The Benn Diaries: 1940-1990 Page 4

We went into lunch and it was the best scoff I have seen in Rhodesia. I suppose I shall get used to it but at the moment it is strange. I find that I have forgotten some of my table manners. It is an ideal place for spare time and I enjoy the easy chairs and the music from the radiogram. I was going to go to the flicks tonight but I can only sit with the officers and that cuts out Tommy Stout and Anna, so what’s the use?

  Monday 27 November

  I found Johnny Harris to pay him the 15/- I owe and there were some of the boys, so I stayed and nattered. When I looked back. I felt a despair and was unhappy about it while it went on, though the company was friendly enough. I wasted two or more hours; I sunk into the lowest and cheapest form of humour, partly because I hadn’t sufficient determination and strength to clear off and partly I suppose because I wanted them to know that even though I have a blue band on my sleeve I am still one of the lads. As it was I stayed and talked and laughed over the lowest filth and lost complete control of myself. I writhed when I thought of it afterwards and lay awake for half an hour conscious of self-disgust.

  Tuesday 13 March 1945

  I collected a package from the post office and closed my savings account. The package contained Mike’s Wings – the actual pair that he wore on his battledress. They were taken off that tunic and sent me, so I at once removed the Wings that I had won ten days ago, and that I had put on my own battledress, and sewed on his pair. I prayed that I should be found worthy of the Wings I wore.

  Wednesday 28 March

  I finished my packing and after saying cheerio to one or two people we left Heany for the last time at 0945. The train journey wasn’t particularly exciting but I stood on the end of the railway carriage and saw the sun set for the last time in Rhodesia. It was most impressive and I felt the magic of Africa.

  Friday 13 April – Alexandria

  We heard on the news today that President Roosevelt was dead. We were all gathered round the sergeants’ mess when the eight o’clock news was read and the first, long item concerned his sudden collapse and death. Everyone was absolutely hushed for some minutes, a more marked silence than is ever accorded to great items of war news.

  Without a doubt, everyone was as shocked and as sad as if Churchill himself had died.

  Service life – particularly in air crew – gets you accustomed to death of friends and colleagues. It was rather strange and impressive to be there.

  Sunday 14 April

  I reminisced with Mike aloud and compared notes of my growing fear of operations. The implications of fighting in the air – responsibility for the crew – the possibility of ditching, crashing, being taken prisoner, torture by Japs, these things are working on my imagination and frightening me.

  Tuesday 17 April

  Today a Warwick, doing fighter exercises with a Corsair at 2,000 on the ‘drome, was violently thrown about, it spun in and hit the ground just across the canal, about 300 yards from where I was in the cinema. The petrol tanks blew up and all the crew of eight (six officers and two sergeants) were either killed by the impact or burned to death – a grim business. We heard the thud, rushed out, and a great column of smoke was rising in the air.

  As I watched I saw two or three bits of plywood and fabric floating down. They landed very gently a few yards away.

  The fire burnt for some time. Two dead and half-burnt men were brought out.

  Thursday 26 April

  After lunch we went across to the orderly room and learnt that we had got our leave, plus a railway warrant to Jerusalem. This is joyous news.

  Sometimes I get quite worried about my inability to get on with people. I really cannot get on with Eddy and I feel that it is not his fault. I get nagging, short-tempered and rude. He is patient most of the time and I wonder if I shall ever be able to get on with my crew later, and later on with my wife, if I am so intolerable to live with.

  Tuesday 1 May – Palestine

  I woke up early – it was cold. The train was steaming through the Sinai desert and by the light of the full moon I could discern an expanse of silver sand.

  We got up and washed before the train pulled into Gaza. Here we had breakfast at the NAAFI and afterwards we wandered up and down the platform and were attracted by the quantity of lavatories. There was one for British officers, one for nursing sisters, one for women officers and one for Indian officers, and separate ones again for women other ranks, British other ranks and South African other ranks – class distinction par excellence. Beyond Gaza were green fields well cultivated – I was quite reminded of Blighty – the hedges were well tended, the farm houses fine stone buildings, that pink granite that in England we associate with churches and buildings like the New Bodleian. None of the tumbledown plaster and mud house-huts that mark the Egyptian agricultural land. I saw straight away that this was the land of promise.

