“Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” Winston Churchill

“Truth is incontrovertible.  Panic may resent it.  Ignorance may deride it.  Malice may distort it.  But there it is.”  Winston Churchill

“We will not be muzzled!  No to mandatory masks!” Sign carried by American anti-mask protester

“NO to masks.  YES to freedom.”  Sign carried by American anti-mask protester

My new book club has no snacks.  No wine.  No complaining about spouses.
We meet in my queen size bed in my apartment.
There is only one other member, my husband.

Early on in our quarantine, I came up with the idea that we should be our own little book club.  You know, to bond.  To lift each other up.  To get our minds off the virus. By these parameters, our book club has been a spectacular failure.

But the book, The Splendid and the Vile, by Erik Larson did make us think and grow in unexpected ways.

Rather than distracting us from the pandemic, though, it gave us new perspectives.  The parallels between the Blitz (the German bombing campaign against the U.K. in 1940 and 1941)* and America’s war against Covid, were impossible to miss.

In 522 pages, Larson explores Winston Churchill’s first year as Prime Minister, which was during the Blitz.  The book is exhaustively researched, leaning heavily on primary sources, including the records of “civilian diarists,” ordinary people who wrote down their experiences.

Churchill was a character, to be sure.  He was an energetic, overweight 66-year-old who loved his drink, though he told his wife Clementine when she chastised him, “I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”

Chequers

He paraded around in the masculine military and political worlds wearing silk dressing gowns and blue rompers, a spent cigar clenched in his mouth. When Churchill was entertaining guests at Chequers (the Prime Minister’s country house) he would play military marches on the gramophone and perform rifle drills and bayonet maneuvers using his big game rifle.

Once, while Churchill was staying in the White House, Roosevelt knocked on his door. Churchill greeted him, completely naked, with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other.  “Come on in, Franklin,” he said.  “You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide.”

And while all that made him a colorful figure, what endeared him to the British people—and maybe saved them—was his ability to deliver grim news but somehow make the people feel optimistic and indominable.  A government employee said that Churchill was able to transform “the despondent misery of disaster into a grimly certain stepping stone to ultimate victory.”

The author states that Winston believed that “confidence and fearlessness were attitudes that could be adopted by example.”

He often went to bombing sites while debris was still smoldering, wearing his long overcoat and bowler, picking through the rubble with his walking stick.  People called out to “Winnie” and assured him they were still up to the fight.  “They have such confidence,” he said, tearfully. “It is a grave responsibility.”

And yet, when someone told him that he gave the people courage, he said, “I never gave them courage.  I was able to focus theirs.”  He was fond of quoting the French maxim: “On ne règne sur les âmes que par le calme” “One leads by calm.”

During the Blitz, London was bombed 57 nights in a row.  Over 44,000 civilians died  (5,636 of them children), and two million homes were destroyed.  There were shortages of food, clothing, and basic necessities of daily living. There were frequent electricity and gas outages. At night, street lights and car headlights were dimmed.

During bombings, people fled their homes in the middle of the night for sodden, stinking shelters and the Underground. One night, 177,000 Londoners (5% of the population) huddled in one tube station.

People carried gas masks to work.  Children carried Mickey Mouse gas masks.  Each night, citizens were required to use blackout curtains, and civilian wardens enforced the rules.

The military casualties during the Blitz are unknown, but are estimated in excess of 3,000 airmen.  The life expectancy of a new bomber crewman during the Blitz was two weeks.

Civilians played a huge role in the war, joining the Auxiliary Fire Service, the Home Guard, and the Air Raid Precautions service.  The Women’s Voluntary Services for Military Defence, with a million members by the end of 1941, organized the evacuation of children, established centers for the displaced, and developed salvage and recycling projects.

Like the Brits, Americans have sacrificed in countless ways during this deadly war with Covid. Essential workers are putting themselves in harm’s way to keep our economy, hospitals, and schools humming, or at least limping along.  It is not just the medical workers who might inhale viral droplets, but also the people filling my Clicklist order and the maintenance people in my apartment building fixing our air conditioner. And the postal worker who sent my anniversary greeting off to my daughter and son-in-law in Norway.  Then there’s Diane and Pete at Sophia’s diner, slinging the hash and shaving the gyro meat for their diminishing clientele.

During the Blitz in England, the enemy was 15,000 feet above the people’s heads. They could hear and see their foe, and there was no way to deny its existence.  The evidence, dead bodies and demolished buildings, was literally right outside their doors.  During the Blitz, one young British boy was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up.  His response?  “Alive.”

In contrast, during the Pandemic, the enemy is floating invisibly around us, hanging out on doorknobs and cell phones, inexplicably infecting some and sparing others. The virus covertly infects asymptomatic hosts, and these vectors walk among like undercover spies.

If nobody in your circle has been infected by the virus, you could delude yourself into believing it’s not that bad.  It’s not like you open your door and see people gasping for breath.

But make no mistake:  People are experiencing Blitz-level suffering during this Pandemic:

Medical professionals are contracting the virus as they save the lives of the infected.
People have to visit parents through windows of nursing homes.
Patients on ventilators have no family members by their sides encouraging them.
People can’t hold their loved ones’ hands as they die.
Small business owners, who have invested their savings in their dreams, are losing everything because of a viral adversary they never saw coming.

Sadly, many Americans are “puttin’ on the Blitz,” acting like small inconveniences are major sacrifices.  How horrible is it, really, that we need to stay at home and watch Netflix to keep ourselves and others safe?  That we use our microwaves to warm take-out instead of cozying up in café booths?  That we must wash our hands more—we always should have done that anyway—and keep our hands off our face?

That we can’t hug our grandchildren and have to content ourselves with Facetime, Zoom, phone, email, Instagram, Skype? Last night, instead of whispering to my granddaughter, “You’re my special girl,” I had to say it out loud from six feet away. Is this as bad as the Blitz?  Hardly.

Which brings me to the Pandemic equivalent of blackout curtains: masks.  Oh, such drama inspired by an envelope-sized piece of fabric!

You’ve heard Americans puttin’ on the Blitz about masks:  “It infringes on our rights!”  “It’s government overreach!”  “I can’t breathe with a mask.”  “I can’t wear it because I have a condition.”  (Acne? Smeared lipstick? Selfishness? Laziness?)

Today, a congressman who refused to wear a mask consistently, who prohibited his own staff from wearing masks, tested positive for the virus.  How many people might he have infected?  Channeling Winston Churchill:  Never in the field of human conflict have so few reckless, selfish people inflicted suffering on so many innocents.

An elderly Chinese acquaintance of mine emigrated to the U.S. as a refugee after the Tiananmen Square massacre.  When the Pandemic reached American shores, he feared that the U.S. would not survive the challenge because we are spoiled, entitled, untested.  We have not experienced war on our own soil, he said.  We have never had to be resilient.

Is he right?  Can America sip its metaphoric cup of tea and carry on, making small sacrifices for the good of all, or will we keep puttin’ on the Blitz?

In England during the Blitz, there was a fire at the Natural History Museum.  Water from firemen’s hoses caused the museum’s collection of 147-year-old seeds to germinate.

In the last 147 years, Americans have lived through two world wars, the 1918 flu epidemic, the Great Depression, 911. . . Do we have dormant seeds of courage, resilience, and generosity in our collective spirit that can germinate now and help us conquer this beast?

Just wear your damn mask.  Over your nose and mouth, for Pete’s sake!  And stop kvetching.

“It is slothful not to compress your thoughts.”  Winston Churchill
“A gentleman does not have a ham sandwich without mustard.” Winston Churchill

*”The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and is the German word for ‘lightning’.” Wikipedia

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