Nov 12, 2017 3 min read

This week in 1940, one of the most famous bombing raids in all of World War II occurred when German bombers flew repeated sorties over the British city of Coventry, dropping both explosive and incendiary bombs that reduced the city’s buildings to rubble, including Coventry’s famous cathedral. More than 550 civilians were killed in the raid, and the destruction was so thorough that the Germans later coined a word, Koventrieren, or “to Coventrate,” describing subsequent destructive bombing raids.

Yet, today the raid on Coventry is mostly remembered because of the controversy over whether or not, thanks to Britain’s ability to decrypt coded German messages, Prime Minister Winston Churchill knew in advance of the attack on Coventry, but decided not to forewarn its residents and risk alerting the Germans that their codes had been broken.

The controversy started when several books written by British officers, especially F.W. Winterbotham’s “The Ultra Secret,” and William Stevenson’s “A Man Called Intrepid,” claimed Churchill knew in advance. Winterbotham wrote he telephoned 10 Downing Street and told one of Churchill’s private secretaries, who he was sure had relayed his message to Churchill, that the “Ultra” code-breaking device had learned of the coming raid on Coventry. As for Stephenson, he claimed to have actually convinced Churchill not to warn Coventry’s residents because it would compromise Ultra. Other writers have more or less confirmed these claims, thereby damaging Churchill’s reputation in the same way, if not to the same degree, as the Germans damaged Coventry.

But is it true?

Not according to one of Churchill’s actual private secretaries, John Colville, who was with him on that day. According to Colville, there had been past discussions about not revealing Ultra in order to prevent peripheral damage, but when – thanks to Ultra – Churchill received word that a massive bombing raid would begin that day, he assumed the target was London. Indeed, Churchill, who at the time was out of the city, went immediately to London, where he ordered his secretaries into bunkers and issued orders that general precautions be taken by all Londoners. According to Colville, Churchill then went to the roof of the Air Ministry to watch “the fireworks.” They never came.

Colville wrote, “There is not the thinnest shred of truth” that Churchill had advance warnings about Coventry, and countless respected historians, including Harry Hensley and David Stafford, agree. As does Churchill’s other private secretary, John Martin, who was also with him that day.

But the story persists, a classic case of Mark Twain’s maxim, occasionally repeated by Churchill, that a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can get its trousers on.