Winston's War: Churchill, 1940-1945

by Max Hastings

  In the references below, collections are abbreviated as follows: British National Archive, BNA; U.S. National Archive, USNA; Churchill Archive Centre, CAC; Imperial War Museum, IWM; the Liddell Hart Archive at King’s College, London, LHA; and U.S. Army Military History Institute, USAMHI. After much vacillation, I have omitted references to some documents which have been for many years in the public domain, and which are clearly identified and dated in the text. All direct quotations from Churchill not otherwise sourced are to be found in the two volumes of Martin Gilbert’s biography covering the war years.

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION

  1 “He had once conceived”: Boswell, p. 1100.

  2 Andrew Roberts has painted: Roberts, Masters.

  3 The most vivid wartime memory: Author interview, 1992.

  4 he told his staff: Colville, December 12, 1940.

  5 “Everything depended upon him”: Wheeler-Bennett, Action, p. 236.

  6 “He was not mad”: Knight, p. 366.

  7 “may overstate his indispensability”: Wrigley, p. 85

  8 “It would be easy by a cunning”: LHA, MS diary of Maj. Gen. Sir John Kennedy (hereafter “Kennedy diary, LHA”), January 26, 1941.

  9 “Churchill so evidently”: Lees-Milne, p. 69, August 19, 1972.

  10 “I wish I were twenty”: Nicolson, p. 37, September 9, 1939.

  CHAPTER ONE: THE BATTLE OF FRANCE

  11 “It was a marvel”: Reynolds, In Command, p.126.

  12 “If there is going to be a war”: Baldwin to Lord Davidson, in Young, p. 112.

  13 “several fishing rods”: IWM, Sir C. Nicholson Papers, p. 9.

  14 “I don’t think WSC will be”: Quoted in Roberts, Masters, p. 199, undisclosed source, May 13, 1940.

  15 “It’s all a great pity”: Butler Papers, G11, quoted in ibid., p. 209.

  16 “If I had to spend my whole life”: Broad and Fleming, eds., p. 51.

  17 “Events are moving so fast”: New Yorker, May 12, 1940.

  18 “Elizabethan zest for life”: Harold Nicolson, Spectator, May 17, 1940.

  19 “How Winston thinks that he can be Prime Minister”: Amery, p. 615, May 11, 1940.

  20 “conscious of a profound”: Churchill, Second World War, 1:526.

  21 “David, sir, David!”: Sebag-Montefiore, p. 59.

  22 “British troops have landed in Iceland”: Sir Michael Howard, personal recollection to the author, December 28, 2008.

  23 “Perhaps the darkest day in English history”: Channon, p. 248.

  24 In May 1940, while few influential figures: Rhodes-James.

  25 “‘Keep your eye on Churchill’”: Gardiner, Pillars, p. 77.

  26 “additional complication”: Collier’s, January 1939.

  27 “the poor tank”: News of the World, April 14, 1938.

  28 “the submarine will be mastered”: Gilbert, War Papers, Churchill to Neville Chamberlain, March 25, 1939.

  29 “I feel we may compare the position”: Gilbert, War Papers, 1:568.

  30 “It may well be”: Speech to the St. George’s Association, April 24, 1933.

  31 “I am beginning to come round”: Amery, p. 584, March 14, 1940.

  32 “Winston has not been nearly bold”: Amery, p. 617, May 11, 1940.

  33 “head of school’s fag”: Private information to author.

  34 “So at last that man”: Headlam, p. 197, May 10, 1940.

  35 “The new War Cabinet”: Bond, p. 131.

  36 “perfectly futile for war”: Roskill, Hankey, 3:464.

  37 “May I wish you every possible”: Wheeler-Bennett, Action, p. 219.

  38 “seemed well satisfied”: Eden, p. 98.

  39 “In Winston’s eyes”: Moran, p. 275.

  40 “He proved in this one short speech”: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 14, 1940.

  41 “That smart, tough, dumpy little man”: Time, May 27, 1940.

  42 “We have for twenty years”: Richardson, p. 77.

  43 “purely physical soldiers”: Lee, p. 216, January 9, 1941.

  44 “not too happy about the military”: Colville, p. 131, May 14, 1940.

  45 “I think myself that the battle”: Kimball, 1:37, May 15, 1940.

  46 “The summer landscape”: Quoted in Horne, pp. 286–87.

  47 “Harold, I think it would be wise”: Nicolson, p. 86, May 17, 1940.

  48 “superb confidence”: Wheeler-Bennett, Action, p. 219.

  49 “What a beautiful handwriting”: Colville, p. 184, July 3, 1940.

  50 Embracing his staff as: Wheeler-Bennett, Action, p. 219.

  51 “I went up to my father’s bedroom”: Quoted in Gilbert, Finest Hour, p. 358.

  52 “It must be remembered that the defence”: BNA, INF1/264, May 19, 1940.

  53 “Militarily, I did not see how”: Eden, p. 107, May 24, 1940.

  54 “About time number 17”: Ibid.

  55 “sole remaining bargaining counter”: Kimball, 1:40, May 20, 1940.

  56 “the government should at once”: New Statesman, May 25, 1940.

  57 “Nobody minds going down”: Pownall, 1:327.

  58 “Can nobody prevent him”: Ibid., 1:333, May 23, 1940.

  59 “Everything is complete confusion”: Cadogan, p. 189, May 25, 1940.

  60 A Gallup poll showed Americans: Gallup, May 29, 1940.

  61 “too rambling and romantic”: Cadogan, p. 190, May 26, 1940.

  62 “He is still thinking of his books”: Colville, p. 132, May 16, 1940.

  63 he “would be addressing”: Ibid., p. 118, May 7, 1940.

  64 “so great … it is madness”: Quoted in Lawlor, p. 96.

  65 “It is not the descendants”: Harold Nicolson, Spectator, May 17, 1940.

  66 “I think they’re going to beat us”: Sheridan, p. 91.

  67 “The decision affected us all”: Ismay, p. 131.

  68 “It is a drop in the bucket”: Morgenthau diary, Morgenthau Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.

  69 “The least costly solution in both life”: New York Herald Tribune, May 24, 1940.

  70 “I thought Winston talked”: Halifax diary, Borthwick Institute, York, May 27, 1940.

  71 “His world is built upon the primacy”: Berlin, p. 6.

  72 “Some of Mr. Churchill’s broadcasts”: Waugh, pp. 222–23.

  CHAPTER TWO: THE TWO DUNKIRKS

  73 “And so here we are back”: Pownall, 1:351–52.

  74 “on reasonable conditions”: Reynolds, In Command, p. 170.

  75 “He was quite magnificent”: Dalton, May 28, 1940.

  76 “I hope you realise your distinction”: Horsfall, p. 142.

  77 “There was a limit to what any of us”: Private information to the author, 2001.

  78 “It does seem to me incredible”: Hichens, p. 81.

  79 “No one in the room”: Ian Jacob, “His Finest Hour,” Atlantic, March 1965.

  80 “the Luftwaffe, badly weakened”: Potsdam Institute for the Study of Military History, 2:291.

  81 “A dejected-looking old man”: Ismay, p. 133.

  82 “he could count on no artillery”: Karslake, p. 124.

  83 “The political object of the re-constituted BEF”: C. P. Stacey, p. 278.

  84 “the Breton redoubt”: L. F. Ellis, p. 298.

  85 “People who go to Italy”: Colville, p. 152, April 10, 1940.

  86 “Reynaud was inscrutable”: Eden, p. 116.

  87 “Mr. Churchill appeared imperturbable”: De Gaulle, L’Appel (Plon: 1999), p. 54.

  88 “That woman … will undo”: Ismay reported conversation in Kennedy diary, LHA, March 3, 1941.

  89 “M. Reynaud felt that while Mr. C”: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940–41. pp. 4–115.

  90 “Normally I wake up buoyant to face”: Eden, p. 182, December 19, 1940.

  91 “Churchill, who objected”: Colville, p. 232.

  92 “If the French will go on fighting”: Ibid., pp. 155–56, June 14, 1940.

  93 “it was
impossible to make a corpse feel”: Brooke, p. 81, June 14, 1940.

  94 “It is a desperate job being faced”: Ibid., p. 83, June 15, 1940.

  95 “Much equipment had been”: Stacey, p. 284.

  96 “The lack of previous training”: Quoted in Karslake, p. 262.

  97 “Their behaviour was terrible!”: Ibid.

  98 “repeating poetry, dilating on the drama”: Colville, pp. 157–58, June 15, 1940.

  99 “told one or two dirty stories”: Ibid.

  100 “less violent, less wild”: Ibid., p. 170, June 25, 1940.

  101 “We are France!”: Lacouture, p. 240.

  102 “Mr. Churchill finds that there are not enough French”: Le Matin, June 24, 1940.

  103 “When a flood comes the water flows over”: Brooke, p. 69, May 25, 1940.

  104 “My reason tells me that it now be”: Nicolson, p. 96, June 15, 1940.

  105 “This period was one of carefree”: Fleming, pp. 88, 92.

  106 “Here lies the material of a whole army”: Potsdam Institute, Bock diary, June 2, 1940.

  107 An American correspondent reported home: New Yorker, June 17, 1940.

  CHAPTER THREE: INVASION FEVER

  108 “Thank heavens they have”: Horsfall, p. 153.

  109 “Winston Churchill has told us”: IWM, G. W. King, 85/49/1, June 16, 1940.

  110 “Now we know that we have got to”: Hichens, p. 90.

  111 “Now I suppose it’s our turn”: Patrick Mayhew, ed., p. 77.

  112 “[Captain] Bill Tennant came in”: CAC, Edwards diary, REDW1/2.

  113 “one thing that strikes me”: Lee, p. 5, June 17, 1940.

  114 “It is no secret that Great Britain”: Quoted in Lash, p. 197.

  115 “The great majority of Americans”: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 23, 1940.

  116 Richard E. Taylor of Apponaugh: IWM, Misc 200/3160.

  117 “I have a feeling … that in the England”: Somerset Maugham, Time, October 21, 1940.

  118 “Propaganda is all very well”: Colville, p. 175, June 28, 1940.

  119 “One queer thing”: Lee, p. 23, May 25, 1940.

  120 “I don’t know what we’ll fight”: Kennedy diary, LHA, November 12, 1942, story recounted by Walter Elliott.

  121 “when so many interesting things”: CAC, Martin diary, MART1, p. 12.

  122 “You ought to have cried ‘Shame’”: Colville, p. 135, May 19, 1940.

  123 “We should have had an enormous army”: Kennedy diary, LHA, May 27, 1941.

  124 “I went on my knees”: Halifax diary, Borthwick Institute, York, February 8, 1941.

  125 “It was a terrible decision”: Moran, p. 316, July 9, 1945.

  126 Oran, a painful necessity: See, for instance, Payne, passim.

  127 “But all contingent upon”: BNA, PREM3/131/1, June 27, 1940.

  128 “You will observe that the document”: BNA, PREM 3/131/2.

  129 “Am profoundly shocked and disgusted”: Ibid.

  130 “Please remember the serious nature”: Ibid.

  131 “This declaration would take the form”: Ibid.

  132 “There are difficulties which appear”: CAC, Bevin Papers, Ernest Bevin to Professor W. K. Hancock, BEVNII/4/1, November 13, 1940.

  133 “if the Government of Eire”: Kimball, 1:106, December 7, 1940.

  134 “Winston was in great form”: Ironside, July 6, 1940.

  135 “strikes me as tired”: Gilbert, War Papers, 2:132, June 10, 1940.

  136 “They paid lip-service”: Fleming, p. 80.

  137 “The menace of invasion”: Ibid., p. 307.

  138 “Hitler must invade or fail”: Colville, p. 195, July 14, 1940.

  139 Not until March 1941: Hinsley, 1:429, 451.

  140 “in wonderful spirits”: Brooke, p. 92, July 17, 1940.

  141 “Radio sets were not then very”: Henry Fairlie, “The Voice of Hope,” New Republic, January 27, 1982, p. 16.

  142 “Gradually we came under the spell”: Hodgson, p. 5.

  143 “sent shivers (not of fear)”: Nicolson, p. 93, June 5, 1940.

  144 “Mr. Churchill is the only man”: New Yorker, August 25, 1940.

  145 “Like a great actor”: Berlin, p. 22.

  146 “It is certainly his hour”: Headlam, p. 213.

  147 “I won’t go on about the war”: IWM, Papers of Mrs. E. Elkus.

  148 she had saved her wages: CAC, Eade Papers, 2/2, September 11, 1942.

  149 “Romans in Rome’s quarrel”: CAC, Martin diary, p. 7.

  CHAPTER FOUR: THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

  150 “Il y a beaucoup de puérilités”: Boswell, p. 876.

  151 “I shall always associate that garden”: Colville, p. 505, August 24, 1944.

  152 “Winston wept”: CAC, Martin diary, p. 29.

  153 “The odds today have been unbelievable”: Barclay, pp. 51–52.

  154 “This sounds very peculiar today”: IWM, Alec Bishop MS, 98/18/1.

  155 “a farrago of operational”: Colville, p. 288, November 7, 1940.

  156 “It is the sneaks and stinkers”: BNA, PREM3/220/48.

  157 Jones spent twenty minutes: Jones, p. 101.

  158 “Here was strength”: Ibid., p. 107.

  159 “a little ruffled”: Colville, p. 211, August 7, 1940.

  160 “Don’t speak to me”: Ismay, pp. 179–80.

  161 “He paweth in the valley”: John Kennedy, Business of War, p. 62.

  162 “I try myself by court martial”: Colville, p. 231, August 27, 1940.

  163 “glaucous, vigilant, angry”: Nicolson, p. 127, November 20, 1940.

