But none saw it as bad as it would eventually turn out to be. There were one, maybe two million, on the streets of London on the eve of the invasion who might disagree with that.

The common practice in this kind of situation is for those respopnsible to talk about "the wisdom of hindsight", and "nobody could have predicted". But all too often it's a matter of culpable lack of foresight about things that were very definitely predicted.