The Great Invasion Scare by Kate Jones
The Night The Bells Rang Out: 7th - 8th September 1940
In the early hours of Sunday 8 September 1940 the inhabitants of Mumbles were suddenly awakened by the ringing of church bells. The urgent clanging was not a call to worship; it was a call to arms – THE EXPECTED GERMAN INVASION had begun!
It is difficult, 80 years on, to imagine exactly what civilian life was like in September 1940. With the war entering its second year there was rationing, shortages, blackout, evacuation, conscription, compulsory war work and all manner of restrictions on every aspect of daily life. In addition there was the threat of German invasion. It was expected and when the church bells pealed their dawn warning many believed troops had landed and were marching towards Mumbles!
“There’s a war on!”
Why was an invasion expected in September 1940? During that spring and early summer German armed forces had advanced rapidly through Western Europe as part of the Sichelsnitt plan. First, Denmark and Norway then Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and France were invaded, defeated and occupied. Italy entered the war on Germany’s side. By the end of June France had fallen, the Channel Islands were in German hands and it looked certain that mainland Britain would be next.
The opening sequence of the BBC sitcom, ‘Dad’s Army’ cleverly sums up the dire situation. Three swastika-headed arrows sweep across Europe forcing Allied troops back to Britain. The arrows halt menacingly on the French coast. Across the English Channel a solitary Union Flagged-arrow (with nothing behind it) watches warily – and waits.
All across Britain people felt that there was now nothing between ‘them and us’. Anti-invasion measures were hurriedly being put in place. Coastal areas were cleared, enemy aliens rounded up and interned, road blocks erected, thousands of sand bags were filled and deployed, anti-aircraft gun batteries installed and (much to the inconvenience of civilians) road signs taken down. It was announced that the ringing of church bells was banned. In future they would only be rung to warn of an invasion. As the hot, dry summer passed, it was no longer a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’, those bells might be rung.
On 11 June, the day after Italy had declared war on Britain and France, Laurie Latchford, a Senior Air Raid Warden living in Caswell Road, Newton, wrote in his private diary: ‘For once we sat down seriously to talk about how we should behave in the event of invasion. I have some papers to burn, but beyond that there seems no role to play at first other than to stay put and look after neighbours as far as possible and grow food. … I didn’t like the dismal atmosphere so I took the whole family down to Mumbles Head where we sat on the grass and watched the ships gathered there. For some reason the sight of this small group of ships, unmolested, was most reassuring.’
A few days later Latchford’s family, along with every household in Britain, would receive a copy of a warning leaflet from The Ministry of Information. ‘If the Invader Comes’ ordered civilians to ‘stay put’ in their homes so as not to block roads needed for the Military. In addition they were told to keep watch, not to believe rumours, not to give any help to the invader and to think before acting - ‘PUT YOUR COUNTRY BEFORE YOURSELF.’
Responsibility for controlling the civilian population, forestalling panic and preventing evacuees blocking communication routes fell to the military authorities, the police and the newly formed Local Defence Volunteers.
“We are the boys who will stop your little game”
On 14 May Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for War, had made a radio appeal for large numbers of men aged between 17 and 65 (especially those not eligible for the armed forces) to offer their services as part of an unpaid but armed Home Defence Force. Within a few hours of the broadcast police stations all over the country dealt with hundreds of thousands of volunteers. The Home Guard, as it was renamed, comprised 1.5 million members. Its role that summer was to be a secondary defence force in any attack or invasion.
Laurie Latchford worked for His Majesty’s Customs and Excise in the Custom House adjacent to South Dock. Swansea in 1940 was an important industrial and commercial town with an equally important and busy port. It was to be protected by a circle of coastal defences of guns, barrage balloons and searchlights. Writing in his diary, Latchford noted the installation of batteries of anti-aircraft guns and reports of tanks and armoured cars hidden in coppices and woods around Swansea Bay. On the beaches ten-foot high iron rails, strung with barbed wire, were driven into the sand and huge blocks of concrete were cast along the low-lying shoreline. The docks themselves were surrounded by high barbed wire fences. All approach roads were blocked. On 28 June he wrote: ‘Swansea is rapidly assuming the appearance of a fort. Every vehicle in or out [of the docks] is stopped by Local Defence Volunteers, now, I believe, called the Home Guard. Pity, their nickname: ‘Look, Duck and Vanish’ is much more colourful!’
“Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?”
A report from Switzerland announced that Hitler would invade on 19 July, because tidal conditions were favourable. That night Laurie Latchford was sleeping at the Newton Air Raid Wardens’ Post in Nottage Road and his diary entry gives a good idea of the level of tension present when the air raid siren went off in the early hours.
‘I went to the door of the Post. The village was black under squally rain. Almost directly I heard a plane flying very low. Searchlights came on but switched off again as they were useless, in fact they were dangerous. The rain transfused the light and the searchlights illuminated the countryside, trees, fields, wet road and the slope of roofs. The plane passed over with a loud roar. Its engines had hardly died away before another plane came. This went on for some time, punctuated by squalls of rain driving up the road from the sea. There seemed to be several planes circling low. I grew more apprehensive as every roar of plane engines grew and faded. I was certain that in a moment we would be ‘for it’.’
In fact, that day Hitler had made his final ‘peace offer’ in a lengthy speech to the Reichstag. If there was no favourable response from Britain then preparations for invasion would begin. The ‘peace offer’ was contemptuously dismissed by the British government. When people in England and Wales awoke to find leaflets festooned across bushes and trees and lying in the streets, cinema newsreels showed copies of ‘A Last Appeal to Reason by Adolf Hitler’ being auctioned for the Red Cross or the Spitfire Fund, or laughingly torn up for use as lavatory paper!
Other objects were dropped from the sky as well - empty parachutes, small amounts of high explosives, maps, photographs, lists of well-known Britons presumably marked for execution, fake instructions to imaginary secret agents – all designed to create fear and confusion.
“Don’t panic!”
In this strained atmosphere of high expectancy, tension and fearful anticipation it was inevitable there would be false alarms. People living in one Rhondda Valley village mistook the sound of wind on a factory tin roof for church bells. In the ensuing pandemonium women apparently armed themselves with petrol-filled milk bottles (matches at the ready) and coppers of boiling water with hoses attached. Not to be outdone, children ran around with whatever weapons they could find, including kitchen knives and pokers! A famer living near Cardiff was called out early one morning with his local Home Guard to man the sea wall and repulse an expected landing of troops from a German submarine. But one glimpse of a low tide expanse of mud indicated that this ‘invasion’ was very unlikely. The sudden arrival overhead of an enemy aircraft and a string of bombs caused the brave defenders to flee back home.
Waiting for Hitler
Hitler knew a seaborne invasion would not succeed without first defeating the RAF. So, all that summer German bombers attacked British coastal defences, radar stations, airfields and aircraft factories, and ports and shipping in the English Channel. The bombers were accompanied by fighters to entice RAF Fighter Command’s defending squadrons into battles to weaken them. Defeat of the RAF would either make invasion possible or, by forcing Britain to surrender, unnecessary. This was the start of what came to be called The Battle of Britain which lasted until the middle of October.
Once French air fields in Brittany and Normandy were captured by Germany, Swansea came well within the range of the Luftwaffe. The first air attack on the town occurred on 27 June 1940, when a stack of six high explosive bombs were dropped on Danygraig and Kilvey Hill. Two days later 2 bombs fell near the Upper Fforest tinplate works at Morriston. More small raids followed.
On the night of 3 August several bombs were dropped near the anchored wreck of SS Protesilaus in Swansea Bay, off West Cross. Little damage was done but the explosions were felt in Newton, where Laurie Latchford was on air raid duty. ‘I came home to find the explosions had rocked the house.’ Four nights later he was rudely awakened when ‘a series of terrific bangs seemed to lift the bed.’ Ten high explosives had been dropped into the sea near the Mumbles lighthouse. ‘Obviously Jerry was after shipping. The Bay is bobbing with half water-logged pieces of wood. … The sea bed must be scattered with such material to be released when the sea bed is disturbed.’
