memorial, and the Imperial War Museum. London is a city full of history, with places of significance to be found around nearly every corner. The Brits are certainly proud of their long and fabled history.
Bletchley Park, the site of British codebreaking efforts during the war and the inspiration for the 2014 film, The Imitation Game
Initially, I wasn’t sure about what I would make my blog post for London about, but a conversation I had with a British tour guide got me thinking. On Thursday, our group made a half-day trip outside of London to Bletchley Park, the site of British codebreaking efforts during the war to decrypt and analyze German communications. After our guided tour through the site, a few program members and I spoke with the tour guide. I was struck by the man, who, after learning we were American college students studying the history of the war, immediately told us he hoped our visit to Britain would (using his words) “correct” our image of the war. He explained to us that the American education system had misled us and inflated our own country’s role in defeating Nazi Germany.
Winston Churchill’s statue, located just outside Westminster Palace
While the tour guide was personally friendly with us, I did get a sense of his critical attitude toward the United States and the general perception of American arrogance by the British. National biases aside, there is certainly a ring of truth to what he told us. Most Americans’ view of the World War II is skewed and American-centric. In the typical American telling of the war, Hitler had conquered most of Europe by 1942 and stood poised to defeat the Soviet Union – that is, until the United States swooped into Europe and saved the day, leading the war effort in North Africa, Italy, and France, eventually defeating the Nazi regime. This retelling focuses only on the second half of the war, and completely ignores the fact that Britain had been fighting Hitler since 1939, a full three years before the United States committed significant forces to the European Theater of the war.
My experiences in London have allowed me to reflect on the British view of World War II, which, as I have seen, is focused more heavily on the first half of the war – and especially on British suffering during the Blitz. Touring the city, it is hard to escape remnants of the war. Damage from German bombs occurred everywhere. On a walking tour through East London, a guide reminded me and other tourists that most of the buildings in that part of the city were built in the 1950s onward, as the area had been largely obliterated by the
A detail from an exhibit on life in Britain during World War II. British suffering is a major theme at the Imperial War Museum
German Blitz in 1940 and 1941. On a tour of Westminster Abbey, I saw a group of stained-glass windows with inscriptions explaining that they were not the original windows, since the originals had been destroyed by German bombs in 1941.
All-in-all, an upwards of 60,000 British civilians were killed by German terror-bombing throughout the war. The experience is deeply ingrained in the British psyche. At Westminster Abbey, for example, there exists a chapel dedicated to the British airmen who defended the island from German invasion in the autumn of 1940.
A quote from Winston Churchill on Adolf Hitler. Churchill was among the few European leaders who foresaw the threat of Nazism
Museum exhibits constantly remind visitors that until June 1941, Britain stood alone as the only major power fighting Hitler in Europe. From what I have seen in London, the British have given an almost semi-divine status to their former wartime leader, Winston Churchill, and the courageous airmen of the Royal Air Force (who almost certainly prevented a German invasion of Britain and eventual German victory). Images of Churchill are littered throughout the city, from a large statue of him in front of Westminster Palace to a bust of him above a fireplace at Bletchley Park. Our group even visited a museum dedicated solely to the memory of Churchill. The museum depicts Churchill as both a daring wartime leader and a prophetic politician, foreseeing both the dangers of Nazism and Communism for Europe while others looked away.
The RAF Bomber Command Memorial, located in Green Park
Among other sites I visited was the RAF Bomber Command Memorial, which, like the chapel at Westminster Abbey, exalts and idolizes the heroic efforts of everyday Britons against Nazi tyranny. This same story is presented by the World War II exhibits at the Imperial War Museum – the heroics of the British military displayed in one exhibit are contrasted with the horrors of Nazi rule in a second exhibit on the Holocaust. It is a classic tale of good versus evil. It is interesting to see that the museum minimalizes the American war effort and ignores the Soviet war effort altogether.
While the Allied effort against Nazi Germany was clearly a noble cause, it is hard to overlook the fact that Britain itself was fighting not only to defeat Nazi Germany, but to also preserve its global empire. Symbols of British imperialism are everywhere
The Parthenon section of the British Museum. The museum contains a vast collection of art taken (or robbed) from places throughout the former British Empire – in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and India
in London, and is on plain display at sites like the British Museum. Amazingly for me, the British attitude toward its former empire seems quite unapologetic, and the history of imperialism that I’ve seen presented here in London isn’t one of guilt, but, on the contrary, one of celebration and nostalgia. Even as the British highlight the horrors of Nazi brutality, they paradoxically ignore the injustice of their own colonial empire that they worked to preserve throughout the war – in Africa, Asia, and India. As an American, this observation is hard for me to overlook, considering my own country was itself once a part of the British Empire.
While our tour guide at Bletchley Park was certainly justified in criticizing the American view of the war, I have also seen ways in which the British themselves need to “correct” their own view of the war.