Our correspondent May Baldwin's account of Christmas in the Holy Land - then a British Protectorate under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine - in the opening months of the Second World War, from the Catholic Herald archives. George VI was on the throne and Neville Chamberlain was still his Prime Minister. Franklin D. Roosevelt was President of the United States, who would join the fray two years later.

Christmas Eve! and Bethlehem bells are ringing. From dawn till dusk that five-miles long, white-ribboned road that winds south from Jerusalem is athrong with an eager multitude— pilgrims of every race and land. They come on foot, on camels, donkeys and horses, by modern bus, and by car, and all press forward to a common goal—a small crypt cave, agleam with silver lamps, where more than nineteen centuries ago the Lord of all the earth was born.