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Neville Chamberlain's diary date: War declared
18.08.09
The 1939 diary of Neville Chamberlain is to go on display in London.
It reveals that on the day the Second World War began, the former prime minister simply marked the date with the entry scrawled in pencil: "War declared."
It is part of the year-long Outbreak 1939 exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, marking the 70th anniversary of the start of the war on 3 September 1939.
In a letter to his sister, dated a week after Britain declared war on Germany, Chamberlain, pictured, who was in power from 1937 to 1940, described life as "one long nightmare". He wrote: "Of course the difficulty is with Hitler himself. Until he disappears and his system collapses there can be no peace."
The exhibition runs from Thursday.
