Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness

by Taylor, Robert Lewis

  Taking a terrible battering, Exeter doggedly poured salvos into the Graf Spee, while Ajax and Achilles snapped at the enemy like bulldogs. At seven-forty, with the Exeter’s forward turrets knocked out of action and all their crews killed or wounded, Captain Harwood of the English force withdrew the stricken cruiser and laid down smoke for her consorts, hoping to delay the action until dark, when he could use his torpedoes. All that day the Spee, many times hit but not critically damaged, ran toward Montevideo, hounded by Ajax and Achilles. Intermittent gun flashes from all three ships lit up the ocean. She entered the harbor at midnight.

  Beyond the three-mile limit, hopelessly outgunned, Ajax and Achilles lay in wait, bent on carrying the fight to the death at whatever odds. Luckily, these were soon to improve. The Cumberland, in the style of cinema cavalry relieving an MGM garrison, came speeding over the horizon in midmorning, and the Renown and Ark Royal, near Rio, had signaled their intention of proceeding with all haste.

  German documents captured after the war reveal Langsdorff’s wire to his Admiralty: “Strategic position off Montevideo. Besides the cruisers and destroyers [this an error on Langsdorff’s part] Ark Royal and Renown. Close blockade at night escape into open sea and break-through to home waters hopeless ... Request decision on whether the ship should be scuttled in spite of insufficient depth in the Estuary of the Plate, or whether internment is to be preferred.”

  At a conference of Hitler and several admirals, it was decided that the best plan was: “Attempt by all means to extend the time in neutral waters ... fight your way through to Buenos Aires if possible. No internment in Uruguay. Attempt effective destruction if ship is scuttled.”

  At six-fifteen the evening of the seventeenth, with the population of Montevideo lining the riverbanks and the rest of civilization anxiously awaiting reports, the Graf Spee headed toward the sea. A few minutes later, a scout plane from Ajax radioed: “Graf Spee has blown herself up.”

  The message was flashed out to all corners of the world, and England took a new lease on the war. Persons then at the British Admiralty say that Churchill danced around the dispatch room like a child, and wrung everybody’s hand with uninhibited glee. His excitement persisted until the crews and their three commanders were brought home for congratulations. The celebration, with multiple introductions, went on throughout a gala day and marked one of the few failures on record of one of humanity’s great memories. The Ajax, Achilles and Exeter were skippered by, respectively, Captains Woodhouse, Parry and Bell. Churchill first presented the heroes to the King and Queen as Captain Woodhouse of the Achilles, Captain Bell of the Exeter, and Captain Parry of the Ajax. On the next try, for the BBC, he transposed Bell and Parry and left Woodhouse on the quarterdeck of the Achilles, a ship he scarcely knew from Adam. That evening, starting a public address and presentation, Churchill relieved Bell of the Exeter and gave him Woodhouse’s new ship, the Achilles. This left Parry aboard the unaccustomed Ajax. Trying to settle on a proper command for Woodhouse, possibly Noah’s Ark, or the Graf Spee, Churchill became so flustered that he stopped and muttered something that sounded to the audience like, “Confound it, I can’t keep these men apart. I’ve been doing this all day. They’ll just have to introduce themselves.” By this time not only Churchill but the captains were addled, and Wood-house was believed to have identified himself with the Exeter. It was an enjoyable occasion all around.

  Nevertheless, a rising dissatisfaction with Chamberlain’s ministry came to a head with the subsequent failures in Norway, and he was obliged to face a hostile Opposition in May. Throughout most of the winter, the struggle had slumbered like a hibernating animal, giving rise to the phrase “twilight war” in Britain and “phony war” in some of the impatient, nonparticipating nations. Though slumbering, it was far from phony to Englishmen, who were given periodic accounts of heavy U-boat sinkings and actions at sea in which the men and ships of the Royal Navy were steadily sacrificed. The enemy suffered, too, but the sea war, to the Germans, was never much more than a screen to shield the operations of a prepared and eager land force. As Norway fell and Holland girded for the coming blow, Chamberlain was denounced even by members of his own party. In a stunning speech, Leo Amery, a Conservative wheel horse, a Privy Councilor, and a friend of the Prime Minister, arose and quoted Cromwell’s peremptory words to the Long Parliament: “You have sat too long here for any good you have done. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

