Noel Coward wanted Hitler to bomb Hollywood: Actor was furious at British stars living in LA who 'did nothing' during the Blitz 

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He arguably did more than any other artist to raise morale during the dark days of the Second World War.

But Noel Coward secretly longed for Nazi bombers to attack Hollywood because he was furious at the failure of fellow British stars in Los Angeles to rally to the country’s aid during the Blitz.

In an angry letter to the novelist and dramatist Clemence Dane, which is among a cache of papers being sold at auction, the playwright and composer said longed for the ‘happy and beautiful’ bombing raid.

Noel Coward secretly longed for Nazi bombers to attack Hollywood because he was furious at the failure of fellow British stars in Los Angeles to rally to the country’s aid during the Blitz

At the time, Coward was president of the Actors’ Orphanage in Chertsey, and was working hard to try to evacuate more than 50 children to Hollywood.

On September 12, 1940, after a trip to LA, he wrote: ‘I have had rather a stinking time over the Orphanage and left California with the conviction that an air raid of 20,000 planes over Hollywood would be a happy and beautiful thing.

‘On the whole, and with a very few exceptions, I think very poorly of my countrymen in that quarter, because if it hadn’t been for their talking, showing off and faffing, and making great gestures and doing nothing, the children would be over here and safe by now.’

Coward does not single out any particular actor for criticism in his letter to Dane – whose real name was Winifred Ashton – but it is telling that when the children were eventually evacuated, they lived out the war years in New York rather than Hollywood.

Coward’s success led to him being placed in Hitler’s Black Book, a list of VIPs who were to be arrested in the event of a Nazi victory

Coward produced some of the most effective propaganda pieces of the war, including the song London Pride, which he wrote while sitting in a bomb-damaged London station, and the 1942 film In Which We Serve, which he starred in, wrote and co-directed.

Coward’s success led to him being placed in Hitler’s Black Book, a list of VIPs who were to be arrested in the event of a Nazi victory.

The letter was one of more than 50 written by Coward to Dane over the years. Dane bequeathed them to a secretary, whose family are now selling 30 of the notes via Bertram Rota Booksellers for £6,100. 

The V&A – which already holds a collection of Dane’s papers – was expected to buy them, but is believed to have passed on the sale.