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Cheshire: The Biography of Leonard Cheshire VC, OM
Group Captain Leonard Cheshire flew 101 operations in World War II. The first, in 1940, took place six days after Dunkirk. After the 100th he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His 101st - and last - mission was to Nagasaki, where he witnesssed the dropping of the atomic bomb. In this biography Richard Morris examines the profound character of a man whose war career brought him the highest military distinction, and whose peacetime work of compassion earned him the Order of Merit.
- GenresBiography
560 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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March 27, 2021
My lockdown circumstances force me into the margins of my library. I feared this 500-page biography would be another piece of WWII heroism. As far as I knew, Leonard Cheshire made his name flying with 617 squadron, the famous Dam Busters. The book sets off unexceptionally. Cheshire belonged to a prosperous middle-class family, was schooled at Stowe (where T.H. White taught English) and instilled with a sense of duty and a desire for achievement. On the outbreak of war, he joined the RAF and was posted to a bomber squadron, not generally considered to be the fortunate option. Cheshire was rated a moderate pilot but excellent leader, which meant in his case a man who took care of everyone under his authority, down to the lowliest fitter. This turned out to be a constant in his life, an absence of prejudice based on class or rank. He had a ready smile, spoke quietly and was loyal to the whole team, which for a large bomber was a flying crew of six or seven plus ground crew. Cheshire flew Halifaxes and climbed through the ranks, switching to Lancasters on joining 617 squadron, where he replaced Guy Gibson, who had led the famous raid on the dams of the Ruhr valley. Cheshire flew 100 sorties in conditions that are familiar to moviegoers from the 1955 film The Dam Busters and, in more sophisticated style, The Memphis Belle (1990). Cheshire was the first man to be awarded the Victoria Cross for cumulative achievement and sustained courage. This takes us up to about page 200 of the book and so far it’s a Boy’s Own story of a brave man, with two unusual features – his unfailing human courtesy, regardless of rank, and a tremendous dedication to the tactical and technical problems of getting bombs dropped from thousands of feet up to hit what they are supposed to hit, despite anti-aircraft fire and enemy fighters.
It was this close attention to technicalities that earned him an observer’s seat on the second of the two US A-bomb missions in August 1945. Churchill’s insistence that Britishers be present was ignored for the first mission and reluctantly agreed for the second – Cheshire and a scientist, member of the British contingent at Los Alamos were thus aboard the plane that dropped ‘Fat Man’ on Nagasaki. The story that this experience changed Cheshire’s life turns out to an exaggeration, but from this moment it was clear to Cheshire that the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets was morally indefensible. He felt that what was done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at a time when the war against Japan was effectively won, constituted a sin which would entail punishment. He saw the fireball with his own eyes, he watched the formation of a mushroom cloud ‘with an evil kind of luminous quality, the colour of sulphur.’ From this moment, the RAF warrior committed himself, entirely and utterly, to the cause of World Peace. ‘I have no trade but killing,’ he told his mother. ‘That’s what they taught me to do for six years. I’ve had enough.’ These might have been just words but in the event they were anything but.
Cheshire’s analysis of the causes of war did not focus on territorial aggression but the lack of social justice. The main reason nations fight, he thought, was that poverty, disability and chronic disease were neglected, on a national and international level. His own reaction, fortified by a discovery of the meaning of Christian faith, was to throw himself into the task of helping people unable to help themselves. The turning point, after a crash course in nursing, was caring for a fifty-year-old man with liver cancer, Arthur Dykes, washing him, nursing him, feeding him and holding his hand as he slept. With money he didn’t have, Cheshire bought a Victorian mansion in Hampshire which became the first of hundreds of ‘Cheshire homes’ in fifty countries. The rules were that nobody was to be turned away, patients paid whatever they could, much of the labour was local and voluntary, and nobody, especially the founder of the scheme, was exempt from the most menial and demanding tasks.
