The Real History of Foyle's War Book

My wife and I were pondering our all-time absolute favourite television program. This is a difficult question because we can watch an awful lot of television over the decades and one’s judgement is affected by the times, changing personal circumstances and the subtle influence of nostalgia.

The first nominee to pop into my head was the X-Files (early series) followed by Dr Who (especially the Tom Baker era); Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly from Joss Whedon and Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing. Plus Cheers (Shelley Long episodes). In my younger days I adored The Avengers and Callan. But of programs I have viewed recently Foyle’s War stands out.

I came late to Foyle’s War after the program had finished its run. I happened upon an early episode (Fifty Ships) and thought it was quite good: an intriguing story of a murder on a beach involving former business partners: one a naïve scientist and the other an unscrupulous American businessman in Britain to negotiate the Lend–Lease deal (50 American destroyers for Britain plus further aid). I was hooked by the authentic production, the thoughtful central character, Foyle, and the complexity of the issue. The crucial witness turns out to be a German spy. Captured and certain to be hanged, he nevertheless volunteers his account of the events on the beach, in the interests of justice. However, the American gets away with murder, for now, because Foyle is obliged not to jeopardise the coming deal with the United States. Tellingly though, Foyle warns the American as he boards his plane: one day the war will end and I will seek you out and bring you to account.

My mother had long recommended the program and she let me borrow her treasured box set, with the imprecation: ‘You’ll be careful with it, won’t you son.’ The box set is beautifully styled like an old timber filing cabinet with a manila folder for each DVD. Quite lovely. And I did take care of it.

Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle is in charge of Hastings police at the outbreak of World War Two. Within sight of the French coast, Hastings is a likely invasion location and therefore ripe with criminal activity. With Foyle is his driver, Sam, the daughter of a vicar, serving in the Mechanised Transport Corps and Sergeant Milner, once again a policeman after losing his leg as a soldier during the disastrous British foray into Norway at the beginning of the war. Foyle and his team have the difficult task of maintaining the rule of law in wartime, when the opportunities for illegal activity increase enormously. The beauty of the series is that the stories go behind the war effort and into the social, economic and political issues which surfaced during this time.

This is well identified by Anthony Horowitz, the creator and writer of the program, in his forward to Rod Green’s book. He sums up many of the concerns of the program: ‘Anti-Semitism, conscientious objectors, funk holes, the development of biological weapons, illegal gambling, homosexuality in the armed forces, the creation of the SOE, the first developments in plastic surgery, saboteurs, the arrival of the Americans, convoys, land girls, munitions workers, the bouncing bomb and so on…’ He might have added trading with the enemy, spies, people engaged in contraband, internees, slackers, fraud and covert operations. Underlying all of this is the impact of the war on families, especially the effect on wives and girlfriends, mothers and fathers when men return wounded, burned or psychologically damaged. Or do not return at all. Foyle deals with all of this with a phlegmatic style, asking his neutral questions, never flapping, adding the pieces of evidence to put together the truth of what has happened. But these are often grey areas when individual justice gives way to the greater good, sometimes willingly, but often reluctantly as political influence is brought to bear.

The series reflects meticulous research by the creators and commendable verisimilitude achieved by the producers. Rod Green has a written a beaut book delving thoroughly into these issues, providing copious information about the state of Britain during World War Two and relating this information to the Foyle stories. It is an industrious effort sustained by the information he has assembled.

One of the surprises to me was that the real crimes Green details often exceed the scale and scope of the events portrayed fictionally in the show. For example in the episode War of Nerves, Foyle investigates a murder at a ship yard. The investigation uncovers a huge cache of cash and a fraud whereby the owners claimed for 400 workers when they actually employed only half that number. But the conspiracy upon which the story is based involved a Liverpool city councillor, a naval officer in the Ministry of War Transport, and directors and staff at a ship yard who diverted materials intended for the repair of ships, skimmed petrol and charged the admiralty for 2,000 workers when they were actually paying only 800. When the crime was uncovered the chief architect of the fraud shot himself.

One particularly poignant story A Lesson in Murder concerns evacuees. A young boy is evacuated from London to a country estate, where his inquisitiveness gets him killed, murdered by the host trying cover his illegal activities. Green tells us that around 1.5 million children and mothers were evacuated from cities in 1939, but by early 1940 over half of them had drifted back home.

From the outbreak of war extra crimes were added to the 300,000 existing arrestable offences: they rose to 480,000 by the end of the war. Green provides telling examples of the changes wrought by the onset of war:
• There were 400 cases of looting in the first two months of the blitz
• 115 spies infiltrated Britain during the war, but all were identified and usually quickly
• Local defence volunteers (later the Home Guard), was rapidly established with 1.5 million men by July 1940.
• 90,000 women between ages 18 and 40 joined the Land Army during the course of the conflict labouring on farms where men had enlisted
• Pre-war food imports were 55 million tons in 1939 but this had dropped to 30.5 million tons in 1941. This puts into perspective the enormous problems generated by rationing, shortages of all kinds, gouging by profiteers and fraud in relation to scare commodities.

In addition to these interesting statistics, there were several things I did not know about at all. One was that part of the British Isles was occupied by the German forces for the entire duration of the war - the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey – but not before half the population had been evacuated, including woman and children and all Jewish citizens (30,000 in all). I did know about the Lend-Lease deal, but not the part requiring the British to provide leases on land throughout the British Empire for the Americans to build military bases, to operate during the course of the conflict. I knew about the destroyers and the aid to Britain, but did not know about the bases. There were a number in Australia, but I wonder if we were consulted.

The book adds significantly to our understanding of wartime in Britain and enriches the television program. It is certainly a strong contender for my favourite program ever. My wife’s choice? The 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle). And who can argue with that?