Churchill understood the power of symbolic acts.
He stopped at an air-raid shelter where a bomb had killed forty people and a large crowd was gathering. For a moment, Ismay feared that the onlookers might resent Churchill’s arrival, out of indignation at the government’s failure to protect the city, but these East Enders seemed delighted. Ismay heard someone shout, “Good old Winnie! We thought you’d come and see us. We can take it. Give it ’em back.”
Colin Perry, who had witnessed the raid from his bicycle, saw Churchill and wrote in his diary, “He looked invincible, which he is. Tough, bulldogged, piercing.”
The Splendid & The Vile – Erik Larson
Mmm, Peaches 