Quentin James Reynolds (1902–1965)

In August 1942, nearly two years before D-Day, Allied forces landed in France in large numbers. The Dieppe raid, which consisted mainly of Canadians, was considered a failure at the time. No permanent beachhead was established, nearly 100 RAF aircraft were downed, and something like a third of the Allied troops were killed, wounded or captured.

But Quentin Reynolds, an American journalist who was an eyewitness to the raid on board a British destroyer, wrote a powerful account of the raid, and his conclusion was that it was a dress rehearsal for something else. He was of course referring to Operation Overlord, the Allied landings at Normandy in June 1944.

Reynolds was a great journalist and wrote very well. This book is a kind of follow-up to his London Diary, which described the Blitz. One striking feature of the book is the merciless characterisation of the German enemy. Reynolds quoted Lord Lovat, a British Commando officer, saying: “My job is kill Germans … I do not regard men who have already killed about 50,000 civilians in Britain as anything but beasts, so I do not feel I am committing murder when I kill them.” Reynolds himself, describing the shooting down of a German aircraft, described it like this: “It was a lovely site if you hate Germans, and I hate Germans.”

The immediacy fo the writing, aimed at the audience of that day with no thought of posterity, makes books like these into virtual time machines. Writing in London in early 1943, Reynolds transports us back to a very dark and dangerous time, when no one knew for certain how it would all turn out.… (more)

One thing I love about reading older books is that often they were intended to be read immediately, to change the way people thought, and were not aimed at posterity. This is that kind of book, and it works as a kind of time machine for that reason.

Quentin Reynolds, a legendary American journalist, found himself in London during the Blitz 80 years ago. This is his day by day account of what happened. A documentary film made at the same time -- he was the narrator -- was called "London Can Take It". And that pretty much sums up Reynolds' view.

His descriptions of how Londoners -- and other British people -- coped under the most difficult circumstances are memorable. His portraits of his fellow journalists (who seemed to spend most of their time in bars and restaurants) are unforgettable. The case he makes for America to do more to support Britain is unanswerable.

The one lapse in the book -- and I found this odd -- is his characterisation of U.S. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, father of the future President John F. Kennedy. Joe was a notorious isolationist, and an opponent of America's entry into the war, but Reynolds writes about him with great sympathy, and says he was very well liked in Britain.… (more)