Mr. Churchill Says

The things you find in newly declassified documents:

Winston Churchill wanted the RAF to wipe out German villages in retaliation for the massacre of Czech civilians in the village of Lidice, wartime cabinet documents have revealed….

Churchill abandoned the plan only in the face of opposition from cabinet colleagues, who feared that the lives of aircrews would be placed needlessly at risk. Clement Attlee, the dominions secretary and future Labour prime minister, said he believed it unwise "to enter into competition in frightfulness with the Germans". On June 15 Churchill conceded, saying: "My instinct is strongly the other way … I submit unwillingly to the view of cabinet against."

Churchill was reportedly much more savage in his blog, where he suggested that his cabinet was "on the other side" and asked, "Don't they know there's a war on?"