Foreign News: After Boadicea

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(See Cover)

At 111 a. m. Sept. 3, Great Britain's ultimatum to Germany expired. At 11:35 the first air-raid warning wailed over the British capital. Some 8,000,000 unhurried Londoners tramped down the steps of their air-raid shelters, among them George VI, King-Emperor, and his Queen Elizabeth. Half an hour later, the all clear signal given, George and Elizabeth emerged. For him, as Admiral of the Fleet, Field Marshal and Marshal of the Air Force, the war had begun. For her, as for some 15,000,000 other British women, the pre-war life of home and children and firesides and friends had stopped.

The Queen had gone down into the Buckingham Palace dugout wearing a morning gown of her favorite soft blue. Twelve days later, by the King's command, she assumed the title of Commandant in Chief of the three women's auxiliaries to the fighting services—Women's Royal Naval Service, Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service. A large part of her new life was thus to be devoted to leading Britain's women-at-war, and the uniforms of these organizations were added to her wardrobe,* the first warlike garments to be worn by an English Queen since the days of Boadicea.

Greatest Experiment. For better or for worse, so far the British Army and Navy (along with the French) have not undertaken any great decisive action at the front or on the seas (see p. 31). But even if and when they do, even if some great attack should sweep the Germans out of the ocean, some air armada lay Berlin in the dust, some huge offensive run the Reich's soldiers all the way through Prussia and chase Herr Hitler off his cliff at Berchtesgaden, it may well be that these are not the deeds of which Britain will be proudest in World War II. It may be that the greatest victories will have been won at home, in the vast cooperative efforts of British citizens to save each other needless suffering and loss of life, in the carefully planned nationwide emergency hospital service, the transfusion service, the ambulance services (even one on the Thames), in the evacuation of more than 1,000,000 of the defenseless from the danger areas of London, Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester to places of greater safety. For in a nation which, by the world's standards, already had top marks for humanitarianism, the war's first month produced an entire new order of social responsibility. The movement within a week of whole masses of people into thousands of other peoples' homes and schools and churches, Prime Minister Chamberlain described as "the greatest social experiment which England has ever undertaken." On the whole, it was Britain's 15,000,000 women who undertook it.