Leonard Cheshire was 28 when he watched the destruction of Nagasaki, 75 in 1992 when he died of motor-neuron disease (which debilitated and ultimately killed Steven Hawking). For something over 40 years, Cheshire devoted himself exclusively to founding and developing centres for the sick and disabled. Shortly after the death of Arthur Dykes, Cheshire converted to Catholicism, which remained at the core of his spiritual and social beliefs throughout his life. The Homes were mostly non-denominational but Cheshire’s own religious views were founded on the idea that everything is possible through Providence. He never asked for help but it always came, never begged for money but it always materialized, never shrank from a challenge because people told him it was impossible. If you knocked on the right doors, he believed, they would always open and, miraculously, this proved to be the case for the homes and missions that he founded. In the beginning, they were amateur and precarious, depending a great deal on Cheshire’s personal presence. As they became more numerous and more complex, the pioneering feeling of the early days gave way to a more professional approach. Politicians, lawyers, bankers and educators around the world became involved as trustees, fund raisers and political facilitators. Jawaharlal Nehru described Cheshire as ‘the greatest man I have met since Gandhi’. Baron Denning (Britain’s senior law lord) said: ‘He has done more good for more people than anyone else in the country’. The actor Alec Guinness wanted to see him canonized. Such tributes can be multiplied almost indefinitely.
I am aware at this point of wanting to convince the sceptics among the readers of this essay, who may accuse Cheshire of hypocrisy or over-privilege or simply harvesting the rewards of wartime celebrity. ‘Here is a man known as an expert in destruction,’ they may say, ‘who assuaged his guilt by turning to international charity work, becoming a darling of the Press and increasing his own celebrity a hundredfold…’ Actually, no reader of Morris’s book would be able to sustain this mistaken viewpoint. Whatever else he was or was not, Leonard Cheshire was a modest and sincere man. One of the incidental pleasures of the book is understanding how infuriating he must have been as colleague or co-worker, with his bottomless belief in Providence, his tendency to say yes to everyone and everything regardless of practicalities such as money, space and staff, his preference for getting things going and then whisking off to the next project, the next country, the next challenge. He appeared to be a man in a terrific hurry.
He also had certain bees in is bonnet. He had what amounted to a fixation with the Turin Shroud, which he believed not only to be the actual lineaments of Christ’s face but to be capable of miracles, even when reproduced on a poster or screen. Cheshire bought and equipped two London double-decker buses to promote the reality and efficacy of the shroud.
He may actually be better remembered in India than England. In Dehra Dun, he started with a shed and a van and two helpers that proved to be the seed of the International HQ for the Cheshire Homes. When he met Nehru for tea, he was overcome by shyness and hardly uttered a word. Nehru divined what he wanted (a piece of land) and granted it to him anyway.
The effects of motor neurone disease came on quickly. He shrunk to a mere husk, unable to swallow or to breathe without effort.. His muscles collapsed. With hardly any flesh and only one lung, it was impossible for him ever to get comfortable. ‘I see it (the disease) as a little challenge,’ he told a friend. He even seemed joyful that he was able for the first time to share the suffering of people he had given his life to helping.
A great book about an extraordinary man.
It was this close attention to technicalities that earned him an observer’s seat on the second of the two US A-bomb missions in August 1945. Churchill’s insistence that Britishers be present was ignored for the first mission and reluctantly agreed for the second – Cheshire and a scientist, member of the British contingent at Los Alamos were thus aboard the plane that dropped ‘Fat Man’ on Nagasaki. The story that this experience changed Cheshire’s life turns out to an exaggeration, but from this moment it was clear to Cheshire that the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets was morally indefensible. He felt that what was done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at a time when the war against Japan was effectively won, constituted a sin which would entail punishment. He saw the fireball with his own eyes, he watched the formation of a mushroom cloud ‘with an evil kind of luminous quality, the colour of sulphur.’ From this moment, the RAF warrior committed himself, entirely and utterly, to the cause of World Peace. ‘I have no trade but killing,’ he told his mother. ‘That’s what they taught me to do for six years. I’ve had enough.’ These might have been just words but in the event they were anything but.
Cheshire’s analysis of the causes of war did not focus on territorial aggression but the lack of social justice. The main reason nations fight, he thought, was that poverty, disability and chronic disease were neglected, on a national and international level. His own reaction, fortified by a discovery of the meaning of Christian faith, was to throw himself into the task of helping people unable to help themselves. The turning point, after a crash course in nursing, was caring for a fifty-year-old man with liver cancer, Arthur Dykes, washing him, nursing him, feeding him and holding his hand as he slept. With money he didn’t have, Cheshire bought a Victorian mansion in Hampshire which became the first of hundreds of ‘Cheshire homes’ in fifty countries. The rules were that nobody was to be turned away, patients paid whatever they could, much of the labour was local and voluntary, and nobody, especially the founder of the scheme, was exempt from the most menial and demanding tasks.