A state of drought was declared after a succession of sun-baked days and during the warm, clear nights air raid sirens in Southend Gardens and on the police house in Newton Road wailed their frequent warnings. Often the aircraft were on their way somewhere else, but it could be nerve-wracking. ‘It seems to me that Jerry is trying new tactics; long hours of wandering, apparently aimlessly, to keep the defence and civilians ‘on the jump’.’ Laurie noted on 25 August.
The air raid on 1 September 1940
A fairly heavy raid on 10 August had caused damage to the main railway line and viaduct at Landore. Fifteen people were killed and a further fifteen injured. But it was on 1 September that Swansea suffered the first of its six ‘blitzes’. That night over 1,000 incendiary bombs and 106 high explosives fell on the town centre and surrounding areas causing extensive damage. Thirty-three people were killed and over 100 injured
Llandarcy oil refinery was hit and tanks of chemicals burned for four days with a fire so intense that Archdeacon Harold Wilkinson (vicar of All Saints’ Church, Oystermouth, five miles away) could read at night, without any lights on! Laurie Latchford wrote: ‘At night it is an awesome sight. The slowly twisting column of black smoke must now be several miles high with flashes of flame within the smoke. We’ll have another heavy raid shortly, I’m sure, with that beacon to guide Jerry in. ‘
Each night people from Swansea left the town seeking refuge in outlying areas. The ‘trekkers’ slept in cars, lorries, tents, huts or in the open air. On the night of Friday 6 September sirens sounded every hour until the ‘All Clear’ finally went at 5.30am.
The Night the Church Bells Rang
It was in this somewhat febrile atmosphere that the church bells of All Saints’ and St. Peters began to ring at 3am on Sunday 8 September. Fast asleep after being on duty all Friday night Laurie Latchford was woken by his wife Essie crying: ‘“Can’t you hear the church bells?” Invasion!’
Scrambling into his clothes, heart thumping and mind racing (the Bristol Channel was a plausible place for invasion) Laurie ran out into the night. The bells were still ringing: ‘with an urgent, irregular clang”. Men were banging on doors calling up the Home Guard and vehicles rushed past in the dark.
At the Air Raid Wardens’ Post in Nottage Road, the instructions were to return home and stay indoors until the siren went. It was very dark and when the bells suddenly ceased their tolling, it was very quiet. There was total silence, no sound at all, not even the distant murmuring of the sea.
Laurie and Essie stood watching from their front bedroom window, looking towards the sea, apprehensively watching for any flashes of light or unusual sounds that might be the enemy. The church bell ‘clanged again with a more urgent and ragged beat than before’. Someone with a screened torch was kicking a front door shouting as he kicked: ‘Come on Ivor, the church bells are ringing. Come on you!’
Now wearing his full air raid warden’s uniform and armed with an Indian club Laurie stepped outside once more. He was immediately challenged by a very young Home Guard with a rifle and fixed bayonet. The church bell stopped as suddenly as it had started. In the silence he could hear muffled voices coming from the gate to St Peter’s church where a group of men challenged him once more. Everyone was jumpy. Laurie shone his torch on the “W” on his tin hat. ‘I didn’t like the way they were waving their rifles about and where they pointed their bayonets. I presumed the rifles were loaded – I was wary. “What’s up?” I demanded. “Damned if we know, man … we were ordered by the military to ring the church bells, invasion somewhere, bound to be!” He told me that about 200 men were in the Mumbles area, fully armed, and that more were coming.’
‘At home a neighbour and his wife were talking to Essie in hushed voices. They were dressed as though for a train journey, with packed bags ready to leave.’
