“Daughter of Empire” (Lady Pamela Hicks): Living through history

On August 25, 1942 Churchill sent a condolence on the death of Duke of Kent (brother of Edward VIII and George VI) who died of airplane crash on official mission.

“It is with the deepest sorrow that I learnt the news of your irreparable loss.  The Duke of Kent had endeared himself to all by charming nature and willingness to help & serve. . . In this hard war such stroke of fate fall upon many homes; and all dwell under the shadow.  From all these homes there flows to you today a tide of human sympathy & affection to which—though I know the useless of words—I wish to add my own feeling.  May you be granted the strength to bear the sorrow is the only prayer that we can utter.”

Duke of Kent

In “Daughter of Empire”, Lady Pamela Ducks mentioned this (as Duke of Kent was her godfather).  She didn’t mention the exact date of air crash; but it was one paragraph after we read,

“Every prisoner could work if he so wished.  Most helped on local farms. . . That August, 1943, it was all hands to the pump as grandmamma and I worked with them to bring in the harvest.” (You’ll be surprised at how extended royal families did for the war effort.)

But, Duke of Kent was killed on 8/25/1942.  Year mixed up notwithstanding, what we read as history was happening in her daily life.

“The war showed no sign of abating and tragedy struck when my godfather, the Duke of Kent, was killed in an air accident.  He had been on his way—in thick fog—to Iceland on an RAF mission, when the Sunderland flying boat in which he was being flown crashed into a Scottish hillside in Caithness.  I was very shocked by this news—he and his ADC, Michael Strutt, had stayed with us only two weeks earlier and now both men had been killed.  This was what was meant by the fragility of life, I thought, and I prayed that such a fate would not befall my father.”

Right after that she wrote,

When the British and American forces invaded French North Africa, I recorded optimistically in my diary, “The war news is wonderful—about Libya and Egypt.  Our forces have driven the German back over the Egyptian border.  We hope that the war over there is almost over.”  This hope was echoed by Winston Churchill in his dramatic speech the following day, words I turned over and over in my mind: “This is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Erwin Rommel in 1942

11/9/1942 Rommel was defending Sidi Barrani, 200 miles west of El Alamein, “now this is not the end,” Churchill declared in London at the annual Lord Mayor's Lunches on Nov. 10, “it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.” (Thus defeating Rommel in North Africa was the ‘end of the beginning’ of WWII.  I personally divid the WWII—European Theater—into three parts: Part I is North African Campaign; June 6 1944 D-Day is the beginning of Part III, anything between Part I and Part III is Part II, chiefly Italian Campaign.)

The Battle of Alamein (in Egypt) began on Oct. 23, 1942, Axis forces retreated from El Alamein on Nov. 4, turning the tide. The American Sherman tanks arrived in September 1942 and that made a great difference.

Of the numerous letters Rommel wrote to his wife, the one he wrote (10/28/42) during this Battle was particularly touching, in which he expressed the sad sentiment about whether he can survive this defeat, “Whether I would survive a defeat lies in God's hands.  The lot of the vanquished is heavy . . . My last thought is of you. . . After I am gone, you must bear the mourning proudly.”

Daughter of Empire: Tell the tales of ones who made the history

About three years ago I read a book review [Bookshelf] of “Daughter of Empire” in the Wall Street Journal, being an anglophile, I was naturally attracted to it as the author, Lady Pamela Hicks (now 87 years of age), is not only a British aristocrat, but also a Mountbatten. 

Battenberg was originally a German aristocrat.  During WWI, when King George V decreed that the royal family should anglicize their name, choosing Windsor, her grandfather changed his from Battenberg to Mountbatten.

Her father is Admiral Louis Mountbatten, an uncle of Prince Philip (husband of Queen Elizabeth II) and a second cousin once removed of Elizabeth II. Reading WWII over the years, I paid attention to this Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia Command.  He was also the last Viceroy of India; so we’ll also read the stories happened in India.

She was the bridesmaid to then Princess Elizabeth at her 1947 wedding to Prince Philip (the great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria), her first cousin.  She was with this future Queen and Prince Philip in Kenya when King George VI died on Feb. 6, 1952.

Recently I checked out this ebook from Carnegie Library and immediately fell in love with it.  It tells the stories of those who made history in a lighthearted way; it is witty, amusing or at times brutally honest.

This is how her parents met. Ladies, pay attention to how to pose to get the image of beau monde chic.

“Tall, with the good looks of a Hollywood film star, my father was very much in demand. He was also in demand from the royal household, accompanying the Prince of Wales—the future King Edward VIII—as his personal aide-de-camp, on tours including Australia and, later, India and Japan. Grace Kelly once confided that she had always kept a photograph of my father before she met Prince Rainier. Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, a fiercely rich American society hostess, nicknamed “the Kingfisher” for her relentless cultivation of European royalty, singled my father out as the perfect suitor for her only daughter. When she invited him to a tea party on her yacht off Cowes, my father was immediately smitten, falling helplessly in love at first sight. Only it wasn’t quite as Mrs. Vanderbilt had intended, for on board that afternoon was a gathering of young ladies, including Edwina Ashley, an effortlessly glamorous heiress, who had recently learned to stand with her hips pushed slightly forward, the very image of beau monde chic. With one hand on her slender hip, the charms of her gold bracelet glinting off the other in the sun, my father was at once dazzled and delighted. Although they had met a couple of times previously, they began to court in earnest, and when my father went to India with the prince, Edwina followed him, staying at the Viceregal Lodge. It became obvious to all that they were very much in love, so much so that the Prince of Wales lent them his sitting room so that my father could propose.”

Her parents got married at St. Margaret Church, sitting between Westminster Abbey and the House of Commons; it is the parish church of the House of Common.  In the Victory Prayer here on May 8, 1945, Churchill said, “That this House do now attend at the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance from threat of German domination.” Same scene was seen here at the end of WWI.

When you visited Westminster Abbey you will not miss St. Margaret.

St. Margaret's Church

“On 18 July 1922, they were married in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, tucked in the shadow of Westminster Abbey on Parliament Square. It was the most talked-about society wedding of the year, and when my mother walked out on the arm of her dashing husband, beneath a naval arch of swords, they were congratulated by a host of royals, including King George V, Queen Mary, and the Queen Mother, Alexandra. At the sumptuous reception, the Prince of Wales gave the best man’s speech, where they stayed as guests of the very game Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, who bore no grudges”