William Tyler
Churchill: The War Leader 1940-1945

William Tyler | Churchill The War Leader 1940-1945 | 07.11.21

- How are you, William?

• I’m absolutely fine, Wendy.

• I’m glad you’re in New York, because it was very, very hot wasn’t it, where you were on the West Coast?

• Oh, not so bad, no. I enjoyed it, to be honest, ‘cause I love the beach.

• There were reports and it was over 40 in some places in California.

• Oh.

• You were not in that.

• But you know, I grew up in Swaziland. So I grew up with the heat. I think, you know, I don’t mind. So I think I’m lucky, as long as I’m doing, have my interests, and doing what I need to do, you know, I sort of accommodate, but I don’t mind the bad weather. I don’t love the wind. That is my Achilles heel. I hate the wind.

• You can send some heat over here. it’s like come winter again here. Well it’s muggy, but rain, and grey, and miserable here today.

• Yeah. I must say New York’s also a bit overcast and miserable, but it’s not cold, so it’s actually nice weather to be outside to go walking, or to go swimming. It’s not the, the heat is not pounding. So I’m now-

• Are you in a car? Am I right?

• I am. I’m driving back to, I’m driving into the city right now, so I’m going to have the pleasure of listening to your presentation for the next hour while I’m driving into the city. So I’m going to hand over to you whenever you’re ready.

• [William] I’m ready.

• I wanted say welcome, good morning, good afternoon to everybody, thank you Judy. And now over to you. Thank you.

• Thank you, Wendy. And here it’s afternoon, so good afternoon from England. It’s a very miserable day here. It’s grey, it’s raining, it’s not like summer at all, but we’ll try and liven this up a bit.

Let me begin this talk about Churchill as War Leader from 1940 to 1945, by a little preface, and it’s the most famous speech, perhaps, that Churchill ever made in his life. He said in the House of Commons, having shortly before become prime minister in 1940, “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”

“And even if,” he added, “which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it was subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

One conservative member of Parliament said in a letter to his wife after hearing that speech, “This afternoon, Winston made the finest speech that I’ve ever heard.” And another conservative member of Parliament said, “Churchill was eloquent and oratorical, and used magnificent English. Several Labour members cried. It was an extraordinary speech.” In fact, all Churchill’s speeches in 1940-41 were remarkable. Clement Atley, the subsequent Labour Prime Minister who was Churchill’s deputy in the war, Atley said “There were at times when we had nothing to defend ourselves with, save Winston’s speeches.” So that’s my way of a little preface, if you like, to my talk.

Now I want to take you back to the time just before Churchill became Prime Minister of Britain. The failure of the campaign in Norway in 1940 fueled the rising unease with Neville Chamberlain and his conservative government. The debate that followed the debacle in Norway, the debate in the House of Commons, really finished Neville Chamberlain as prime minister. The debate began on the 6th of May, 1940. And within four days, on the 10th of May, Chamberlain had resigned, and Churchill was prime minister. There was an electrifying speech by a Tory backbench member of Parliament and supporter of Churchill, a man called Leo Amery. He was not noted for making good speeches.

In fact, he was noted for the opposite. He made boring speeches. But somehow or other on this occasion, he rose to heights that he never rose again to, or had risen to before. And he made a fantastic speech, which really was the speech that did for Chamberlain. He began by saying, “We cannot go on as we are. There must be a change. This was war, not peace. The time has come for a real national government. I feel that victory requires a new leader with vision, daring, swiftness, and consistency of decision.” And he said in his memoirs long afterwards, that he wondered whether he should go further. And he’d written this speech. In the House of Commons, you’re meant not to read from written speeches, or certainly not in the 1940s.

But he’d written this to make sure that it said exactly what he wanted to say. And he wondered afterwards whether he should actually read the last part of his speech. And he had decided that he would only do so if he felt the House was behind him, and there were sufficient people there, and maybe even that Chamberlain had returned to the House, from his meeting with the king. And Chamberlain was there by the end of Amery’s speech. And Amery said, “This is what Cromwell said to the long Parliament when he thought it was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation. Cromwell said, 'You have sat long here for any good, you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.’” And then he added, almost in a whisper, pointed at the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. “In the name of God, go.”

As he sat down, there was huge applause from the opposition benches, Labour benches, Liberal benches, and indeed for those supporters of Churchill on the Conservative benches. It was an electrifying speech, and Chamberlain hadn’t in him to respond to that. But Chamberlain dragged on in office until the 9th of May, three days later. He finally accepted that he’d lost the House, and there must, he accepted, be a national government. And he knew, because he was told, that the Labour opposition would not join the national government if Chamberlain remained prime minister.

They said they would serve under anyone, although in private discussions between Harold Macmillan, the conservative and supporter of Churchill, and Hugh Dalton, the Labour, the great Labour front bench spokesman, they’d been to school together, Macmillan and Dalton, and they had agreed that both would put pressure to make it Churchill. There were two candidates to succeed Chamberlain, both conservative, because under the constitution, Britain doesn’t, unlike America, hold in time of war, general elections. And if there is a national government established, then the leader of that government has to be from the party that has obtained the majority in the pre-war general election, and that party was the Conservatives.

The choice was between a foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, and Churchill, who was now First Lord of the Admirality. Lord Halifax was a member of the House of Lords, and that made it difficult for him, particularly in time of war, to lead the country from the House of Lords and not the House of Commons. He was, moreover, an arch appeaser. And indeed, even after Churchill became prime minister, he was arguing some 10 days after that, that we should seek terms via Italy by Mussolini, if we possibly could, and not fight on. He lacked what you might describe as a backbone for the fight.