The Latchfords made a pot of tea and set about reassuring themselves: ‘many times in different ways and with different degrees of confidence, that invasion bells would ring over a very large area and that the lack of aeroplane noises or bombing or gunfire and the lack of further warning meant we must be well outside the danger area.’
Settling down for a nap they heard noises from ‘Morgan-across-the-road’s garden. Morgan was digging vigorously! “I’ve got to do something.” [He said] “I can’t keep waiting for Jerry to turn up.”’
Dawn turned into day and the sun came. The early-morning mist cleared and the Bristol Channel sparkled through the pine trees across the road. Daylight restored their confidence.
“We’re afraid you’ve missed the bus.”
It was soon clear that there had not been an invasion. Questions were asked as to why the Home Guard had been called out. In the absence of an immediate official statement various stories circulated - there had been a landing on the Devon coast; seven parachutists were captured east of Swansea!
The Monday newspapers, including the Western Mail, bound by the constraints of censorship carefully reported the ‘mystery over the ringing … of the church bells in a Welsh coast parish on Saturday night. Police and other authorities cannot account for it, but there was much activity on the part of the ARP and other Home Defence Services.’ They went to say that in various places around Britain the Home Guard had been called out by the Military. Roads had been cleared of all civilian traffic. People travelling were stopped and questioned. But the papers assured their readers that fears of an invasion were ‘absolutely groundless’.
The bell-ringing was the result of intense invasion anxiety. Recent air reconnaissance had shown an increase in the number of invasion barges assembled in French and Belgian ports and dive-bombers stationed near the Straits of Dover. Moon and tidal conditions on the south-east coast were favourable for a landing that weekend and by late Saturday afternoon the Chiefs of Staff agreed that an invasion might be imminent. Both the Navy and the Air Force were prepared. However, the civil departments were not given a special warning with the result that when (shortly after 8pm) the signal ‘Cromwell’ was issued from GHQ Home Forces to Commands covering eastern, southern and south-west England, including London, it was misunderstood. It was intended that those receiving the signal should put themselves into a state of highest readiness. However, in some parts of the country, Home Guard commanders acted on their own initiative. They called out their men and ordered bells to be rung. And so it was believed that the long-awaited invasion had commenced.
The situation had been made worse by the Luftwaffe who, in a complete change of tactics, launched a severe daylight air raid on London late on Saturday afternoon. This added to the belief that an invasion was starting and was fuelled by reports of German motor-torpedo boats approaching the south-western coast and the landing of German parachutists. Subsequent Investigations revealed that the ‘German torpedo boats’ were probably the early return of a Cornish fishing fleet emerging from a sea mist!
But rumours persisted, particularly in the American press which widely reported that an attempt to land on British shores on 7 September had been repulsed with large numbers of German casualties. The story later expanded to include false reports that the British had set the sea on fire with burning oil. Although these stories were denied by both Britain and Germany, the ‘whispering campaign’ could well have been British propaganda to boost morale and to convince America that Britain was not a lost cause.
2,000 Londoners were killed or seriously injured in the air raid of 7 September. The wholesale bombing of London and other civilian targets across Britain (including Swansea) continued until the spring of 1941. Germany’s failure to achieve air supremacy in the summer of 1940 meant Hitler postponed the plan to invade Britain. In June 1941 he invaded the USSR instead.
Early in September 1940 a German film crew had arrived in Antwerp to film a simulated ‘invasion’ of Britain, with local beaches used to represent the English coast. The film was presumably never seen in German cinemas!
In October 1940 Winston Churchill commented in a speech broadcast to the people of France: “We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes.”
Kate Jones, August 2020
Acknowledgements and further reading: The Swansea Wartime Diary of Laurie Latchford, 1940-41, edited by Kate Jones and Wendy Cope; The Three Nights’ Blitz, J.R. Alban; How We lived Then, Norman Longmate; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer; The National Newspaper Archive; .Lyrics from Dad’s Army theme song written by Jimmy Perry and Derek Taverner.