Winston Churchill’s disappointment at the country’s inability to produce enough penicillin ahead of the D-Day landings has been laid bare in new documents. Official papers unearthed by the National Archives reveal the wartime leader’s frustration that British production of the drug lagged so far behind that of the US.
Penicillin was discovered in London by Professor Alexander Fleming in 1928 and was considered a “wonder drug at the time”. In one paper, Churchill wrote: “It is discouraging to find that, although this is a British discovery, the Americans are already so far ahead of us.” In another note from 1944, he wrote: “Your report on penicillin showing that we are only to get about one-tenth of the expected output this year, is very disappointing.”
Prior to the development of penicillin, blood poisoning could occur from minor cuts and become incurable.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, attempts to produce a medicine from the bacteria-killing mould had not yet proven successful.
As the war went on, at D-Day and the inevitable number of casualties became apparent, health officials were only able to guarantee enough penicillin for battle casualties and even that was provided by the US.
Dr Jessamy Carlson, modern records specialist at The National Archives, said: “The files give a glimpse into the extraordinary levels of preparation undertaken in advance of the D-Day landings.
“Only six weeks before, penicillin is just reaching our shores in quantities which will allow it to play a major role in improving the outcomes for service personnel wounded in action.”
The documents paint a picture of the lengths planners of the D-Day landings and other major battles had to go through to sustain the force, with the availability of medical provisions as vital to the morale of frontline soldiers as bombs and bullets.
The D-Day landings were the largest amphibious invasion of its kind in human history and saw the Allies use over 5,000 ships and landing craft to land more than 150,000 troops on five beaches in Normandy.
According to historian Alex Kershaw, Churchill did not sleep on the night before, such was his concern for the soldiers preparing to invade mainland Europe.
He wrote on X: “Churchill will not sleep tonight. He tells his wife, Clementine: ‘Do you realize that by the time you wake up in the morning, twenty thousand men may have been killed?’ He is manic with worry, more than ever, even after five years of total war.”