  At Lydda we changed and there were crowds of peasants waiting for the Jerusalem train, whom we took to be pilgrims to the city for the Easter Holy Week. The journey from Lydda to Jerusalem was full of surprises. The train twisted and turned through the valleys and climbed painfully between the rough bare mountains. Finally, on the dominating summit we reached the Holy City.

  After seeing the service police we started hunting for accommodation and we went to the Church Army hostel. This was very cheap and very comfortable.

  27 May 1945

  My dearest family

  I left you in my last letter on the top of the Mount of Olives at dawn.

  At lunch we revisited the old city of Jerusalem and found our way to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. I had been expecting to be disappointed. And it was frightful – orange peel and paper on the floor, shouting guides, jabbering masses, police and beggars. I lost the whole atmosphere of Christianity in the building which of all others in the world is – or should be – the focal point of Christian devotions. In the sepulchre itself, of all places, they collected money for the candles! I came away full of rage at this desecration and disappointment.

  To the old city to watch the Abyssinian ceremony of ‘searching for the body of Christ’. The Abyssinian monks (who are incredibly poor) live in hovels on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre and their church is a ‘lean-to’ tent. They broke away from the early Church in about the fifth century and have remained almost unchanged liturgically and doctrinally since then. For a while we could neither see nor hear what was going on. Then the crowd parted and from the church came one black brother, the Abyssinian patriarch, richly clad and followed by other Abyssinian dignitaries and monks. The music was provided by tom-toms, of all instruments, and the procession began.

  On the morning of Monday 7 May we got up at about 7 and went in for breakfast, which consisted of laban, bread and tea. Laban is a large dish of thick sour milk and lumps of cream cheese which I found hard to stomach but gallantly ate. After breakfast we set off through the fields, joined a dusty and rough road and walked across into Syria. We joined the road to Tiberias and got a lift in.

  We hired a rowing boat and rowed out into the Sea of Galilee, trying to pick out Capernaum on the side of the lake further up. Coming in, we entered a little Arab restaurant for refreshment and as we walked towards the place, a Jew hurried up with a smile and said ‘The war – finished!’

  We didn’t know whether to believe it or not so we smiled back. It seemed to be confirmed by a special edition of the paper. So we solemnly celebrated with an orange squash and ice cream each – hardly believing it could be true, hardly thinking of it, it seemed so remote. Returning later to Shaar Hagolan, via another settlement, we found them preparing for a festival to celebrate peace.

  It was nearly 10 o’clock and we understood that the King was to speak so we asked to listen to the wireless. As you know, he didn’t, but in consequence we missed the gathering on the lawn when the leader of the settlement gave an address of welcome in Hebrew to ‘the three English officers’. Think of the wonderful opportunity for replying with a speech – what we missed! I was disappointed.

&nb
sp; Outside on the grass an effigy of the swastika was burned and the settlement crowded into the eating hall, where a little wine and lots of biscuits and nuts were laid along tables.

  I asked for an orange squash and was given one, however one old boy emptied half a cupful of wine into it, and I drank it up – it was practically communion wine – rather an appropriate beverage to celebrate peace.

  Then the national dances began – Germans, Czechs, Poles, Turks, Yugoslavs, all did their national dances. Then there was a pause and an announcement in Hebrew. Everyone looked at us and it was explained that the RAF officers would do an English national dance. Hurriedly deciding to do the boomps-a-daisy, two of us took the floor – it was an instantaneous success and everybody joined in.

  That is how I celebrated the peace.

  Your devoted

  James

  March 1946 – Oxford

  Last night I heard that Group Captain Cheshire was going to give a talk on the atomic bomb and I decided to go along.

  I stepped into the University Air Squadron building and there were the pictures of past members of the Air Squadron around the walls and amongst them a picture of me. There were hardly more than one in six still alive.