When push came to shove, Halifax was not your man. And to his credit, he realised this. And he really, although Chamberlain pushed and pushed him to accept, he declined, and it is to his credit that he declined, and realised that Churchill was the greater man. There was a cabinet meeting in 10 Downing Street on the 9th of May, 1940. There were lots of reports of that meeting, and we really don’t know precisely what went on. We have Churchill’s account, but whether you trust Churchill’s account or not is, well, I don’t think you should. Halifax himself said, 10 years after the war, “Winston’s account on pages 522, 523, and 524 of his history of "The Second World War” is inaccurate.“

And I think most historians agree that it is. Churchill painted this romantic image of himself, as unlike his normal self, he kept his mouth shut until it was obvious that he was the only choice. Now there is some suggestions that he’d been advised to keep his mouth shut, and the job would be his. But there weren’t many people at the meeting, and we really don’t quite know what happened. There’s a huge disagreement. What we do know, is Chamberlain agreed to go. What we do know is the choice was between Halifax and Churchill, and that Halifax, in the end, use what words you like, wimped out, made the right decision, whatever you want to say.

When the meeting ended at 6:00, to all intents and purposes, Churchill would be the new Prime Minister on the following day, the 10th of May, 1940. But that day opened with disastrous news that the Wehrmacht had marched into Belgium, Netherlands, and France itself lay open to the German advance. Chamberlain said, "Perhaps I should go on.” And the Conservative chief whip, a man called Tom Murchison, nearly had puppies. He was so determined that Chamberlain was not the man to go on. And finally at 6:00, Churchill followed Chamberlain to see the king. Chamberlain had gone to the king, who supported Halifax, indeed the king and the queen were friends of Halifax, he had a private key to Buckingham Palace gardens, and they didn’t like Churchill because of Churchill’s support for Edward VIII in the abdication crisis.

But Chamberlain tells them, “The man is Churchill, you must ask Churchill to come.” And Churchill goes, and in Churchill’s inimitable way, the king says, “You know why you’re here, Mr. Churchill.” and Churchill, “I really have no idea, sir.” And the king has to spell it out. It’s all a joke. Everything is always amusing to Churchill, even in such desperate times. But even though he was now prime minister, and felt that he now, as he wrote in his history of “The Second World War,” that he now had command over everything, and thought he knew what to do, there were those who still doubted him, who doubted him as a warmonger, as a person who went off on tangents, as a man who really could not be trusted to keep the plough straight in the furrow.

And Nicholas Shakespeare in his book, “Six Minutes in May,” all these books are on my blog, you can look them up. And this is, all the books I’ve put on, I can personally recommend. Doesn’t mean to say you will like them, but I would personally recommend them, and it’s a very good place to start. And Nicholas Shakespeare writes this: John Colville had been a personal private Secretary to Chamberlain, and was to act in the same position to Churchill. But Colville doesn’t like Churchill at the beginning, Colville thought the appointment of Churchill, and this is Colville from Colville’s own memoirs, “It involves a danger of rash and spectacular exploits, and I cannot help fearing that this country may be manoeuvred into the most dangerous position it’s ever been in. Everybody’s in despair here at the prospect.”

And Shakespeare writes, “Colville wrote this under the influence of Channing’s lukewarm champagne, a bottle produced from a filing cabinet, and share between Colville, Channing, Butler, Rab Butler, who is to serve in Churchill’s wartime cabinet, and later, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Prime Minister, all of them appeasers.” After the four of them, said Shakespeare, After the four of them lugubriously clinked glasses in a toast to their king over the water, that is the say Neville Chamberlain, They said, “Well we have better drink together.”

Butler is reported to have said, “Because this is the end.” Much of the establishment, much of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons and the House of Lords were against Churchill. He didn’t have a solid base within Parliament or with the establishment, but it doesn’t matter, because out in the country, people knew the man for what he was. Marjery Allingham, the detective fiction writer, popular in both Britain and the States before the war, wrote a book called “The Oaken Heart.” It’s a nonfiction account of the village that she lived in, a village called Tolleshunt D'Arcy, in Essex, about 30 miles outside of London.

And she wrote this in her book, hearing in the village, heard that Churchill was now prime minister. And she says this: “The debate, that’s the Norwegian debate, in the House was followed by everyone. The Prime Minister’s offence, Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister’s offence was scrutinised like a casualty list, and slowly the dreadful truth emerged. It was a very terrifying moment. It was not as if Tollseshunt D'Arcy had ever really been a child. It recognised the type of man Chamberlain was at once. God knows the government’s been full of sunk men up and down the years.”

And then she adds, “For myself. I’ve never been more abjectly frightened in all my life, but even the stout hearts in the village, Albert and Charlotte, Sam and his misses, Nory and Jack, PYC Grog, Christine, Reg, and Dorothy, Bill and Basil the farmers, the ladies, and all the other folk who pass up and down our square, began to look drawn, and anxious, and pale around the eyes, and to keep very non-committal.”

If there is to be an invasion, they are potentially in the front line. And then she talks about Churchill becoming prime minister. “Mr. Churchill saved the government, and saved the country, and saved Tolleshunt D'Arcy, too. In a week it was over, and all was safe and true again. Whatever the outward danger, Mr. Churchill’s appointment as the new prime minister was never questioned in Tolleshunt D'Arcy for an instant. It was unanimous. But neither was the importance of the choice underestimated.”

And that’s as accurate a picture of Britain in 1940, its attitude to Churchill becoming prime minister. He had this connection with the public. He’d warned of the danger of Nazism, as I said in my last talk, since 1930, increasingly warning from the back benches, in the press, in speeches, people trusted Churchill. There’s something instantly likeable about Churchill. There’s something that gives you confidence when Churchill spoke, and you didn’t have to be British to feel the lift that Churchill gave to the nation.

In Gaskin’s book “Blitz,” we read this story. He writes, “Churchill was, considered 29-year-old Yvonne Green in Chelsea, a good puller-upper of socks. A 13th-generation Canadian, Yvonne was now at the heart of the empire, and she wrote, ‘London is the best place to be in, ’ she assured her anguish mother back in Canada. She wrote, ‘There is nought one can do about it now, anyway, my blood is up, and I’m dying to have a poke at the Germans. If one has the mischance to land in the garden, he’s going to have a hot time before I’m through with him. I’m glad to be Johnny-on-the-spot with a chance of taking a crack at them, complete with saucepans of boiling water, aimed with grip precision, from the kitchen window.’”

