It is mentioned in popular science literature and fiction that during the Second World War, British intelligence intercepted a secret message about an impending attack on a major city, but the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom refused to be evacuated in order to hide the fact of decryption. We checked if this story is true.

Bombing of Coventry on the night of 14–15 November 1940 became one of the most devastating Luftwaffe attacks on Britain during the Second World War. As a result of the bombing, which lasted about ten hours, the central part of the city received a severe blow: more than 4,300 buildings were destroyed, including the ancient cathedral. According to various estimates, from 380 to 554 people died, and hundreds more were seriously injured.

Since the 1970s, a version has circulated that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was warned in advance about this attack by intelligence deciphering the German message, but did not order the evacuation of Coventry. Thus, the head of government allegedly hoped to hide the fact of decryption from the enemy and gain the opportunity to continue to learn about his plans.

Subsequently, this story was reflected in popular culture: Robert Harris’s novel “Enigma"(written in 1985, filmed in 2001), a play by Coventry native Alan Pollock "Night in November"(first staged in 2008) and the series "Sherlock"(However, the main character played by Benedict Cumberbatch admits that this may not be true). The assertion that Churchill deliberately sacrificed Coventry is also cited in Russian-language publications Internet portals And Media.

A British military intelligence officer was one of the first to reveal that Churchill knew about the impending attack on Coventry, but refused to prevent it or at least minimize the consequences. Frederick Winterbotham. During World War II, he and his colleagues led a program to break the code used by the German army and transmit the resulting information to the British command. Top-secret information decrypted in this way began to be called code Ultra, this concept is used by the intelligence services of Great Britain and its allies to this day.

In 1974, Winterbotham published the bookUltra's Secret”, in which he stated: Churchill was informed that the target of the next massive German air raid would be Coventry, at about 15:00 on November 14, about four hours before the start of the bombing. However, the Prime Minister did not order the evacuation of people or take special measures to protect the city so as not to compromise the source of important information. Winterbotham described the decision as "terrible" but "certainly the right one." Note that while working on the book, the intelligence officer could not use the still classified archival documents and was forced rely only on memory.

The unjustified categoricalness and even fallacy of the statements of Winterbotham and his associates were demonstrated back in the 1980s, when there were made public texts of reports to Churchill from the Ministry of the Air Force. A report dated November 12, based on partial transcripts, mentioned five areas as possible targets for the upcoming German Operation Moonlight Sonata, and Coventry was not among them. This city (along with Birmingham) was mentioned as a possible target for an imminent heavy bombing by a German military pilot who was captured by the British on November 9. But intelligence was skeptical about his information, continuing to consider London and the surrounding area the most likely target of attack. In response to the impending bombing, the RAF prepared the Cold Water plan. It included measures to suppress German navigational radio beacons X-Gerät (“devices X” - German), as well as air patrols of German air bases and retaliatory bombing of German airfields and cities. When X-Gerät activity became noticeable around 13:00 on 14 November, Operation Cold Water was activated. Apparently, after about two hours, thanks to interceptions of German direction-finding signals, it became clear that they were intersecting in the Coventry area (this is Winterbotham's statement are confirmed report of the head of British air defense Stevenson on November 17).

By message One of Churchill's secretaries, when the Prime Minister was about to leave the Downing Street residence for a country estate in Oxfordshire on the afternoon of November 14, he received a top secret report from the head of the Secret Intelligence Service. After reading it on the road, Churchill ordered the driver to return. Based on the words of the Prime Minister and eyewitness accounts, historians conclude that Churchill was confident of an imminent attack on London that coming night. He sent private secretaries and typists away from the Downing Street residence to safer places, and he himself spent a long time on the roof of the Air Ministry, impatiently awaiting the raid, which never began that night.

On the other hand, historian Frederick Taylor, in a recent book Coventry: November 14, 1940, after analyzing a range of evidence and memoirs, comes to the conclusion that most likely the secret report that Churchill received stated that the attack would not be on London, but on another place, although Coventry was not necessarily specified. According to Taylor, this is why the Prime Minister canceled his departure from the capital. Regarding the lack of measures to evacuate the residents of Coventry, the historian notes that in Europe at that time there were basically no examples of such actions, and with the then level of communications, it was simply impossible to organize the evacuation of a large (about 250,000 inhabitants) city busy with everyday affairs in a matter of hours. Moreover, announcing the raid would create panic and make it difficult for additional fire and civil defense forces to arrive in the city.

There is also no evidence that Churchill neglected measures to defend Coventry. Since this large industrial center had previously been bombed, on November 7 the Prime Minister ordered the strengthening of air defense there. There is evidence that the British authorities - as soon as it became clear on November 14 that Coventry would be the target of the attack - began to implement all the measures previously planned for this case. However, not all of them turned out to be effective - for example, the plan to jam X-Gerät signals completely failed due to the wrong modulation frequency.

As a result, Taylor calls the idea of Coventry being "sacrificed" by an urban legend. In his opinion, there is no reason to believe that Churchill himself or the British authorities in general deliberately decided to neglect the protection of the city in order to keep secret the fact of deciphering German messages. But at that moment, the government basically did not have the resources to prevent the attack or significantly mitigate its consequences.

Cover photo: The Imperial War Museums via Wikimedia Commons