Abstract
In October 1940, when Wallace went on sick leave and Gowers took over as Senior Regional Commissioner, the threat of invasion was, for the moment, receding. On 12 October 1940, Hitler had cancelled Operation Sealion, because the Luftwaffe had failed to establish conditions under which the Germans dared hazard a Channel crossing. The attempt had cost the Luftwaffe 1,733 aircraft. It was one of the decisive air battles of the war.1
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Notes
E. A. Gowers, handwritten notes for address at Natural History Museum farewell dinner, 1945 (Gowers archive). The ‘historic infant’ reference comes from H. R. Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It (Digitised by Harvard University March 8, 2006: Burdick Brothers 1857).
B. H. Liddell Hart (1970) History of the Second World War (London: Cassell), p. 105.
R. M. Titmuss (1950) Problems of Social Policy (London: HMSO), pp. 335–6.
W. Sansom (1990) The Blitz: Westminster at War (London: Oxford University Press), p. 26. A copy of the first edition (Westminster City Council, May 1947) was presented to Gowers by the City of Westminster at the end of the war.
N. Longmate (1971) How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War (London: Hutchinson), p. 364.
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© 2009 Ann Scott
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Scott, A. (2009). WWII: Leading London through the Blitz. In: Ernest Gowers. Understanding Governance series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230244306_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230244306_9
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