  Chamberlain stepped down, and King George sent for Churchill. The culmination of a stormy lifetime of political effort was at last at hand. Years before, during one of his unfavored periods, Churchill had confided to a friend, “I would quit politics forever if it were not for the possibility that I might some day become Prime Minister.” His perseverance was now rewarded, in the spring of 1940, with England all but prostrate. He was asked to form an All-Party, or Coalition, Government; the Socialists and Liberals agreed to his leadership; and he took office, on the tenth of May, in England’s worst hour of the civilized era. His name was recorded in history beside those of Pitt, Gladstone, Disraeli, and Fox, and he had, by the simple act of succession, outstripped the fame of his revered ancestor. As one of his advisers says, “Winston had finally grown beyond his hero. The line had completed its cycle.” When he stalked away from the ritual of kissing the King’s hand, he wasted no time in exultation but set rapidly to work. On the following Monday he stood forth with the stirring address on “blood, sweat and tears.” It would be democracy’s theme for the next six years, and an immortal masterpiece among England’s great orations.

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  The charge has continued to grow in recent years that Churchill is a warmonger, that he enjoys fighting. It is the favorite line of Hyde Park speakers, Russian Communists, American “intellectuals,” and additionally consecrated groups. The subject has been so noisily exploited that it needs an unbiased and authoritative opinion. Victor Gollancz, the English publisher, a non-Conservative who served on wartime committees with Churchill, feels that he dreads the coming of war more than any other public figure of modern times, having had a unique experience of its effect on nations and individuals, but that once war is declared he has about as much fun as it is possible to have. Churchill’s activities between 1940 and 1946 testify to the accuracy of this view. Warfare has always provided him with the perfect field for the full employment of his potential. At such a time, nothing that he does can seem too bizarre when one reflects that his ultimate aim is the destruction of the enemy.

  To be close to the scene, Churchill and his wife moved into the commodious quarters at 10 Downing Street soon after his appointment as Prime Minister. Brendan Bracken, his chief political adviser, and Churchill’s brother Jack also occupied rooms on the premises. From this nerve center of executive Britain, and from his office in Whitehall, Churchill bustled around, covering an unbelievable amount of ground, to keep his check on the war. Since the days of the bonejarring crackups with Captain Scott, he had been wary of flying; now he took it up again, as a passenger. When his physicians advised him that the changing pressures would be unsalutary for a man of his years, he ordered a personal pressure chamber constructed, probably the only one of its kind ever in existence. Shaped like an egg, it was about ten feet long and weighed two tons. The important thing was, it could be hoisted into nearly any plane, while the statesman was inside and occupied at his correspondence. Churchill’s eerie compartment was not really home, but it was the next best substitute for its size, with a chair, a built-in couch, a cupboard for bottles, a bookshelf, and numerous ashtrays.

  A special train also was rigged up for Churchill — one originally meant for the King and Queen to use during the war. They preferred traveling by auto and insisted that the train be made available to the Prime Minister. It was about the least distinguished-looking piece of railway equipment in Britain, being kept grubby and mud-covered so as to be inconspicuous. Its appearance was a bane to its crew, who were often restrained
from smartening it up. They wanted the train bright and shiny for Churchill, but the Government preferred it drab, so as to escape bombs and enemy agents. Churchill established his own staff of stewards aboard; they stocked up with liquors, good foods, boxes of his favorite cigars, and other articles. One of the stewards has said, “Of all the men I ever met, the Prime Minister was the hardest worker. We couldn’t get him to stay in the sleeper. He only took cat naps, then he would come down the aisle wearing his bathrobe and smoking a cigar, and get to work on his papers.”