Churchill inspired people to have courage that they thought they didn’t have, to have determination they thought they lacked. Churchill breathed life, hope, and determination into the British nation, and many others from Europe and the wider empire who were here, even so-called neutral Americans, and remember, America’s neutrality is an interesting question for a postgraduate essay. Even neutral America felt the pulse of the moment.

Now, read this. “Unsure whether he was insane, or the whole British government had gone dark, Raymond Daniel, the New York Times London Bureau Chief, canvassed his taxi driver. This was after, day after, France’s surrender, and Daniel asks his taxi driver, and he describes it in this way: ‘With his droopy moustache, he was a spitting image of Old Bill, laconic British cartoon hero with great war trenches. I asked him, what did he think of the news from France? Not too bad, said the cabbie, a phrase American correspondents learned to translate as okay, but could Britain really beat Hitler alone? I asked. Well, he said, we can’t if we don’t try, can we doc? When Daniel got to his office, the lift operator observed, 'Things are looking better, aren’t they, sir? There’s nobody left but bloody deserters now.’”

And Americans like Daniel were impressed, and when they filed their reports back in the States, it helped push, at least a percentage of American opinion, behind Britain. Defending part of the line of defence around the city of Bath, where the admiralty had its headquarters, and there was a very big engineering firm, Stothert and Pitt, defending part of the defences, trench defences around the city, were boys aged 16 and over from my public school. Twice in the summer of 1940, the boys were roused from their beds. They grabbed their Lee-Enfield rifles, which were below the side of their beds, and they mustered in the school’s quad. They were marched by officers, and the officers, of course, were the schoolteachers in the school, many of them veterans of the Boer War, or the first war, they were marched up a hill called Brass Knocker, outside Bath, and they went to the trenches that they’d already prepared.

And one man who was there told me, “We knew it was serious, because the masters came ‘round and handed out live ammunition, and then handed out bayonets. Now you don’t trust 16, 17 year old school boys with bayonets. And the situation is, from us today, perhaps impossible to imagine, for the only thing they had could have done, if the grey men had descended by parachute, was, in the words of the time, make sure, lads, you take one with you. It would’ve been a massacre, of course.

A friend of mine was on the Isle of Wight. He was much the same sort of age. He was too young to go into the army, so he was in the local defence volunteer forces, later Dad’s Army. And they were told after the first evening, to go home and find something in their garden sheds, which they could use as a weapon. And he looked 'round, and thought about taking a spade, and his mother said, "You’re not taking that bloody spade, I can tell you that for a start.”

So in the end he took his hockey stick. And he said, “Well, I was a rather sort of mouthy boy, so I said to the officer commanding another veteran of the first war, he said, 'Well what do I do if the German parachutists come down,?’ ‘Well, you hit them hard, dear boy, with your hockey stick on their ankles.’” That’s what we were reduced to in 1940. There are so many stories told.

A friend of mine was in a boarding school, boys up to the age of 13. And every night the master on duty had to a hand senior boy in each dormitory a carving knife from the kitchen. And the boy had been taught how to tie this inside the door, so that if the Germans broke through, the first German would be cut through the stomach with a carving knife. And looking back now, it seems almost impossible to believe that any of this happened or could happen, but all these incidents really happened, and have been multiplied countless times across the country.

But before we get over romantic about it, it is perhaps worth remembering, inevitably, perhaps, the darker side. There was looting of houses during The Blitz, not only in London, but in other cities, like my home city of Bristol, or Coventry, or wherever. Houses were looted in the height of The Blitz, and of course, there was a black market. You could buy anything on the black market, from ladies’ stockings to coffee. Everything was available at a price. Even Churchill got caught up in the black market. A true story from the war, and from 1940, is that he heard that there’d been a very heavy blitz on the seaside town of Southend. And he knew his chef at number 10 came from Southend.

So before breakfast, Churchill went down to the kitchen. Can you imagine presidents of the US, or prime ministers of Britain doing such a thing? He went down to the kitchen, and he asked the chef, “How are your people? Are they all right?” And the chef said, “Well, thank you very much sir for asking, but I managed to get my mother on the phone. They’re all quite safe.” “Well, I’m really pleased to hear that,” said Churchill, “But do,” he said producing from behind his back a bottle of whiskey, “Do have this on me,” he said, To which the chef said, “Well that’s awfully kind of you sir, but if you know what I mean, I can get as much whiskey as I want.” “What?” said Churchill? “Well, make damn sure you send some upstairs from now on.”

And for the rest of the war, the whiskey, the black market whiskey that came in through the back door for the chef, some of it made its way up to Churchill upstairs. It’s things like that that make Churchill human, ordinary. Extraordinary ordinary is the phrase I am always using about Churchill in 1940. Now I know many people listening to this talk are American, and obviously, I can’t, in an hour, do a day-by-day talk about Churchill as war leader from May 1940 through to August 1945. But I thought it might be interesting at this point to look at Churchill and the Americans.

Now contrary to what most people think, it was FDR, Roosevelt, that opened the personal communication with Churchill during the war. Churchill, in his own history of the Second World War, writes this: He has been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, and in September 1939, before he became prime minister, as First Lord of the Admirality. “In September, I was delighted to receive a personal letter from President Roosevelt. I’d only met him once in the previous war. It was a dinner at Gray’s Inn, and I’d been struck by his magnificent presence, in all his youth and strength. There had been no opportunity for anything but salutations.

The letter read this: ‘President Roosevelt to Mr. Churchill, 11th of September, 1939. It is because you and I occupied similar positions in the World War, that I want you to know how glad I am that you are back again in the Admiralty. Your problems are, I realise, complicated by new factors, but the essential is not very different. What I want you and the prime minister, Chamberlain, to know, is that I shall at all times welcome it if you will keep me in touch, personally, with anything you want me to know about. You could always send sealed letters through your pouch or my pouch, the diplomatic pouches. I’m glad you did the Marlborough volumes before this thing started, and I much enjoyed reading them.”

“I responded with alacrity,” writes Churchill, using the signature of 'Naval person,’ and thus began that long and memorable correspondence, covering perhaps a thousand communications on each side, and lasting till his death more than five years later.“ It’s a remarkable moment. America is neutral. Roosevelt is not in a position to take America to war, however much he personally might consider that a proper course of action. America doesn’t enter into the war until bombed into it by the Japanese in December 1941.

But Churchill knew he had a true and trusted friend and ally in FDR, and many Americans shared FDR’s wish to help. Young American pilots volunteered to fight in the Battle of Britain. American publishers, like the publishing house Doubleday, the very same publishing house who’d commissioned Marjery Allingham to write that book, "The Oaken Heart,” which I read from a few moments ago, all part of an effort to push American public opinion behind Britain, as well as the BBC, operating out of New York, as well as British intelligence operating across the States, all pushing for what Churchill knew was essential.

You remember the speech that I opened with, the famous speech We Will Fight on the Beaches where he says, “Until the New World comes to the aid of the old,” he knew that Britain could not, on its own, win the war. It would need America. He knew that from the very beginning. And from the very beginning, he astutely canvassed American opinion behind Britain. In March 1941, 11th of March, FDR, who can’t declare war, does at least set up the Lend-Lease Programme. and without Lend-Lease, we might have been done for before 1942 ever happened.

In August 1941, again before Pearl Harbour in the December, Churchill and FDR met off the coast of Canada to sign the Atlantic Charter. It was an extraordinary meeting, quite an extraordinary meeting, not just of Churchill and Roosevelt, but of generals and admirals from both sides, American and British. FDR is doing absolutely everything that constitutionally he can do, and maybe beyond what the Constitution strictly would allow him to do. Six days after Churchill returned home, he made a radio broadcast in Britain, and Churchill ended with these words in his radio broadcast.

He talks about the church service that he and Roosevelt attended on the deck of the British ship, HMS Prince of Wales, the same Prince of Wales that is shortly to be sunk with HMS Repulse off of Singapore in that dreadful advance of the Japanese through Malaysia into Singapore, and the falling of that impregnable fortress, as the British thought, then the sinking of the Prince of Wales. It’s the beginning of the end, if you like, of the British Empire in Asia. But Churchill talks about, and writes about, and spoke on the radio about this church service held with Roosevelt.

“We sang the sailors hymn.” Remember both Churchill and Roosevelt had a background as Secretaries of State for the Navy. “For those, and there were very many,” writes Churchill, “In peril on the sea. We sang ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ And indeed I felt that this was no vain presumption, but that we had the right to feel that we were serving a cause, for the sake of which a trumpet had sounded on high.

When I looked upon that densely packed congregation of fighting men, of the same language, of the same faith, of the same fundamental laws, of the same ideals, and now to a large extent, of the same interests, and certainly in different degrees, facing the same dangers, it swept across me that here was the only hope, but also the sure hope, of saving the world from measureless degradation. And so we came back across the ocean waves, uplifted in spirit, fortified in resolve.”

If I was taking a postgraduate course in the States, I think I would use that last quotation from Churchill, the quotation which goes, “And so we came back across the ocean waves, uplifted in spirit, fortified in resolve,” and ask the question, without Roosevelt’s support, which was evident from September 1939, through to the declaration of war by Germany on America, after America had declared war on Japan in December 1941. Could Churchill have got through that period, without what he felt was always sure knowledge, that if push came to shove, Roosevelt was there. The problem would’ve been, had Britain succumbed to invasion, and the island had fallen in part or in whole, How on earth could America have launched an amphibious invasion across the Atlantic?

It was difficult enough four years later, to launch an amphibious invasion across a very narrow English Channel. It seems impossible that they could have done so, but Churchill remained adamant in his view. The American GIs began to arrive in Britain, and they caused quite a stir. There were Black GIs, and we’d never seen so many Black people before. And there was racism in Norwich, in East Anglia. Very conservative, small C, and English families had opened their homes on Sundays for lunch for American soldiers, but no one, in knowledge, invited Black Americans, until Churchill heard about it and sent a strongly worded letter to the mayor of Norwich saying that this was intolerable, and that Black American GIs were to be treated like white GIs.

And the Black American GIs were astounded that Black British soldiers fought alongside white British soldiers. Many historians today think that this had an impact on the States itself after the war, when Black GIs returned to America, and they’ve seen a different world in Britain. It’s not to say that Britain wasn’t racist, because of course it was, but it is to say that the racism of Britain was very, very different from that in the States of the 1940s. And these Black GIs had glimpsed another world where they were treated equally on buses, in cinemas, being invited to dinner.

I met, oh, a number of years ago now, an elderly lady, and I was talking about American GIs. She was British working class, and she said, “Oh, I had an American boyfriend.” So we said, “Oh, did you?” She said, “Oh yes,” she said, “He was lovely. He was Black.” Now, that’s quite unusual in 1940s. She said, “I took him home.” “What did your parents think?” I asked. “Oh, Mother was quite happy about it, because he used to bring tinned fruit from the stores that he had access to on the American base.” She even said this lady “Allowed us to use the front parlour, usually only used for the vicar, and for laying out the dead, but we were allowed to use the sofa in the front parlour.” I love that story.

And she told that, so and another lady piped up and said, “I had an American GI boyfriend as well. I hadn’t thought of it in years. He was called Hank.” She said, “Why the hell did I marry bloody Joe?” She said, “It’s Hank, I should have married.” Of course, many British wives were told a line by American GIs about how rich they were. And the reality was very different when they got to the States. But on the other hand, many of them lived very happily in the States. And the same is true, particularly where I’m giving this talk from in Worthing, in Sussex, Canadians who were based here and around here before D-Day, also married English girls, and English girls went back to Canada.