  164 “There goes the bloody British Empire”: Colville, p. 340, January 24, 1941.

  165 “Gimme ‘Pug’!”: Nel, p. 74.

  166 “whether very great men”: Colville, p. 389, May 20, 1941.

  167 “an unscrupulously rough-and-tumble fighter”: Lee, p. 77, October 10, 1940.

  168 “You know, I may seem to be very fierce”: CAC, Martin diary, p. 4.

  169 “Ll[oyd] G[eorge] was purely external”: Amery, p. 1034, March 26, 1945.

  170 “It’s very naughty of the PM”: Moran, p. 287.

  171 “the formidable ramparts”: Moran, p. 324.

  172 “Darling Winston”: quoted in Soames, ed., Speaking, p. 454.

  173 “to find himself subjected to a flow”: Wheeler-Bennett, Action, p. 53.

  174 “He has more wit than humour”: Moran, p. 226, September 21, 1944.

  175 “collapsed between the chair”: Colville, p. 319, December 15, 1940.

  176 “Winston feasts on the sound”: Moran, p. 8, December 12, 1941.

  177 “No one could predict”: Wheeler-Bennett, Action, p. 177.

  178 “the ferment of ideas”: Ibid., p. 150.

  179 “almost certain invasion”: Channon, p. 266, September 16, 1940.

  180 “like all the other soldiers”: Neville Chamberlain diary, July 1, 1940.

  181 “the nakedness of our defences”: Brooke, p. 90, July 2, 1940.

  182 “not satisfied that … the co-operation”: BNA, CAB69/1.

  183 “I feel an immense joy”: Hichens, p. 99.

  184 On August 25: Elmhirst, p. 51.

  185 “Thank God … the defeatist opinions”: Lee, p. 108, September 15, 1940.

  186 “usual vigorous rhetorical good sense”: Dalton, p. 80.

  187 “I am on top of”: Elmhirst, p. 53.

  188 “That man’s effort is flagging”: Colville, p. 261, October 11, 1940.

  189 “The club is burning, sir”: CAC, Martin diary, p. 32.

  190 “a farmer driving pigs”: Colville, p. 217, August 10, 1941.

  191 “For something like a year”: Thompson, p. 41.

  192 “One can now say confidently”: Dokumenty Vneshnei Politiki, pp. 361, 387.

  193 Lothian’s “wild” appeal: Nicolson, p. 104, July 22, 1940.

  194 “[He] was very interesting about the City”: Lee, p. 165, December 8, 1940.

  195 “Feeling in the Carlton
Club”: Channon, p. 268.

  196 “I think it’s a good thing that we’ve suffered”: IWM, Green Papers, 99/9/1, letter of September 4, 1940.

  197 “this was the sort of war which would suit”: Colville, p. 262, October 12, 1940.

  198 “We … soon adapt ourselves”: Trollope, p. 102.

  199 “if one looked on all this”: Colville, p. 240, September 16, 1940.

  200 “Malaya, the Australian government’s intransigence”: Eden, p. 214, January 21, 1941.

  201 “We [have] got to admit that Germany”: Colville, p. 312, October 13, 1940.

  202 “the narrowest, most ignorant”: Colville, p. 406, June 22, 1941.

  CHAPTER FIVE: GREEK FIRE

  203 saw no prospect beyond stalemate: See Bond, pp. 119–59.

  204 “sit tight and defend ourselves”: Dalton, p. 87.

  205 “They say no one knows”: Lee, p. 54, September 12, 1940.

  206 “in a month’s time”: Ibid., p. 10, July 3, 1940.

  207 “If Hitler were to postpone invasion”: Nicolson, p. 103, July 20, 1940.

  208 “I have heard a good many members”: Diary, November 14, 1940, quoted in Garfield, p. 18.

  209 “At our weekly meeting last night”: CAC, Bevin Papers, letter from F. Price, BEVN6/59, September 22, 1940. 100

  210 “Winston, why don’t we land a million men”: CAC, Eade Papers, 2/2, March 6, 1941.

  211 “We will go easy at first”: Gibb, pp. 40–41.

  212 “the discharge of bombs is pitifully small”: BNA, PREM3/21/1.

  213 “No more than anyone else did he see clearly”: Pownall, 2:8, November 2, 1940.

  214 “As the PM said goodnight to the Air Marshals”: Colville, p. 266, October 13, 1940.

  215 “He was always, in effect”: Attlee to New York City press conference, February 1, 1946.

  216 “These military men v[er]y often fail”: Soames, ed., Speaking, p. 23, May 30, 1909.

  217 “The book is full of abuse of politicians”: Ibid., p. 357, February 19, 1932.