One of, if not the most famous conspiracies surrounding the Second World War was the Coventry Blitz conspiracy. This conspiracy lays the basis for another conspiracy surrounding World War two which I will cover later this week. The bombing of Coventry was one of the most devastating bomb raids carried out during World War Two. With this event two schools of thought arise. The people that believe that something could have been done to warn the citizens that it was coming, and those who think the British knew nothing of the attack.
Now I am one from the first school of thought. I believe that the British government knew that Coventry would be bombed and did not disclose this information in order to save more lives. I must also say that since this has neither been confirmed nor denied this is my opinion and my claims are based in truth. Any fact I give is always in a given source at the bottom.
Those who believe this theory, much like myself, think that during World War Two The British were able to decode the German Enigma machine and that they knew the bombing of Coventry would happen or at least they knew that a bombing would occur. They think that this was the case think that Churchill let the bombing of Coventry happen in order to not let the Germans know that the British decoded the Enigma machine, According to one RAF officer, he sent in an intelligence report a few hours before the the blitzing that a bombing on Coventry was likely. He also said that even the non Enigma sources of intelligence pointed to the general area of Coventry. If his account is true then that would be proof that Churchill knew. It is said that Churchill's private secretary noted that he received a red box a few hours before the raid and that Churchill told him that there was a heavy raid on London.
A man named Terry Charman, the senior historian at the Imperial War Museum thinks that Churchill really and truly thought that the bombing would take place in London and not Coventry. He also adds that even warning the people that the attack was coming would not have done much to help them and the attacks still would have been devastating. The people were given 3 minutes warning before the bombing and it ended up being very devastating. I will cede that protecting them would have been hard, but the Enigma part is still intact.
The part of this conspiracy that still gets has me believe it is that the British knew how to decode the Enigma machine and did not warn the citizens because that would give it away to the Germans. They did not warn the citizens because it was no use, I think that this still holds up because of that.
Sources
Rennell, Tony. "Did Churchill Annihilate Coventry to Protect an Even Bigger Prize?" Mail Online. March 31, 2008. Accessed December 17, 2015. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-1004223/Did-Churchill-annihilate-Coventry-protect-bigger-prize.html.
Shoesmith, Ian, and Jon Kelly. "The Coventry Blitz 'conspiracy' - BBC News." BBC News. November 12, 2010. Accessed December 17, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11486219.