Churchill had achieved one of his primary aims of the war. By the beginning of 1942, America is in the war. Some historians have said more recently that if Churchill had died, which he could well have done, his health was appalling by this stage. If he had died at the beginning of 1942, would it have mattered? And the answer is no, it wouldn’t. Why not? Because Roosevelt would’ve led the war effort, which to all intents and purposes he was to do. And American generals, in particular, Dwight D. Eisenhower, would’ve led the armies, as in fact they did. Churchill’s role was over.

May 1940 to December 1941, Churchill was the sole voice of democracy, the voice of civilization, even. And without Churchill in that period, America would’ve had no base to come to in Britain, nowhere to launch aerial attacks, and in the end, an amphibious invasion of France. In June of 1940, it was quite a different story. As France fell, Churchill wrote perhaps the most, what shall I say, desperate, perhaps is the word. He sent the most desperate telegram to FDR in the States. And Churchill wrote this, in the telegram, quote, “I understand all your difficulties with American public opinion and Congress.”

This is before of course, Pearl Harbour, 15th of June ‘40. “I understand all your difficulties with American public opinion and Congress, but events are moving downward at a pace where they will pass beyond the control of American public opinion, when at last it is ripened. A declaration that the United States will, if necessary, enter the war, might save France. Failing that, in a few days, French resistance may have crumbled, and we shall be left alone.” Which is what happened. That’s a desperate plea from a British prime minister to an American president.

All I’ve said so far is positive about Churchill. I am positive about Churchill, but there are those who are critical of Churchill’s leadership, or of Churchill’s decision making. But I’ve never ever tried to pretend that Churchill was godlike, and only ever made the right decisions and said the right things. That would be ridiculous. I’m reminded, some of you, maybe even at school, have studied Richard Sheridan’s play, “School for Scandal.” And in that wonderful 18th century masterpiece of Sheridan, there is a conversation.

So Peter Teazle is about to leave a tea party, mainly consisting of gossipy women. And one of them says to Sir Peter, “Sir Peter, you’re not going to leave us.” And Sir Peter replies, “Your ladyship must excuse me, I’m called away by particular business, but I leave my character behind me.” In other words, he’s left his character, but then as soon as the door shuts, “What a dreadful man. Do you know what his wife says about…” He’s left his character behind him, and so has Churchill, for his legacy has become a football between rival camps of historians, those who big him up, and those who pull him down.

And you, each one of you, alone as an individual, must be his historical judge. Do you wish to pull him down, to prove that he was mortal? Or do you want to hold him aloft as an example for all countries and all generations for future? I’ll look at two specific criticisms. First of all, Churchill giving the orders to sink the French fleet in North Africa in 1940. The French fleet was in the port of Mers-el-Kebir, in Algeria. France had fallen. This is July 1940. France fell in June 1940. I dunno why we always say fall of France. It was the surrender of France. France had surrendered. And Churchill is petrified that the French fleet will go over to the Germans or be taken by the Germans, in which case the Germans would have the majority of ships in both the Mediterranean and the channel. And he can’t allow that.

And Admiral Somerville, British admiral, is tasked with asking the French admiral either to surrender to the British fleet, to sail to allied ports, and they mentioned Canada, for example, or be sunk by the Royal Navy. The French stall. They hoped for reinforcements, and they didn’t believe for one moment the British would open fire on them. The deadline passed, and Somerville is beside himself that he might have to open fire on the French ships. But the order from London is clear, sink them. 1,300 French sailors were killed, a number of French ships sunk. By that date, the British Navy had killed more Frenchmen than the Germans had up to that point in the war.

France declared the action a horrific act of mass murder. Germany used it to release anti-British propaganda on the continent. But FDR saw it as confirmation that even though France was lost, Britain would fight on to the end. “We shall never surrender.” And immediately sent 50, granted old, but sent 50 old destroyers to Britain under Lend-Lease. So Churchill ordered the sinking for two reasons. One, so that the German fleet was not enhanced by the French fleet. And two, as his means of ensuring that Roosevelt really knew that Britain would fight on till the very end, alone, if necessary, in Churchill’s words. But many people, and of course the French, criticise Churchill to this day.

They also criticised Churchill for withdrawing important Spitfire squadrons shortly before the fall of France. But if Churchill had not withdrawn those squadrons, we would not have had enough squadrons to fight the Battle of Britain. We simply wouldn’t have had enough planes. And there’s one story of a British pilot in France who took off from a French airfield to attack the German advance, before the surrender of France, only to return to his French airfield to find that the French had surrendered it to the Germans whilst he was in the air. Churchill had little choice, in my opinion. If you’re French, you would wish to have another choice.

But, de Gaulle never criticised the sinking of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, at least publicly, because de Gaulle realised that it was both a military and political decision that had to be made. I find that interesting. The second area of criticism is difficult to defend Churchill over, which is the famine in Bengal in 1943, when just under 3 million Indians died. Famines in India were nothing new. But in this case, the argument is that something could have been done, that food could have been supplied from Britain, that food, principally from elsewhere in India, could have been redirected to Bengal, and that Churchill’s view of Indians was based on his political antipathy to Gandhi, and although Churchill in the end acted, he should have acted far sooner and saved millions of lives.

And whilst this was going on, Britain was still importing rice from India. Against that is, its wartime. To move food in India in wartime was difficult. India itself had been invaded. The British and the Indian army were fighting desperately in Kajima and Inhale against the Japanese. With Burma lost to the Japanese, the main rice supply outside of India was lost. There are those who say Churchill had no responsibility, like Martin Gilbert. I don’t think that’s true. He did have responsibility. Leo Amery, the same Leo Amery that had made that famous speech was now Secretary of State for India. And he took a view that India was overpopulated anyhow, and that the best strategy was to do nothing.