Leonard Cheshire was 28 when he watched the destruction of Nagasaki, 75 in 1992 when he died of motor-neuron disease (which debilitated and ultimately killed Steven Hawking). For something over 40 years, Cheshire devoted himself exclusively to founding and developing centres for the sick and disabled. Shortly after the death of Arthur Dykes, Cheshire converted to Catholicism, which remained at the core of his spiritual and social beliefs throughout his life. The Homes were mostly non-denominational but Cheshire’s own religious views were founded on the idea that everything is possible through Providence. He never asked for help but it always came, never begged for money but it always materialized, never shrank from a challenge because people told him it was impossible. If you knocked on the right doors, he believed, they would always open and, miraculously, this proved to be the case for the homes and missions that he founded. In the beginning, they were amateur and precarious, depending a great deal on Cheshire’s personal presence. As they became more numerous and more complex, the pioneering feeling of the early days gave way to a more professional approach. Politicians, lawyers, bankers and educators around the world became involved as trustees, fund raisers and political facilitators. Jawaharlal Nehru described Cheshire as ‘the greatest man I have met since Gandhi’. Baron Denning (Britain’s senior law lord) said: ‘He has done more good for more people than anyone else in the country’. The actor Alec Guinness wanted to see him canonized. Such tributes can be multiplied almost indefinitely.
I am aware at this point of wanting to convince the sceptics among the readers of this essay, who may accuse Cheshire of hypocrisy or over-privilege or simply harvesting the rewards of wartime celebrity. ‘Here is a man known as an expert in destruction,’ they may say, ‘who assuaged his guilt by turning to international charity work, becoming a darling of the Press and increasing his own celebrity a hundredfold…’ Actually, no reader of Morris’s book would be able to sustain this mistaken viewpoint. Whatever else he was or was not, Leonard Cheshire was a modest and sincere man. One of the incidental pleasures of the book is understanding how infuriating he must have been as colleague or co-worker, with his bottomless belief in Providence, his tendency to say yes to everyone and everything regardless of practicalities such as money, space and staff, his preference for getting things going and then whisking off to the next project, the next country, the next challenge. He appeared to be a man in a terrific hurry.
He also had certain bees in is bonnet. He had what amounted to a fixation with the Turin Shroud, which he believed not only to be the actual lineaments of Christ’s face but to be capable of miracles, even when reproduced on a poster or screen. Cheshire bought and equipped two London double-decker buses to promote the reality and efficacy of the shroud.
He may actually be better remembered in India than England. In Dehra Dun, he started with a shed and a van and two helpers that proved to be the seed of the International HQ for the Cheshire Homes. When he met Nehru for tea, he was overcome by shyness and hardly uttered a word. Nehru divined what he wanted (a piece of land) and granted it to him anyway.
The effects of motor neurone disease came on quickly. He shrunk to a mere husk, unable to swallow or to breathe without effort.. His muscles collapsed. With hardly any flesh and only one lung, it was impossible for him ever to get comfortable. ‘I see it (the disease) as a little challenge,’ he told a friend. He even seemed joyful that he was able for the first time to share the suffering of people he had given his life to helping.
A great book about an extraordinary man.
May 16, 2025
mixes the practical war hero with the spiritual leader. fascinating and very well written
April 12, 2013
Many people will have heard of Cheshire Homes, and Sue Ryder and the wonderful work they do. This is the biography of the man who started them, who married Sue Ryder, and who had such a major influence on the hospice movement, which led to his being awarded the Order of Merit. What is perhaps less well known is his extraordinary war record, as a bomber pilot, and later in Pathfinders, flying Mustangs, his extreme physical courage leading to the award of a Victoria Cross. He was the British Observer in the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, The enigma and dynamic between these two utterly different career paths I find fascinating and he is somebody I could wish to have a long lunch with to tease out and understand his thinking and motivation. Inspirational book about a great human being and world server, somebody who deeply cared for people.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews