by Max Hastings
9 ‘“Keep your eye on Churchill”’ A.G. Gardiner The Pillars of Society Dent popular edn 1916 p.77
9 ‘additional complication’ Collier’s January 1939
9 ‘the poor tank’ News of the World 14.4.38
9 ‘the submarine will be mastered’ WSC to Neville Chamberlain 25.3.39
9 ‘I feel we may compare’ The Churchill War Papers ed. Martin Gilbert Heinemann 1993 vol. i p.568
10 ‘It may well be’ speech to the St George’s Association 24.4.33
10 ‘I am beginning to come round’ Amery op. cit. p.584 14.3.40
10 ‘Winston has not been’ ibid. p.617 11.5.40
11 ‘So at last that man’ Parliament and Politics in the Age of Churchill and Attlee: The Headlam Diaries 1935-51 ed. Stuart Ball Cambridge 1999 p.197 10.5.40
11 ‘The new War Cabinet’ Brian Bond Liddell Hart: A Study of His Military Thought Cassell 1977 p.131
11 ‘perfectly futile for war’ Stephen Roskill Hankey: Man of Secrets Collins 1974 vol. iii p.464
11 ‘May I wish you every possible’ Action this Day op. cit. p.219
12 ‘seemed well satisfied’ The Eden Memoirs: The Reckoning Cassell 1965 p.98
12 ‘In Winston’s eyes’ Lord Moran Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival 1940-1965 London 1966 p.275
13 ‘He proved in this’ Philadelphia Inquirer 14.5.40
13 ‘That smart, tough, dumpy little man’ Time 27.5.40
14 ‘We have for twenty years’ Charles Richardson From Churchill’s Secret Circle to the BBC Brassey’s 1991 p.77
14 ‘purely physical soldiers’ Raymond Lee The London Observer ed. James Leutze Hutchinson 1972 p.216 9.1.41
15 ‘not too happy about’ Colville op. cit. p.131
15 ‘I think myself that the battle’ Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence ed. Warren Kimball Princeton 1984 vol. i p.37 15.5.40
15 ‘The summer landscape’ quoted Alastair Horne To Lose a Battle Macmillan 1969 pp.286-7
16 ‘Harold, I think it would be’ Harold Nicolson Diaries and Letters 1939-45 Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1967 p.86 17.5.40
17 ‘superb confidence’ Action this Day op. cit. p.219
17 ‘What a beautiful handwriting’ Colville op.cit. p.184 3.7.40
17 ‘Embracing his staff as’ Action this Day op. cit. p.219
18 ‘I went up to my father’s bedroom’ quoted Martin Gilbert Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill 1940-41 Heinemann 1983 p.358
18 ‘News no worse’ Eden op. cit. p.106
18 ‘It must be remembered’ BNA INF1/264 19.5.40
19 ‘Militarily, I did not see’ Eden op. cit. p.107
19 ‘About time number 17’ ibid.
21 ‘sole remaining bargaining counter’ Kimball op. cit. vol. i p.40 20.5.40
22 ‘the government should at once’ New Statesman 25.5.40
22 ‘Nobody minds going down’ The Diaries of Sir Henry Pownall ed. Brian Bond Leo Cooper 1972 vol. i. p.327
22 ‘Can nobody prevent him’ ibid. p.333 23.5.40
24 ‘Everything is complete’ The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan ed. David Dilks Cassell 1971 p.189 25.5.40
25 ‘A Gallup poll showed’ Gallup 29.5.40
26 ‘too rambling and romantic’ Cadogan op. cit. p.190 26.5.40
26 ‘He is still thinking of his books’ Colville op. cit. p.132 16.5.40
27 ‘he would be addressing’ ibid. p.118 7.5.40
27 ‘so great…it is madness’ quoted Sheila Lawlor Churchill and the Politics of War 1940-41 Cambridge 1994 p.96
27 ‘It is not the descendants’ Harold Nicolson Spectator 17.5.40
27 ‘I think they’re going to beat us’ Wartime Women ed. Dorothy Sheridan Heinemann 1990 p.91
28 ‘We’re finished’ David Howarth Pursued by a Bear Collins 1986 p.93
30 ‘The decision affected us all’ The Memoirs of Lord Ismay Heinemann 1960 p.131
31 ‘It is a drop in the bucket’ Morgenthau diary Morgenthau Papers Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Hyde Park
32 ‘The least costly solution’ New York Herald Tribune 24.5.40
33 ‘I thought Winston talked’ Halifax diary 27.5.40 Borthwick Institute York
34 ‘His world is built upon’ Isaiah Berlin Personal Impressions Hogarth Press 1980 p.6
35 ‘Some of Mr Churchill’s broadcasts’ Evelyn Waugh Men at Arms Chapman & Hall 1952 pp.222-3
Chapter 2: The Two Dunkirks
36 ‘And so here we are back’ Pownall op. cit. vol. i pp.351-2
37 ‘on reasonable conditions’ Reynolds op. cit. p.170
37 ‘Andrew Roberts’ Roberts op. cit. p.232
37 ‘He was quite magnificent’ The War Diaries of Hugh Dalton ed. Ben Pimlott Cape 1986 28.5.40
38 ‘I hope you realise’ John Horsfall Say Not the Struggle Roundwood 1977 p.142
38 ‘There was a limit to what’ private information to the author 2001
39 ‘We were told’ Antony Hichens Gunboat Command Pen & Sword 2007 p.81
39 ‘No one in the room’ Jacob ‘His Finest Hour’ The Atlantic March 1965
40 ‘The Luftwaffe, badly weakened’ Germany and the Second World War vol. ii Oxford 1991 p.291
41 ‘A dejected-looking old man’ Ismay op. cit. p.133
43 ‘he could count on no artillery’ Basil Karslake The Last Act Leo Cooper 1979 p.124
45 ‘The political object’ C.P. Stacey The Canadian Army 1939-45 Ottawa 1955 p.278
45 ‘the Breton redoubt’ L.F. Ellis The War in France and Flanders HMSO 1953 p.298
45 ‘People who go to Italy’ Colville op. cit. p.152 10.4.40
46 ‘Reynaud was inscrutable’ Eden op. cit. p.116
46 ‘Mr Churchill appeared imperturbable’ De Gaulle L’Appel p.54
47 ‘That woman…will undo’ Ismay reported conversation in Kennedy MS op. cit. 4.3.41
47 ‘M. Reynaud felt that’ FRUS 1940-41 pp. 4-115
48 ‘Normally I wake up’ Eden op. cit. p.182 19.12.40
48 ‘All this on the assumption’ Amery op. cit. p.624 11.6.40
50 ‘Churchill, who objected’ Colville op. cit. p.232
51 ‘If the French will go on’ ibid. pp.155-6
51 ‘it was impossible to make’ Lord Alanbrooke War Diaries 1939-1945 ed. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2001 p.81 14.6.40
52 ‘It is a desperate job’ Brooke op. cit. p.83 15.6.40
53 ‘Much equipment had been’ Stacey op. cit. p.284
53 ‘The lack of previous training’ quoted Karslake op. cit. p.262
53 ‘Their behaviour was terrible!’ ibid.
54 ‘repeating poetry’ Colville op. cit. pp.157-8 15.6.40
54 ‘told one or two dirty stories’ ibid.
54 ‘less violent, less wild’ ibid. p.170 25.6.40
55 ‘The French will never forgive’ MH interview with George Starr 3.3.80
56 ‘Mr Churchill finds that there are’ Le Matin 24.6.40
57 ‘When a flood comes’ Brooke op. cit. p.69 25.5.40
57 ‘My reason tells me’ Nicolson op. cit. p.96 15.6.40
57 ‘This period was one of’ Peter Fleming Invasion 1940 Hart-Davis 1957 pp.88 & 92
58 ‘Here lies the material’ Potsdam Research Institute for Military History Bock diary 2.6.40
58 ‘An American correspondent’ New Yorker 17.6.40
Chapter 3: Invasion Fever
60 ‘Thank heavens they have’ Horsfall op. cit. p.153
60 ‘Winston Churchill has told us’ IWM G.W. King 85/49/1 16.6.40
60 ‘Now we know that we have got to’ Hichens op. cit. p.90
61 ‘Now I suppose it’s our turn’ One Family’s War ed. Patrick Mayhew Hutchinson 1985 p.77
62 ‘[Captain] Bill Tennant came in’ CAC Edwards diary REDW1/2
63 ‘A government must never assume’ Carl von Clausewitz On War ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret Princeton 1976
64 ‘one thing that strikes me’ Lee op. cit. p.5 17.6.40
>
64 ‘It is no secret that Great Britain’ quoted Joseph Lash Roosevelt and Churchill: The Partnership that Saved the West Norton 1976 p.197
64 ‘The great majority of Americans’ Philadelphia Inquirer 23.5.40
65 ‘Richard E. Taylor of Apponaugh’ IWM Misc 200/3160
65 ‘I have a feeling’ Somerset Maugham Time 21.10.40
65 ‘Propaganda is all very well’ Colville op. cit. p.175 28.6.40
65 ‘One queer thing’ Lee op. cit. p.23 25.5.40
66 ‘I don’t know what we’ll fight’ Kennedy MS op. cit. 12.11.42 story recounted by Walter Elliott
66 ‘when so many interesting things’ CAC Martin diary MART1 p.12
67 ‘You ought to have cried’ Colville op. cit. p.135 19.5.40
67 ‘We should have had an enormous’ Kennedy MS op. cit. 27.5.41
67 ‘I went on my knees’ Halifax diary op. cit. 8.2.41
69 ‘It was a terrible decision’ Moran op. cit. p.316 9.7.45
70 ‘Oran, a painful necessity’ see for instance Stanley G. Payne Franco and Hitler Yale 2007 passim
71 ‘But all contingent upon’ BNA PREM3/131/1 27.6.40
71 ‘You will observe that the document’ BNA PREM3/131/2
71 ‘Am profoundly shocked and disgusted’ ibid.
71 ‘Please remember the serious nature’ ibid.
71 ‘This declaration would’ ibid.
72 ‘There are difficulties’ CAC Bevin Papers Ernest Bevin to Professor W.K. Hancock 13.11.40 BEVNII/4/1
73 ‘if the Government of Eire’ Kimball op. cit. p.106 7.12.40
73 ‘Winston was in great form’ The Ironside Diaries ed. R. Macleod and D. Kelly Constable 1962 6.7.40
74 ‘strikes me as tired’ Gilbert The Churchill War Papers op. cit. vol. ii 10.7.40
74 ‘They paid lip-service’ Fleming op. cit. p.80
74 ‘The menace of invasion’ ibid. p.307
75 ‘Hitler must invade or fail’ Colville op. cit. p.195 14.7.40
75 ‘Not until March 1941’ F.H. Hinsley et al. British Intelligence in the Second World War HMSO 1979 vol. i pp.429 & 451
75 ‘in wonderful spirits’ Brooke op. cit. p.92 17.7.40
76 ‘Radio sets were not then’ Henry Fairlie ‘The Voice of Hope’ New Republic 27.1.82 p.16
76 ‘Gradually we came under’ Few Eggs and No Oranges: The Diaries of Vere Hodgson Persephone 1999 p.5
76 ‘sent shivers (not of fear)’ Nicolson op. cit. p.93 5.6.40
76 ‘Mr Churchill is the only man’ New Yorker 25.8.40