  The CO came in and asked us not to drop our cigarette ends on the floor, then he introduced Cheshire.

  Cheshire is a young man of perhaps 26. He came up as an undergraduate in 1937 and joined the Air Force. He was described as the greatest air bomber pilot ever and he is probably the most highly decorated officer of the war. He started off his talk by describing more or less factually the events leading up to ‘Operation Manhattan’.

  In 1944 the Superfort bomber made a direct raid on Japan possible and the Pacific stragegy was organised to procure bases for this. Guam was selected a year later as the base for the atomic raids. The utmost secrecy was required and no one, however senior, outside the project, was informed. They got the mechanism for the bomb transported out there, but the problem was moving the atomic cores. One went by cruiser, the other by C54 US Air Transport – carried by a colonel and a sergeant – in a little yellow box.

  Cheshire did not go on the Hiroshima raid. He described the Nagasaki one. The aircraft (two for observations, one for the bomb) rendezvoused over South Japan at 9 o’clock and went in to the target at 10. They were flying at 34,000 feet. The kite was pressurised, heat and soundproofed so they were wearing khaki slacks and shirts, with no oxygen or intercom. They put dark glasses on, so dark that the sun was just a blur in the centre and when the bomb went off it lit up the whole scene as if a light had been turned on in a darkened room. The heat generated is ten million degrees C, very nearly as hot as the internal heat of the sun. After three minutes they were able to take off their glasses.

  At the moment the bomb dropped there was a flash of fire and a column of smoke rose at about 20,000 feet a minute, to 60,000 feet, where it flattened out into a mushroom shape. They dropped radio sets with instruments attached to record pressure waves, etc.

  Cheshire said quite plainly he did not want to discuss the ethics of the thing but he sobered everyone up by putting to us quite plainly the facts. If we have another war it will mean the end of our physical civilisation, for man might survive but buildings can’t. He spoke quietly and slowly. ‘Realise this, that if these bombs are ever going to be used there is not much point in anything that you are doing now.’

  He was quite remote and above us and no doubt the whole world seemed as unreal to him as he to it.

  Sunday 25 August

  Last Saturday I went out with B. I didn’t realise till I came to pay the bill (£3/10/-) what a waste of time and money it had been. The truth of the matter is that she is a shallow, selfish, dull and expensive little girl. She is very physically attractive, but she has no sort of personality, sparkle or life and absolutely no character. She has got nothing original to say about anything. I found conversation extremely difficult. It petered out almost entirely after a time. What is more she was utterly frigid and didn’t respond at all to the pressure of my arm while we were dancing.

  In June 1947 an ‘unsigned’ article appeared in the Isis magazine of Oxford University

  ‘The facts about Anthony Benn’s early life are simple and unexciting. Born in London just over twenty-two years ago he was educated at Westminster, a period unmarked by any distinction in the fields of school activity in which he participated. He left utterly convinced of the desirability of co-education.

  ‘Along with most of the war-time generations, he spent his three terms in a leisurely way before joining the RAF in summer 1943. He spent a year in Southern Rhodesia, learning to fly which he thought was great fun, though his feelings were not shared by his new instructors.

  ‘His extremely youthful appearance had at least one amusing repercussion. After his first round of the cook-house, as a very new Pilot Officer, the sergeant-cook offered him an orange to take away. Benn accepted this gratefully and fled, blushing furiously. From there he went to the Middle East. His stay in the Middle East was brief and pleasant. It included a leave in Palestine, where he and two others stayed over VE Day as guests in a Jewish communal settlement. At the victory festivities there, the Jews of all nations did their traditional folk dances and the three English officers were asked to do an English national dance. Boompsa-daisy is said to be still popular in the Sea of Galilee area.

  ‘Posted home in time for the General Election he drove a loudspeaker van round his local constituency in Westminster and soon afterward, full of boyish enthusiasm, transferred to the Fleet Air Arm for service in the Far East. However, armed with the atom bomb, the UN Supreme Command decided that Benn’s services could be dispensed with and he was sent on indefinite leave . . .

