It took 8 months for London and Tokyo to negotiate a swap of their diplomats and civilians. Finally the Tokyo community gathered for one last photo, and headed for the port. When the ship arrived at LM, the Brits got off down one gangway as the Japanese boarded up another. And 👇

Luckily, the compound was spacious. Embassy staff put up the incomers in spare rooms. The Ambassador Sir Robert Craigie prescribed ‘cheerful energy’ to avoid boredom. The key role of allocating fairly the scarce food supplies went to Mrs Mason, the mother of a young diplomat. 3/5

When Britain and Japan declared war in Dec 1941, the British community in Tokyo were herded onto the Embassy compound, some 90 men, women and children. They were cut off from the world. No radios. Communications only by handing messages to neutral diplomats through the gates. 2/5

In July 1942 the Japanese liner Tatsuta Maru left Yokohama with the entire British community in Tokyo, who had been interned for 8 months. She stopped in Saigon + Singapore to collect more allied civilians and docked at Lourenço Marques where they were exchanged for Japanese staff from Europe 1/5

The Tapestry is a gift which will go on giving! These 11c images have effortlessly taken to social media.

Shocking allegations that King Harold was not spending 3.5% on defence.

Thank you @rusi.bsky.social for hosting a launch event for Peace Makers expertly chaired by FCDO Chief Historian Professor Patrick Salmon. Great discussion with many questions on the FO role in shaping the outcome of the war, and how the war changed the FO esp in breaking down barriers to women.

Speaking at the Borders Books Festival a great opportunity to immerse in beautiful Melrose including the Abbey and Abbotsford. Thanks to all who came along to make my discussion with @gavinesler.bsky.social about Peace Makers a sellout!

Excited to get my copy and can’t wait to read the views of a critical friend of (and no stranger to) Britain. Love the cover too! @helenebismarck.bsky.social

Thank you to John Healey and Lord (Vernon) Coaker for your presence at DDay82 at the British Normandy Memorial. We honoured the memory of Lord Coaker’s uncle, Sgt Vernon Coaker, killed on 6 June 1944 at the age of 23, and that of all his comrades who fell under British command in the 1944 battles.

Ken Hay, 100, 4th Dorset Regiment, with Alexander Churchill, 11, great great grandson and youth Ambassador for the British Normandy Memorial at our DDay service today. One of the main aims of the Memorial is to transmit the memory of what the heroes of 1944 fought for and why to the next generation.

No prizes for guessing who was born here and which significant birthday will be marked next year!

A Tapestry of Trees awaits the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum, with a garden of the plants which would have been growing wild in Sussex when William and co stormed ashore. Tickets on sale for this once in 1,000 year opportunity from 1 July at Britishmuseum.org. Don’t miss it!

Theme coming through here! I agree with the conclusion of both. Britain is not ungovernable but it needs to be governed well. Leaders must be honest with voters, set clear directions for the excellent civil service, and put some time into thinking strategically not just reacting tactically.

Privileged to attend the Jersey Liberation Day in glorious weather as part of the cooperation between Jersey and the Franco-British Council, and to discuss with a group of public servants how a disorderly world impacts a financial centre like theirs.

Returning to the UK, she was due to travel on the Liberator bomber which crashed off Gander killing a number of FO staff. At the last moment she took another flight. As Heather calmly recounted her story I knew I was hearing the authentic voice of that remarkable generation. Happy reading!

An early ordeal was to take dictation from the great man. ‘He was always very charming but he could be quite demanding, but then so he should be. A real gentleman. He was always beautifully dressed…Churchill would feel free to wander across in his siren suit.’ 2/6

Peace Makers is out today! Here’s a last preview🧵. Mrs Heather Thomsett, née Auchterlonie, joined the FO in 1943. After the typing pool, she was a secretary in Anthony Eden’s office, and went with him to Yalta and the US. It was a great privilege to interview her in her 100th year. 1/6

The future novelist Anthony Powell worked under C-D for a few weeks, found him pompous and humourless (nick-naming him the ‘Papal Bun’) and later hinted that the pushy military lawyer was behind the character of Widmerpool in A Dance to the Music of Time, immortalised by Simon Russell Beale. 7/8

Denis Capel-Dunn was on the Delegation as the Secretary to the Joint Intelligence Committee. A former official and a barrister, he joined the Intel Corps in 1940 and became a very influential Whitehall warrior at the heart of the secret state. He lives on, in an unexpected way! 6/8

Sir William Malkin, FO Legal Adviser, is third from the left. On the far right is Lt Col Denis Capel-Dunn. Both were killed returning from the San Francisco conference establishing the UN. Their RCAF Liberator crashed between Gander and Keflavik, killing all 15 on board. 4/8

The pilot had got lost in mist and circled for hours before trying to crash-land in the sea. Cadogan kept for the privacy of his diary how distraught he was at the loss of Loxley his ‘very valued friend and helper’, widely seen as a rising star, and the waste of other FO staff members’ lives. 3/8

On the far left is Peter Loxley, Alec Cadogan’s Private Secretary. He was killed flying to Malta en route to join the Yalta delegation in Feb 1945. Their RAF York crashed off Lampedusa killing all 15 on board incl four other FO staff. Eden and Cadogan had flown out on another York the day before 2/8

Peace Makers is out on 7 May! geni.us/PeaceMakers. Here is a short🧵about the dangers diplomats faced in wartime air travel, prompted by this image I posted last week showing the UK delegation to the Dumbarton Oaks UN Charter conference in Aug 1944. By the end of the war, three of them were dead 1/8

Really? The FT have got this totally out of proportion. Rather than a careful assessment of the first day of a State Visit coming at a tough time in UK-US relations, they splash this (because someone abused the trust of the Ambassador to record and then leak a private talk with school kids).

Cadogan made another star diplomat, William Strang, Chair of the European Advisory Cttee, a UK/US/Soviet group agreed on Eden’s Moscow visit in Oct 43. This was charged with agreeing terms for the German surrender and plans for the occupation regime. It met weekly in London. 5/6

Finally they spent 2 months in San Francisco negotiating the UN Charter with 50 other states, who argued hard against the veto power, but adopted the Charter unanimously in June 1945, with Halifax in the chair. Jebb later worked up plans for postwar European security, laying the ground for NATO. 4/6

Cadogan put one of the FO’s boldest thinkers, Gladwyn Jebb, onto planning a future world organisation to end the cycle of wars (and ensure an influential role for UK). Jebb drew up a first blueprint for what became the UN, and meshed his ideas with those of the US State Dept. 2/6

Two weeks to publication of Peace Makers geni.us/PeaceMakers. This🧵is on the major achievement of the Foreign Office in finding the bandwidth in the middle of WWII to think strategically to shape the future peace. Credit to the Permanent Under Secretary Sir Alec Cadogan 1/6

Delighted to be part of this distinguished panel to discuss the disordered state of our world at the Fleet Street Quarter Festival of Words on 14 May. Do join us! Tickets available here www.ticketsource.com/festival-of-...