ABSTRACT
Dunkirk represented an appalling defeat for Britain. Large quantities of material were left behind on the beaches. The morale of the British Army was shattered. Men returning home were throwing away their weapons along the railway lines into London. A German invasion was imminent. Tom Hopkinson, then editor of the Picture Post, after an appeal from Anthony Eden, decided not to tell the British public the truth about Dunkirk. He, along with his colleagues in Fleet Street, believed the truth would demoralise people and make them less able to resist an invasion. Instead the press presented Dunkirk as some sort of triumph and attempted to keep Britain in good heart. Hopkinson, rather than tell just how bad things were, filled the Picture Post with articles full of practical ideas for resisting an invasion.
I believed that if we all resisted for a year, the Americans would be bound to come into the war, and would beat the Germans. It was the truth of the imagination, not the truth of external reality. 1