He later changed his opinion, and Churchill, in the end, changed his. Churchill said it would do no good, famine or no famine. Indians will still breed like rabbits, he said. There is an underlying racist attitude by Churchill to this, even though he later does attempt to send aid, but it’s too little too late. It’s not a glorious episode in Churchill’s career. But because I am a committed Churchillian, it does not mean that I’m blind to the mistakes that he made. But, finally, victory came. In Europe, on VE Day, 1945, the 8th of May. The scene in Whitehall on that day, and I’ve been told this by people who were there, and saw it, and witnessed it, and took part in it. Later that evening of the 8th of May, Churchill spoke from the balcony of the Ministry of Health, which overlooked Parliament Street and Whitehall.

He began his speech by saying, “This is your victory.” And the crowd roared back, “No, it’s yours.” And I’ve met people who were part of the crowd that shouted, “No, it’s yours.” These are the same people that Marjery Allinham spoke of in 1940, who trusted this man. And he’s brought them through five years of total war, and he’s brought them to victory. Okay, there are things that he could have done better. There are things that he shouldn’t have done, sins of commission, sins of omission. But he’d done it, he’d done it.

And he finished his speech by saying, “In all our long history, we’ve never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best. Everyone has tried. Neither the long years, nor the dangers, nor the fierce attacks have in any way weakened the independent resolve of the British nation. God bless you all.” We have, in Churchill’s memorable phrase, KBOd. We’d kept buggering on, said Churchill.

In his book, “Finest Years, Churchill as Warlord,” Max Hastings writes this, he says, of Churchill, right at the end of his book, Excuse me. “History must take Churchill as a whole, as his wartime countrymen were obliged to do, rather than employ a smoke shed to strip away the blemishes created by his lunges into excess and folly. If the government, some nations in peace, is best conducted by reasonable men, in war, there is a powerful argument for leadership by those sometimes willing to adopt courses beyond the boundaries of reason, as Churchill did in 1940-41. His foremost quality was strength of will.” His foremost quality was strength of will.

A French resistance leader in Provence, Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie, said this. And this is in Lynne Olson’s wonderful book, “Last Hope Island.” Lynne Olson is our great American historian writing at the present time. And this book is a staggeringly good book. And she writes in this book, or tells a story in this book, “d'Astier felt about Churchill, he later wrote, after the war, like de Gaulle, Winston Churchill was a hero out of "The Iliad,” the lone and jealous governor of the British war effort.“ The lone and jealous governor of the British War effort. But throughout the war, he continued to attend Parliament on a weekly basis to face criticism, because he believed that we were fighting for democracy, and democracy demanded that the prime minister be open to criticism. I find that very moving.

Even de Gaulle, even de Gaulle, gave praise to Churchill in a dinner shortly after the end of the war. de Gaulle said, "We would not have seen today, if our old and gallant ally, England, had not deployed the extraordinary determination to win, and the magnificent courage which saved the freedom of the world. I do know that France will not have forgotten in a thousand years what was accomplished in this war, through the blood, sweat, and tears of the noble people, whom the right honourable Winston Churchill is leading to the heights of one of the greatest glories in the world. We raise our glasses in honour of Winston Churchill, and England, our ally, in past, present, and future.”

Well, that is something to be said. I’m going to finish with two things. First of all, a poem, and then a quotation from a current British historian. The poem is a poem that was written by a man called Leo Marks. Leo Marks was one of those who was a handlers of agents that the British sent into occupied Europe during the war. Special operations executive, the SOE. Marks was very critical that early in the war they had used code systems which the Germans could break very easily. And he devised a new system. Each agent would be given a poem that they could memorise, and they would use that as the code between them and Britain. And it was Marks that wrote the poems. And one of the poems he wrote for a lady called Violette Szabo, who was French and 21, and who was later captured by the Gestapo, tortured and killed.

But the poem lives on. And the poem is a poem about facing down evil on an individual basis.

The life that I have Is all that I have And the life that I have Is yours. The love that I have Of the life that I have Is yours and yours and yours. A sleep I shall have A rest I shall have Yet death will be but a pause For the peace of my years In the long green grass Will be yours and yours and yours.

It’s a most moving poem.

I promised I’d give you a final quotation on a contemporary British historian. This is an essay by the military historian, Peter Caddick-Adams. And he writes an essay, it’s in a book called “The Prime Ministers,” which has been recently published in Britain. I didn’t put it on the blog, 'cause I’m sure not everyone will be interested in reading about rather obscure prime ministers. But Peter Caddick-Adams in this essay on Churchill, ends, and I will end with this, by saying, “If any single prime minister has found a mechanism to drag Britain through turmoil, whether domestic or global, by listening to the heart of the nation, it was Winston Churchill.”

By listening to the heart of the nation, which he did, which was recognised by ordinary people. He was walking through the East End after a dreadful night of The Blitz in London. And he was crying when he saw the devastation around him, and his aides tried to move him away. What terrible thing for morale to see the Prime Minister crying. And an elderly woman saw him crying, and she shouted out at the top of her voice, “You see, he really does care. He’s crying.” Really does care. He cared. We survived. And many of you who are Jewish, and British, or fled here, your families fled here before or in the war, know that you owe Churchill everything. And that I, who am not Jewish, also owe Churchill everything.

Had this country fallen, what would my family have done? Would we have resisted? I’d like to think we would. Would I have been born? Probably not. We owe everything to this man. Everything. I said I’d end with that, but I’ve gone talking on, so I give you one final promise. This is the last. This is his daughter, Mary Soames. She said this to him just before he died. “I owe you what every English man, woman, and child does. Liberty itself.”

Thanks for listening. Oh, crikey, I think we’ve got comments.

• [Judi] William?

• [William] Yes, hi.

• [Judi] I see there are a few comments, if you have time to to go through them.

Q&A and Comments

• Yeah, let’s go through some, anyhow. Let’s see what we can do.

Q: “Did Winston write his own speeches?” A: Yes.

