Reith in Wartime

A new corporation

Having pioneered broadcast communications between Britain and the Empire, Reith was now the man in charge of linking them by air. Imperial Airways - subsidised by the government, though with private shareholders – flew passengers and mail to the outposts of Empire with its famous flying boats. But by 1938 it was losing ground on worldwide routes to other national carriers like Lufthansa and Air France.

Reith's arrival as chairman and managing director must have come as a shock after his time at the BBC: his first task was to authorise lavatory improvements at Croydon Airport. Did the managing director usually deal with matters like this, he asked? 'Yes, indeed' was the answer. Little wonder he set about reorganising the airline.

Using the BBC as a model, he proposed turning it into a state-owned public corporation through a merger with the other, and more successful, British airline British Airways. Within four months, the government had agreed to his plans. The result was the British Overseas Airways Corporation, better known as BOAC.

War breaks out

Reith's life is characterised by his efforts to take on more responsibilities. Running Imperial Airways was not enough; he was soon trying to join the Territorial Army as well. He was offered command of a searchlight company and was later asked to run a whole searchlight battalion. 'So I was going up in the world', he noted drily. But after war broke out, he took on a much bigger role.

In January 1940, Chamberlain invited him into the government as Minister of Information. Reith was not keen. He felt the Ministry had not been run well and was in 'notorious dispute'. He also felt Chamberlain did not personally want him. Their meeting in Downing Street was unfriendly, he wrote. But just as when Chamberlain had asked him to run Imperial Airways, Reith agreed, with misgivings. 'Tried hard to be pleased about it,' he said of his new job. 'Utterly failed'.

Goebbels's Opposite Number

Being Minister of Information with Cabinet rank brought with it a seat in the House of Commons. Reith was elected unopposed for Southampton, whose sitting MP was given a peerage. He had no party label, he was a candidate of the National Government. He found his ministerial role frustrating. The Ministry of Information was one of a handful of Whitehall departments involved in propaganda and information, and no one was in overall charge. Reith thought it was laughable when people compared him with his Nazi equivalent Dr Goebbels. One incident summed up his problems:

As a matter of the greatest urgency and moment I was requested on March 11 to intensify propaganda in the Scandinavian countries. Just that…. No idea of the reason; I could give no directive as to what purpose the intensified propaganda was to serve. Propagand harder in Scandinavia, boys. They would ask what for; the Minister of Information would say he was sorry, he did not know.

Chamberlain had tied Reith's hands further by asking him not to use his background in the BBC to intervene in the Corporation; or to make broadcasts. During his short time as Information Minister, Reith broadcast only once – to France. The News Chronicle said he sounded like 'an ambitious West End actor impersonating a French university lecturer addressing English students.'

Moving to Transport

By May 1940 the war was going badly for Britain - and for Prime Minister Chamberlain. His fate was decided after a debate in the House of Commons about military reverses in Norway. Thirty of his own Conservative MPs joined Labour MPs in voting against him. On May 10th, Labour's leader Clement Attlee sent word that he could no longer serve in the National Government under the Prime Minister.

Chamberlain resigned that afternoon and made way for Reith's old adversary Winston Churchill. When the new Cabinet appointments were announced, the Information Ministry went to Duff Cooper. When he heard, Reith shook hands with senior colleagues, packed up his belongings and, inside ten minutes, had left the building.

That dramatic gesture almost backfired. Churchill wanted to make him Minister of Transport, but because Reith had left so abruptly, it took until the following afternoon to find him. Transport was a disappointment to someone who relished hard work. His sacked predecessor told him next day that the Ministry, responsible for railways and docks, almost ran itself and there was little for the minister to do.

This was another short-lived job for Reith, but in was in this role that he made his maiden - and only - Commons speech, winding up a debate in secret session. Two weeks, later, on October 2nd, 1940, Churchill moved him again, this time to be Minister of Works, and to the House of Lords. Reith's nine months as an MP was over. He became Lord Reith of Stonehaven, his Scottish birthplace.

An enemy at the gates

Although a government minister and peer, Reith was still missing the BBC. At a Cabinet meeting in November 1940, the Corporation came under attack from fellow ministers including Churchill. Later he wrote about the discussion:

Churchill spoke with great bitterness : an enemy within the gates; continually causing trouble; doing more harm than good; something drastic must be done about them. … I wondered what Churchill would say if I offered to go back to the BBC. I nearly did so then and there; very nearly indeed.; it would have been better for me if I had…

As Minister of Works, Reith again experienced the frustrations he felt at Information: too many other departments fighting turf wars. But he found consolation in his responsibility for postwar development. His intensity impressed his officials. One commented: "The speed at which you move is rather shattering to the average person." He stayed in the job for more than a year, until once again Churchill had a reshuffle. This time he was sacked completely.

The news he was out of government came in a letter delivered by motorcycle courier at his home in Buckinghamshire one Saturday evening in February 1942. When Reith read it, he compared his shock with when he was shot in the First World War. Later he blamed what he called "reactionary" Conservative backbenchers for his downfall, possibly because they feared he wanted to nationalise land as part of postwar planning. Another explanation was that Churchill was trying to keep all three parties in his coalition government happy and the non-aligned Reith had no one to fight on his behalf.

Planning for D Day

Reith hated kicking his heels. Desperate for something to do after Churchill sacked him, he wrote to a friend in the Royal Navy for a job: 'I've only one stipulation,' he said, 'to be kept busy. By busy I mean about three times as much work as you imagine anyone doing.' He was a peer and former minister in his fifties, yet he was given a relatively junior rank: Lt Commander - he said his uniform made him look like his chauffeur.

But his talent for organisation found a use in organising ships and equipment to take part in the D Day landings. He was so central to the planning that he was given the top secret details of the invasion in advance. Almost 2,500 British ships were involved in the June 6th landings and the day after, Reith's boss at the Admiralty congratulated him. The Navy had expected no more than 80 per cent of its ships to be available on the day. Reith had made sure the figure was almost 99 per cent.

A young secretary

During his life, Reith took as protégées a number of younger women. One was a girl called Joyce Wilson from Dunblane, whose family he knew. Reith wanted her as his secretary in the Admiralty, but there was a problem. She was serving in the women's branch of the Army, the ATS, not the Navy and the Army didn't want to release her.

Reith fired off a series of memos that eventually went all the way to the Secretary of State for War, Sir James Grigg. He wrote a blunt note on the file: "I will not have my officers, ATS, shunted about to suit the convenience of John Reith, who somewhat late in life has discovered the art of fucking."

There was no evidence of impropriety and later Grigg gave in. But Reith's relationship with the young woman set tongues wagging. In October 1944, he was invited to a ship launch in Newcastle and asked if Joyce could come too. Generously, the shipbuilders asked if she would like to perform the ceremony. So the young secretary launched the ship, while the wife of an admiral, who was also among the guests, could only look on.