WODEHOUSE, P. G.• 585WOBURN ABBEY.The ancestral home of the Duke of Bedford, Wo-
burn Abbey accommodated the Political Warfare Executive during
World War II, with buildings on the estate being converted into radio
studios for black broadcasts to Europe.See alsoDELMER, SEF-
TON; ELECTRA HOUSE;SOLDATENSENDER CALAIS.
WODEHOUSE, P. G.The outcry that followed P. G. Wodehouse’s
broadcast on German radio in June 1941 was orchestrated byDuff
Cooper, MP, then minister of information inWinston Churchill’s
war cabinet. Although very few people heard the original talks, enti-
tled ‘‘How to Be an Internee without Previous Training’’ and all five
written by Wodehouse himself, the publicity generated by the pro-
testors ensured that his public in America and Britain was outraged.
Wodehouse had been living at his villa in Le Touquet when war
had broken out, and he and his wife Ethel attempted to return to Lon-
don by car when the Germans invaded, but they had broken down.
Obligingly, the Royal Air Force offered the best-selling author a sin-
gle seat on an aircraft, but he had declined because there was no room
for his wife or his dogs. Instead, Wodehouse spent three not entirely
disagreeable months under German occupation. He was obliged to
report once a day to the localKommandantur, but this was no incon-
venience as Wodehouse enjoyed the walk. However, in July 1940 he
was informed that all British citizens were to be interned, and he was
placed on a bus and driven to Loos prison.
By international convention, enemy aliens aged 60 were eligible
for repatriation but Wodehouse, being a few months short of 59, was
interned at an ancient fortress near the Belgian town of Huy. Eventu-
ally he was transferred to Poland, to a commandeered lunatic asylum
in Tost, Upper Silesia, where he remained for nine months until June
1941 when, without explanation, he was moved to the Adlon Hotel
in Berlin. This luxurious establishment was reserved for the use of
guests of the German Foreign Ministry, and Wodehouse’s release
from Tost, where he was reunited with Ethel who had remained in
France, was odd for there was still a further four months before his
60th birthday. Equally difficult to explain was his decision, within a
few days of taking up residence in the Adlon, to give a series of talks
on the radio.
The talks were intended to be entertaining and humorous, and so