Q: “Why would Churchill have supported Edward VIII when the latter was known as a Nazi supporter?” A: Because Churchill was over romantic, and he was over romantic about the monarchy, and about this glamorous prince, now king. And he closed his mind to it. And of course the Nazi bit doesn’t come out at the time of the abdication, it comes out later.

“Why do you think that the English people,” I’ve lost it, sorry, can’t answer that, it ends there.

Q: “Was Churchill warning only of the dangers of Nazis into Britain? At some point, did he also see and highlight the injustices in life in Germany, re: minorities? A: Yes, he did. Yes. No, you’re right.

"I’ve read that Roosevelt did not get on as well with Churchill as we are led to believe, and did some things behind his back.” Well that’s both true and untrue. They did get on well. But by the end of the war, it’s America that’s leading the west, and Churchill is, well, almost an encumbrance to Roosevelt, as Roosevelt realises he’s got to deal with Stalin. But the interesting thing is that, of course, in this respect, Roosevelt got it absolutely wrong, because he didn’t realise the threat that Stalin posed post-war, which Churchill had always realised. That’s another story for another day, and I’m going to do something about Roosevelt later on this year, and I’ll talk about that.

Q: “Would he be described as a populist leader in today’s terms?” A: No, not in today’s terms, because today’s use of the word populist means almost neo-fascist. It means people like Trump, it means people like Aban, It means people like Johnson, no this is not Churchill. Churchill was not, Churchill was a absolute committed, solid, 100% gold democrat. So no, not a populist in that sense. He was popular, not populist.

Q: “Why did he get the support from the population when you consider his track record, was it basically a reaction to what Chamberlain stood for?” A: Yes, that’s also true. But people liked him because he was glamorous in his life. He’d written these books. He was always on the white charger. He just had this enormous effect on people. And of course they saw him, not on television, but they saw him in the newsreels, or in the cinema. And I’m sure everyone remembers that every film show you went to, had a newsreel, and there were news cinemas that you could go to, for example, at railway stations. People knew what he was saying. They liked him. He seemed like them.

I think I said bayonet, yes, it’s bayonets, I’m sorry. Yeah, they were handed out bayonets. Well, you don’t hand out bayonets, which you fix to the Lee-Enfield rifle to stick it up on as it were, unless you are desperate. I mean, for goodness sake, when I was at school, we certainly weren’t ever given live ammunition or bayonets. They wouldn’t have trusted us with them.

Yes, you’re quite right. So, who says, Edward, you are quite right. “I read a book about the Norway campaign, which strongly argue that Churchill’s first bore considerable responsibility to requiring reckless and impractical actions.” Yes, you can argue that. And in an extra to Gallipoli, it should have been enough to bring his star crashing to earth. But it wasn’t, it wasn’t. I’ve said to you before, and I always say this, it’s as though some fairy godmother of England waved a magic wand over Churchill, and everything, everything, it becomes coated in stardust, in those months between May '40 and December '41.

Somebody’s agreeing with me, that’s always good when people agree with me.

Oh yeah, that’s interesting, thank you, Joe. “In Toronto, Churchill was on a list of streets proposed for change of name due to the out of control political correctness. Similarly, any street having the word colony is destined into the same fate.” Well, you and I probably agree, Joe, we’re going mad with some of this. It’s not just in Canada, not just in the States, it’s here in Britain, it’s everywhere. We have to be careful. Be critical of Churchill, of course, be critical of Churchill. But just think if Churchill had not been there, what it would’ve meant for everyone. Everyone.

I don’t, I can’t. Linda and Steve your, I can’t, I can’t. I don’t understand the question. I’m sorry.

Q: “Is it conceivable that America would’ve remained neutral if before Pearl Harbour, Britain was in imminent danger of being invaded by Germany? Hypothetical question, I know.” A: I don’t think they would. I think isolationism was too strong in Congress. Remember that even when America comes into the war against Germany, America never declared war on Germany. Germany declared war on America. And the reason appears to be that FDR knew he would get a majority in Congress for a declaration of war, but didn’t feel that the majority would be sufficient, and it would divide American public opinion. Whereas America did declare war on Japan, with only one, I think I’m right in saying, and Americans will correct me if I’m wrong, one female senator from California who abstained, everyone else voted in favour, but they wouldn’t have done for a war against Germany.

“In '65, I was doing my national service in the South African Navy, and we were at sea when Churchill died. On the day of the funeral, we were mustered on deck and listened to the broadcast. It was a most amazing funeral. Most moving.

No, no, no, no. I didn’t get involved in the discussion, did he know about Pearl Harbour? No. All of that is part of the mythology.

"Lawrence Olivier’s "Henry V” was part of the British effort to encourage American help. It showed a courageous country fighting against impossible odds, a happy few, a band of brothers. Shakespeare’s language is as persuasive as Churchill’s.“ Absolutely. Absolutely.

Somebody agrees with me. That’s always welcoming. "I agree so much. My daughter was born on the same day the great man died, 24th of January '65.”

I was born on Churchill’s own birthday, the 30th of November. I was born 30th November, 1945, and my father was in India preparing for the invasion of Japan when I was born. That’s why he was in India, anyhow.

Yeah, that is an interesting story. Absolutely right, Harriet. “There were German submarines in the harbours of Nova Scotia, Canada, where my father, a physician, was dispatched from the Canadian prairies to Cape Breton, and assigned to treat merchant mariners torpedoed outside the harbour, while headed to supply Britain. This was known in Nova Scotia, but not made public in the rest of Canada.”

“Five Days in London” is another good book. Absolutely, Lawrence, absolutely.

Denise. “I played Lady Sneerwell in 'A School for Scandal.’” Excellent. Excellent, excellent, excellent. I played Lord Burleigh in “The Critic,” which was a non-speaking part. I think the teachers knew something about me.