  People high and low in the government departments became used to having Churchill telephone unexpectedly for information. His requests, either vocal or written, always started out, “Pray tell me,” and, as in the first war, contained the stipulation that each report should be confined to one side of one page of foolscap. He gathered round him a staff of experts in every field. The leader of these was Frederick Lindemann, professor of experimental philosophy at Oxford University, whom Churchill employed as a sort of statistical troubleshooter, paying his salary personally. The two had met at the close of the First World War, when Lindemann, a man of exceptional doggedness, conceived some ideas about airplane “spins” and learned to fly to try them out. Some of the wildest pilots in England stood openmouthed on the ground and watched the sedentary professor go into spins from which test pilots had been incapable of extricating themselves. His theories worked, and he contributed improvements in design that greatly reduced this hazard of flying.

  Churchill called his advisers The Team, and they, in turn, referred to him as The Master. Sir Desmond Morton, a military member, had been a crack artillery officer in 1917, the winner of the Military Cross and a man who held the added distinction of having been shot through the heart with comparatively little discomfort. When the second war came along, he was a neighbor of Churchill’s at Chartwell; he came to London to carry out assignments for the Prime Minister. Various of Churchill’s team — Lieutenant General Sir Henry Pownall, Commodore G. R. G. Allen, Colonel F. W. Deakin, and others — were to remain with him after the war, to act as advisers in the preparation of his gigantic history of the struggle.

  Churchill’s team tried to act as a buffer between him and the snarls of wartime bureaucracy, but he was a hard man to protect. He insisted on having a special telephone line run from his office to the Censorship Room of the Ministry of Information. The two phones, he decreed, should be red. He scanned the papers acidulously, and the minute he spotted something suspect, he reached for his red phone to complain. People in the Censorship Office dreaded to hear theirs ring. As could be expected of a saint, Churchill was not always in the sweetest humor during the war. He was impatient with any kind of bungling, and he was aggravated by well-wishers who tried to get him into the underground shelters. After a time, nearly everybody gave up urging him, being influenced by the fact that, as one Whitehall worker says, “When the Premier was cooped up in an air raid shelter his blistering temper was far worse than the raid.” However, on the few occasions when he did go down, it was agreed that his absolute contempt for the Germans and their bombs did much to impart stout morale to the others. In the room set aside for the War Cabinet, all the seats except Churchill’s bore a name card; his had a tiny silver plaque with the inscription, “Please understand that there is no depression in this house and we are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist. Victoria RI.”

  One of Churchill’s first acts when war threatened was to recall to duty Sergeant (now Detective Inspector) Thompson, his former bodyguard and all-round helper. Thompson had been long retired from the force and was conducting a peaceful grocery in Norwood when he received a brief telegram — two words under the ten-word limit — from his former boss, who appeared to be in Paris. It read, simply, “Meet me Croydon Aerodrome 4:30 P.M. Wednesday. Churchill.” Thompson had grown used to, and even fond of, Churchill’s autocratic ways, so with a resigned sigh he rang up a shilling for a can of asparagus, closed the grocery, got out his automatic, and boarded a train to Croydon. Churchill’s explanation, when he stepped off the plane, was somewhat less verbose than the telegram. He said, “Hallo, Thompson. Nice to see you. Get the luggage together and bring it on to Chartwell.” Thompson has since published his serialized reminiscences of these days, and he has some lively notes on the resumption of their association. Churchill indicated a willingness to meet a bodyguard’s salary of five pounds a week out of his own pocket. Thompson made no complaint, although it is presumed that his grocery was netting more than this, unless he was operating it as a hobby. A number of people noticed that both Churchill and his wife became less openhanded as the war went on. His series on Marlborough had failed to find a popular audience, and his immense earnings from magazines and newspapers were curtailed when he took office. Meanwhile the vast expenses of Chartwell and his usual high living rolled on.

