Vera Brittain (1893–1970)

Abstract

As she feared, Brittain was fated to experience not one, but two devastating wars. Unlike Testament of Youth, which was written years after the war it describes, England’s Hour, from which the following selection is taken, was written immediately following the Battle of Britain, when the outcome of the war was still in doubt. In later years, Brittain was to question the wisdom of her decision to send her children abroad, but at the time she clearly felt she had little choice. At the end of the book, Brittain surveyed the ruins of London and was able to spare a thought for the ruins of Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich and hope that the knowledge of the mutual destruction on both sides would help Britons learn to forgive the sufferings inflicted on them by German bombers.