Eighty years ago this week Britain is confronted with a "financial Dunkirk"

 

The new Labour government was confronted with an immense economic challenge. Without prior warning or discussion the US stopped Lend-Lease aid with immediate effect. Maynard Keynes had just circulated a paper warning the government that Britain faced "financial Dunkirk" because its economy was now entirely dependent on US assistance and was geared overwhelmingly to fighting a war which had just ended far sooner than anticipated. Britain was in the wholly anomalous position of being one of the "big three" world powers with attendant military and diplomatic commitments but financially bankrupt. Keynes calculated that Britain would need $5bn from the US to avoid "Queer Street" and "a sudden and humiliating withdrawal from our onerous responsibilities with great loss of prestige and an acceptance for the time being of the position of a second-class Power, rather like the present position of France." The government hoped to avoid having to take this sum as a full commercial loan. Keynes was despatched to Washington to negotiate. The fantasy of Britain as a great power was to be kept alive.

The first death from radiation poisoning  was reported from Japan. A 29 year old woman had left Hiroshima after the bomb fell with trivial physical injuries but died 19 days later. Japanese broadcasts suggested that others were similarly ill. There was an initial suspicion that this was Japanese propaganda; the country had surrendered but the allies had yet to occupy the territory.

The initial list of senior Nazis who would face prosecution by the International Military Tribunal for crimes commited as senior members of the Hitler regime was published. They were all politicians or military officers except for Gustav Krupp von Bohlen, a token businessman who was bedridden and senile (executives of IG Farben which had played a key role at Auschwitz did not feature) and Hans Fritsche, the leading broadcaster of the regime who had attempted to surrender Germany to the Soviets.  One, Martin Bormann, was already dead  although this was not conclusively established for some decades.