  Churchill’s reasons for needing a bodyguard again were stated succinctly when they reached home: “Some Frenchmen told me a bunch of spies were planning to assassinate me. I was going down to see the Duke of Windsor in Southern France, but I gave it up. Now, I can look after myself in the daytime, but I can’t have them springing on me when I’m asleep. Do you wish to borrow a gun?” Thompson and Churchill did considerable bickering about what kind of weapon was best to carry. The detective had the reasonable notion that he qualified as an expert on the use of firearms. Churchill felt qualified, too. “And indeed,” Thompson says, “Mr. Churchill is in fact a first-class shot.” Over his charge’s objections, Thompson elected to use a Webley .38 in a chamois shoulder holster of his own devising. Though sympathetic, Churchill had a subtle attitude of “Aha — you see?” when the gun slipped out and shot Thompson in both legs.

  The relationship between master and employee was in general a curious one. The detective’s position was frequently little more than that of valet; at the same time, he stated his views positively on matters relating to safety. It was Churchill’s custom to argue everything. One time, leaving the private train, he said, “Clean up these papers and bring them after me, Thompson.” “I will do it gladly,” replied the detective, “but I can scarcely guard you outside if I am in here picking up papers.” While Churchill tried angrily to stare him down, Thompson stood by with a look of limited deference. Churchill finally stamped out, but he waited on the platform for Thompson before getting off the train.

  Like so many others, Thompson had trouble trying to keep Churchill from getting killed by bombs. The fact that he succeeded is a testimonial not only to his patience but to his strength. Once he found Churchill standing in the double doorway at 10 Downing Street enjoying some particularly vivid shrapnel bursts. There was a crash near by and then a number of piercing whistles. “Something is coming this way!” shouted Thompson, and he seized Churchill and flung him inside. The explosion that ensued from the Prime Minister did much to nullify the racket in the street. In Thompson’s words, he was “horrified and indignant,” and roared, “Don’t do that!” His ire was reduced when he found that an employee of the establishment, standing beside him, had been severely hit. Throughout the blitz, Thompson kept referring to No. 10 Downing Street as a “death trap,” and Churchill continued to say that he wouldn’t alter his mode of living “to suit Hitler.” On several occasions he continued to dine in contentment while buildings were crashing down in the immediate neighborhood. Friends of Churchill’s have related that he was put in a frightful temper when anecdotes he was relating gave way to concussion. This seemed to be his strongest private reaction to the blitz.

  After much persuasion, Churchill finally agreed to remove to a safer building when plane warnings were flashed in from the coast. However, it was his perverse pleasure to wait until the bombs actually started falling; then he would light a cigar, put on his coal-bucket hat, pick up his gold-headed stick, and stroll very leisurely through the barrage to the stronger No. 10 Annex, some thousand yards away. Thompson once sneaked up from behind, removed the hat, and clapped on
a regulation tin helmet. Churchill removed it without comment and tossed it into the bushes. A few evenings later, strolling along, he vacated a spot that was struck by a 1000-pound bomb less than five minutes afterward. The King and Queen came to dine one night and the blitz alarm sounded shortly after the dessert course. The party quickly adjourned to the Annex Shelter, but all through the raid Churchill kept walking outside to look around. The King stood in the doorway and remonstrated. “I say, Churchill, hadn’t you better join us inside?” he called out three or four times, but got little more reassurance from his Prime Minister than an amiable wave.

  At length, governmental pressures were exerted to force Churchill underground. He responded with impatience and would never have won a gold star for attendance had the roll been taken. He intensely disliked being cooped up. For one thing, the guard at the door was obligated to make him throw down the lighted cigar each time, the rules prohibiting smoking. And no matter how heavy the bombing was, he left before it was over. The next night, to offset what he considered his good conduct, he usually went up to the roof of No. 10 Downing Street. “I am sorry to take you into danger, Thompson,” he said after an especially foolhardy ascent. “I would not do it, only I knew how much you like it.”