  ‘What can be said of him as a person? He dresses scruffily, talks too much and is rather boisterous. His interests are mainly political (being a rather idealistic socialist) but he also enjoys discussing a great many other subjects of which he is even more ignorant. He collects pipes, believes in complete social and political equality as between the sexes, gets rather too easily embarrassed for comfort and laughs at his own jokes. Being by nature somewhat unmethodical he attempts to organise his life with three mechanical devices. A petty cash account (to keep him economical), a job list (as a substitute for imperfect memory) and a time chart (to give him an incentive to work).

  ‘Of the future he does not like to think overmuch. He is on the list of Labour Party parliamentary candidates (potential) and hopes to make something of this when he has had time to supplement his rather inadequate PPE education, by gaining a little first-hand knowledge and experience of some aspect of political activity.’

  Thursday 1 April 1948

  All is not well with the Abbey Division of Westminster Labour Party. The growth of the organisation has produced cliques and endless bickering. Wilf Messer is a wonderfully reliable and steady chap. Jack Jones, the chairman, is the best type of trade unionist. But there is an ambitious, bitter and intriguing group. The measure of the tragedy is that it has reached the point where Mrs Hammond, a splendid woman, is resigning and if we can’t keep a woman like her in the Party, what hope is there of increasing our membership? Abbey is, I hope, an exception.

  Saturday 3 April

  My twenty-third birthday. Today the world is heading straight for war. I wonder whether these words will ever be read by anyone who survives.

  I know that everyone tends to believe that every war is bound to be the last but this time with atom bombs and bacteria I can’t see how life can go on in a form worth living, when it is over.

  On this 23rd birthday of mine I am faced with the problem of what to do with my life. In a year’s time I shall have left Oxford behind and shall be working for a living.

  Is politics really my place? Should I earn my living in business? (Benn Brothers for example). Or should I go down a mine for a year? Just where do I stand politically? Am I a socialist? Am I prepared for the personal sacrifices that must necessarily in
volve?

  I must sort out my own position and see if I can’t resolve the present confusions and make out of all this a coherent whole on which to base everything.

  While I am on my own weaknesses and faults, another shortcoming is that I want the limelight too much. Another thing that has always worried me is my self-consciousness. I have always worried terribly what people thought of me and made all sorts of efforts to please. This has probably done me more harm than good.

  If I am really hated by someone even now it still worries me a lot, but generally speaking I am much more at ease with people and with women. A reputation for insincerity is rather a damaging thing, let alone the fundamental badness of insincerity itself. Am I insincere?

  Letters from Anthony Crosland to Tony Benn on the eve of Benn’s marriage to Caroline De Camp; Crosland always called Benn ‘Jimmy’.

  Trinity College

  Oxford

  11 March 1949

  My dear Jimmy

  How are you? All I’ve ever heard from you was a note saying 1. Carol was perfect, 2. the prospect of marriage was perfect, 3. life in general is perfect and 4. you were perfect.

  From all of which I deduced that you were happy and things were going well. I imagine you are now engaged in ceaseless entrepreneurial activity on behalf of this rather shady publishing firm. I hope the job hasn’t turned out to be as disagreeable as you expected.

  Nothing much happens or changes in Oxford. Of the Labour Club I now see little, being very much persona non grata as a result of certain goings-on at the Club dinner where I provided, during the speeches, a background of shrewd comment which was not highly appreciated by the more humourless members present (the majority).

  The main things that have happened to me are that I nearly got South Hammersmith and that I have turned down Oxford. The South Hammersmith thing was disappointing. I was rung up by Gordon Walker to know if I would let my name go forward. I said yes: there was than a fight at the NEC level between me and Douglas Houghton (for the candidature). Houghton won and went down to the selection conference with full Transport House backing and was then quite unexpectedly beaten by Tom Williams, who was a Co-op nominee. Then Oxford fell vacant since they finally got tough and pushed Stewart Cook out. I was nominated by four wards, and had a terrible time making up my mind. But I finally said No, I think wisely. Lady Pakenham in the end was the only candidate and she has now been accepted.