76 ‘Like a great actor’ Berlin op. cit. p.22
77 ‘It is certainly his hour’ Headlam op. cit. p.213
77 ‘I won’t go on about the war’ IWM Papers of Mrs E. Elkus
77 ‘she had saved her wages’ CAC Eade Papers 2/2 11.9.42 77 ‘Romans in Rome’s quarrel’ CAC Martin diary op. cit. p.7
Chapter 4: The Battle of Britain
80 ‘Il y a beaucoup’ Boswell op. cit. p.876
80 ‘I shall always associate’ Colville op. cit. p.505 24.8.44
80 ‘Winston wept’ CAC Martin diary op. cit. p.29
81 ‘The odds today’ George Barclay Fighter Pilot William Kimber 1976 pp.51-2
81 ‘This sounds very peculiar’ IWM Alec Bishop MS 98/18/1
83 ‘a farrago of operational’ Colville op. cit. p.288 7.11.40
83 ‘It is the sneaks’ BNA PREM3/220/48
84 ‘Jones spent twenty minutes’ R.V. Jones Most Secret War Hamish Hamilton 1978 p.101
84 ‘Here was strength’ ibid. p.107
86 ‘a little ruffled’ Colville op. cit. p.211 7.8.40
86 ‘Don’t speak to me’ Ismay op. cit. pp.179-80
87 ‘He paweth in the valley’ John Kennedy The Direction of War Hutchinson 1957 p.62
87 ‘I try myself by court martial’ Colville op. cit. p.231 27.8.40
88 ‘glaucous, vigilant, angry’ Nicolson op. cit. p.127 20.11.40
89 ‘There goes the bloody’ Colville op. cit. p.340 24.1.41
89 ‘Gimme “Pug”!’ Elizabeth Nel Mr Churchill’s Secretary Hodder & Stoughton 1958 p.74
89 ‘whether very great men’ Colville op. cit. p.389 20.5.41
89 ‘an unscrupulously rough-and-tumble’ Lee op. cit. p.77 3.10.40
90 ‘You know, I may seem’ CAC Martin diary op. cit. p.4
90 ‘Ll[oyd] G[eorge] was purely’ Amery op. cit. p.1034 26.3.45
90 ‘It’s very naughty’ Moran op. cit. p.287
90 ‘the formidable ramparts’ ibid. p.324
90 ‘Darling Winston’ quoted Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill ed. Mary Soames Doubleday 1998 p.454
91 ‘to find himself subjected’ Action this Day op. cit. p.53
92 ‘He has more wit’ Moran op. cit. p.226
92 ‘collapsed between the chair’ Colville op. cit. p.319 15.12.40
92 ‘Winston feasts on the sound’ Moran op. cit. p.8 12.12.41
92 ‘No one could predict’ Action this Day op. cit. p.177
93 ‘the ferment of ideas’ ibid. p.150
95 ‘almost certain invasion’ Channon op. cit. p.266 16.9.40
96 ‘like all the other soldiers’ Neville Chamberlain diary 1.7.40
96 ‘the nakedness of our defences’ Brooke op. cit. p.90 2.7.40
96 ‘not satisfied that…the co-operation’ BNA CAB69/1
97 ‘I feel an immense joy’ Hichens op. cit. p.99
97 ‘On 25 August…’ Sir Thomas Elmhirst Recollections p.51
98 ‘Thank God…the defeatist opinions’ Lee op. cit. p.108 15.9.40
98 ‘usual vigorous rhetorical’ Dalton op. cit. p.80
99 ‘I am on top of’ Elmhirst op. cit. p.53
101 ‘Publicity is anathema’ A.B. Cunningham A Sailor’s Odyssey Hutchinson 1951 p.410
102 ‘Do you like Bovril?’ Gen. Sir Frederick Pile Ack-Ack: Britain’s Defence Against Air Attack Harrap 1949 p.171
102 ‘That man’s effort’ Colville op. cit. p.261 11.10.40
103 ‘The club is burning’ CAC Martin diary op. cit. p.32
104 ‘a farmer driving pigs’ Colville op. cit. 10.8.41
104 ‘For something like a year’ R.W. Thompson Churchill and Morton Hodder & Stoughton 1976 p.41
104 ‘One can now say’ Dokumenty Vneshnei Politiki 1940—22.12.41 Moscow 1999 pp.361 & 387
105 ‘Thus fades the last hope’ Channon op. cit. p.263
105 ‘Lothian’s “wild” appeal’ Nicolson op. cit. p.104 22.7.40
105 ‘[He] was very interesting about’ Lee op. cit. 8.12.40
105 ‘David Kynaston’ David Kynaston A History of the City of London vol. iii Chatto & Windus 1999 p.472
105 ‘come back into his own’ ibid. p.479
106 ‘Feeling in the Carlton Club’ Channon op. cit. p.268
107 ‘I think it’s a good thing’ IWM Green Papers 99/9/1 Letter of 4.9.40
107 ‘this was the sort of war’ Colville op. cit. p.262 12.10.40
108 ‘We…soon adapt ourselves’ Anthony Trollope Autobiography Trollope Society edn 1999 p.102
108 ‘If one looked on all this’ Colville op. cit. 16.9.40
108 ‘Malaya, the Australian government’s’ Eden op. cit. 21.1.41
108 ‘We [have] got to admit’ Colville op. cit. p.312 13.12.40
108 ‘Mon général, devant’ ibid. p.289 9.11.40
109 ‘the narrowest, most ignorant’ ibid. p.406 22.6.41
Chapter 5: Greek Fire
111 ‘saw no prospect beyond’ see Bond Liddell Hart op. cit. pp.119-59
111 ‘sit tight and defend ourselves’ Dalton op. cit. p.87
111 ‘They say no one knows’ Lee op. cit. p.54 12.9.40
112 ‘in a month’s time’ ibid. p.10 3.7.40
112 ‘If Hitler were to postpone’ Nicolson op. cit. p.103 20.7.40
112 ‘I have heard’ diary 14.11.40 quoted Simon Garfield Private Battles: How the War Almost Defeated Us Ebury 2006
p.18
112 ‘At our weekly meeting’ CAC Bevin Papers letter from F. Price BEVN6/59 22.9.40
113 ‘Winston, why don’t we land’ 6.3.41 CAC Eade Papers 2/2
113 ‘We will go easy’ Andrew Gibb With Winston Churchill at the Front Gowans & Gray 1924 pp.40-1
113 ‘the discharge of bombs’ BNA PREM3/21/1
113 ‘No more than anyone else’ Pownall op. cit. vol. ii p.8 2.11.40
114 ‘As the PM said goodnight’ Colville op. cit. p.266 13.10.40
114 ‘He was always, in effect’ Attlee to NYC press conference 1.2.46
114 ‘These military men v[er]y often’ Speaking for Themselves ed. Mary Soames Doubleday 1998 p.23 30.5.1909
115 ‘The book is full of’ ibid. p.357 19.2.32
115 ‘A series of absurd’ Winston Churchill The World Crisis 1911-1918 Odhams 1927 pt iii chap X pp.1131 & 1134-5
116 ‘I am so glad’ Churchill to Tovey 7.4.41
116 ‘by 300 determined men’ Colville op. cit. p.186 3.11.40
119 ‘He lay there in his’ ibid. p.285 3.11.40
120 ‘as if it were the only source’ Nicolson op. cit. p.121 17.10.40
120 ‘You should not telegraph’ Gilbert Finest Hour op. cit. pp.905-6
120 ‘I purred like six cats’ WSC The Second World War vol. ii p.480
121 ‘At long last we are’ Ismay op. cit. p.195
121 ‘If, with the situation as it is’ BNA PREM3/288/1
121 ‘He advanced a mad notion’ Eden op. cit. p.180 5.12.40
122 ‘Off we went across’ Correlli Barnett The Desert Generals Allen & Unwin 1983 pp.37-65
123 ‘For the first time’ Harvey diary 22 February 1941
124 ‘Mr Churchill’s speech’ Hodgson op. cit. 11.2.41
124 ‘Here is the hand’ Colville op. cit. 16.2.41
124 ‘We cannot, from Middle East’ Eden op. cit. p.168
125 ‘The weakness of our policy’ ibid. p.170 3.11.40
125 ‘We were near the edge’ Kennedy MS op. cit. 26.1.41 & 11.2.41
125 ‘He thinks Greece’ The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins ed. Robert Sherwood Eyre & Spottiswoode 1948 vol. i pp.239-40
127 ‘Found Wavell waiting’ Eden op. cit. p.131 13.8.40
127 ‘a good average colonel’ ibid. p.133
128 ‘Wavell, I think’ Tedder diary 18.4.41 quoted Lord Tedder With Prejudice Cassell 1966 p.74