“It’s being said that Winston Churchill was white supremacist, but it seems to me, he had strong belief in Christian values, and that together with America, great Britain stood us.” Yeah, this is part of this woke thing. Look, if you or I had been born in the 19th century, for goodness sake, if you’re white and you’re American, and you’ve been born in the 18th century, you would’ve had slaves. However appalling that is today, we cannot keep carrying that on, and blame you for what your great, great, great grandparents did those centuries ago. It just doesn’t make sense to me at all.

You’ve got to judge people in the context of life. We’ve all lived, if you’re my age, in their mid 70s, we’ve all lived through enormous changes in our lives, and what we thought when we were young, what we believed when we were young, has changed. We’ve changed, the society has changed. But if you want to go back and look at what we might have written as schoolchildren about anything you might want to mention, I wouldn’t want it publicised today that that was my views now. It doesn’t make any sense at all. Sorry, I think many of you agree with me.

Q: "Was there anybody else other than Churchill who had the leadership ability?” A: No, there wasn’t. That is the problem. You have to believe that when one is in dire need, someone arises. That’s what I believe. And Churchill arose. Halifax would have negotiated with Hitler. Chamberlain would’ve negotiated with Hitler. Atley would not have negotiated, but had no presence at all. You cannot think of anyone else at the time, but could consider, Lord George was old and past it. Eden was a wimp as he’d always been a wimp. Macmillan was too, there was nobody, there wasn’t anyone. Churchill was the last hope, if you like.

Yes, I do agree with the view that the appeasers, Chamberlain, Halifax, et al, were totally motivated by their service in World War I and the horror experienced and seen, and thus not wanting English youths to similarly suffer if that could be avoided. Absolutely true. That is the basis of their view. But Atley, Macmillan, Churchill, all saw action in the front line in World War I, and took an opposite view. So it depends upon the individual.

Q: "What’s your opinion on how he lost a general election if he were so popular?” A: Well, there’s, it’s quite easy to explain, really. It seems odd at first look, but after the First World War, where the returning soldiers have been promised by the Prime Minister Lloyd George, a land fit for heroes to live in, it was anything but in the 20s and 30s. They look back at conservative administration’s pre-war, and they feared that a conservative administration post-war would be exactly that. It would not create this new England that they all had fought for. You’re absolutely right. The returning soldiers, sailors, had been, at the end of the war, before they returned home, were given education, and they, the adult educators that educated them were almost all left wing. And so they were moved that direction.

“Tell your story.” Oh, with my mother-in-law and father-in-law in their 70s, I was in the front room with my father-in-law, and he was talking to me about Churchill. And he said, “Oh no, I didn’t vote for Churchill in 1945, I voted for Labour and Atley, because I thought we’d have a better world with them. At which point my mother-in-law came in and said, "What did you say?” I said, “Well, I said, I voted for Mr. Atley in 1945.” She didn’t speak to him for 24 hours. They were solidly conservative. It was the only time he never went to the polling booth with her telling him how he should vote. And he voted Labour. And his story is the story of many.

The Great Reform introduced for the welfare state was commissioned by Churchill. And Churchill said, we can’t, in effect, Churchill said, we can’t afford it. Not that we don’t want it, we can’t afford it. Atley basically said, we can’t not afford it. And that’s what people voted for. When Churchill wins in ‘51, again, it’s because people are nervous about parts of the Labour Party policy, not least taking into public ownership parts of industry and commerce and so on, and a fear that Labour was moving further to the left. And so Churchill, and he should never, ever have been prime minister. He was well past his sell-by date, by '51.

Oh, yes. That’s your land, thanks. “I read and saw an excellent play called “Small Island” about the UK and the American soldiers and Blacks from Jamaica.” Yeah, absolutely. There needs to be more research done on the Americans, certainly here during the war, before America comes into the war. There’s a very interesting account, autobiographical, by a young American from the Midwest who fought in the Battle of Britain. He was given leave, and he went back to the States, and it was a culture shock, because he’d come from London under attack in The Blitz, to Midwest America where they didn’t really understand that there was a war on at all. And he tried to explain what was going on, and why he was fighting, and he couldn’t get people, really to understand him. It’s very interesting.

Yeah, doubting, yeah, doubting’s the advice that Churchill took. Sorry, I think they would draw the planes from , says Karen. Yeah, Churchill always took advice. He didn’t always, well, he always asked for advice. He sometimes rejected it, but only with evidence. He was a great believer in taking advice.

Oh, well, thanks for a nice comment.

“Regarding the popularity of Churchill, I have a British friend, now an American citizen, who said that if Churchill was so popular, why was he defeated?” I think I’ve said that. It wasn’t really to do with Churchill. And Churchill wasn’t a peacetime prime minister. Churchill was a war leader. That’s different, really.

“Marjery Allingham’s book was enlightening and an honest and moving account.” Thank you. Oh, Vivian. I I hope, oh, well, if I’m the person who introduced you to the book, I’m ever so pleased you let me know. I think it’s an absolutely outstanding book.

Yes, that poem, the Szabo poem by Leo Marks is used, is very often used. I think it’s a fantastic poem.

Yes, we did. We told the French.

Q: “Did the British warn the sailors on the French ships?” A: Yes, we told them we were going to sink them. They just didn’t believe it.

Oh, then people are being saying nice things, so I’ll pass by all of that. I think I’ll finish there. It’s too embarrassing to go on with those, Wendy and Judi. People have been saying nice things.

• [Judi] Thank you, William. I don’t know if Wendy is still with us. I know that she was in the car, so she may have lost the signal. So thank you William, and thank you to everybody who joined us today. I just wanted to let you know that there has been a postponement on the schedule for this week. The Nine Yards event has been postponed, so I will be sending out a revised schedule a little bit later on today or tomorrow morning.

• [Wendy] Thanks, Judi. Thanks, William.

• Thank you, Wendy, thanks everyone for listening.

• [Wendy] Thank you. Yeah, I was having a little bit of trouble, unmuting, so I just wanted to say thanks a million.

• Thank you.

• [Wendy] Very good. Excellent presentation as always. And thank you, Judi.