Introduction
1. This account is based on Winston Churchill My Early Life pp. 12–20.
2. This account is based on Winston Churchill My Early Life pp. 179–93.
3. This account is taken from John Wheeler-Bennett King George VI pp. 601–5 and from Winston Churchill Second World War Vol. V pp. 546–51. The King’s letter to Churchill is quoted in both.
4. Ronald Clark The Rise of the Boffins p. 162, and see p. 177–8 of this book.
5. R.V. Jones ‘Churchill and Science’ in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) Churchill p. 437.
6. Piers Brendon Winston Churchill: A Brief Life pp. 148–50.
7. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. I pp. 526–7.
Chapter 1 – Preparation: The Army and the Navy
1. See David Cannadine The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy pp. 113 and 397–8.
2. Churchill always claimed he was born premature. He could have been conceived before his parents were married in April 1874. We will never know which is true.
3. Winston Churchill My Early Life pp. 4–5.
4. Winston Churchill My Early Life pp. 15–16.
5. Winston Churchill My Early Life p. 76.
6. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol I. Youth: 1874–1900 Companion Volume II 1896–1900 p. 930.
7. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol. I: Youth 1874–1900 p. 418.
8. This book does not attempt to be any sort of political biography of Churchill, nor to provide a critique of his political views. Of recent biographies, the best political account comes in Roy Jenkins Churchill.
9. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol. I: Youth p. 463.
10. Winston Churchill My Early Life p. 248.
11. Winston Churchill My Early Life p. 256.
12. Winston Churchill My Early Life p. 277.
13. The whole story of his capture and escape is told in detail in Celia Sandys Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive. Sandys, his granddaughter, corrects some of the myths Churchill himself created about this episode.
14. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol. I: Youth 1874–1900 p. 524.
15. Martin Gilbert Churchill: A Life p. 85.
16. Winston Churchill My Early Life p. 298.
17. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol. II: Young Statesman p. 71.
18. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol. II: Young Statesman p. 228.
19. Clementine had a Higher School Certificate (roughly equivalent to A Levels today) in French, German and Biology from Berkhamsted High School. Her headmistress wanted her to go on to university but her mother decided when she was eighteen that she had had enough education and that it was time to enter society and find a husband. She had had two engagements, both broken off by her, before she met Churchill. See Mary Soames Clementine Churchill pp. 22–34.
20. A selection of these letters, which beautifully captures the ups and downs of their relationship, features in Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, edited by their daughter Mary Soames.
21. Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. I p. 49 (this and all subsequent volume and page references are from the 1939 edition of The World Crisis).
22. A variation of this appears in Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. I p. 24: ‘The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.’
23. Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. I pp. 51–70, quoted in Stephen Roskill Churchill and the Admirals p. 30.
24. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol. II: Young Statesman p. 703.
25. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol. II: Young Statesman p. 686.
26. Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. I pp. 155–7.
27. Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill Vol. II: Young Statesman p. 710.
28. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. III p. 31.
Chapter 2 – Preparation: The War and the Wilderness
1. David Kahn Seizing the Enigma pp. 15ff. and David Stafford Churchill and Secret Service pp. 70ff.
2. Winston Churchill World Crisis Vol. II p. 562.
3. Winston Churchill World Crisis Vol. I p. 414.
4. Nicholas Rankin Churchill’s Wizards pp. 13–14.
5. Letter from the Master General of the Ordnance, 26 February 1915, quoted in Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. II p. 512.
6. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. III: 1914–16 p. 537; see also Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. II pp. 508–16.
7. Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. II p. 466.
8. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. III: 1914–16 p. 465.
9. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. III: 1914–16 pp. 579–80 and 574.
10. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. III: 1914–16 pp. 610, 686, 705 and 745.
11. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. III: 1914–16 pp. 609 and 748.
12. Gary Sheffield and John Bourne (eds) Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters pp. 315 and 371.
13. Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. IV p. 543.
14. The book is part history and part autobiography of Churchill’s own contribution to events from the time he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. His political opponent Bonar Law cruelly but amusingly described the book as ‘an autobiography disguised as an history of the universe’.
15. This line was remembered by Lady Violet Bonham Carter; see Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. IV: 1916–1922 p. 278.
16. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. IV: 1916–1922 p. 332.
17. Winston Churchill Thoughts and Adventures p. 213.
18. Paul Addison Churchill on the Home Front, p. 243.
19. Piers Brendon Winston Churchill: A Brief Life p. 100.
20. Chartwell is today owned by the National Trust and is open to visitors; see http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-chartwell.htm.
21. Piers Brendon Winston Churchill: A Brief Life p. 118.
22. Maurice Ashley Churchill as Historian p. 18.
23. See J.H. Plumb ‘The Historian’ in A.J.P. Taylor et al. Churchill: Four Faces and the Man p. 119–29. Plumb rightly draws a distinction between Churchill’s histories of events with which he was not personally involved and his histories of the two world wars, which, as has already been noted, are much more autobiographical and so have great value as guides to Churchill’s thinking at the times they describe.
24. Geoffrey Best Churchill: A Study in Greatness pp. 146–7 and David Stafford Churchill and Secret Service p. 180.
25. Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 21 February 1938.
26. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. V: 1922–39 p. 917.
27. Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 5 October 1938.
28. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. V: 1922–39 p. 1106.
29. For instance, the broadcast features in the Ministry of Information documentary The First Days produced by Alberto Cavalcanti, directed by Humphrey Jennings, Harry Watt, Pat Jackson and others.
30. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 4.
31. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. I p. 320. Some scholars have suggested that this could have been a message of warning rather than of welcome, for example Geoffrey Best Churchill and War p. 107. Other scholars have doubted that the message was ever sent. Whether apocryphal or not, it is entirely believable.
32. Sir Alan Brooke quoted in Nicholas Rankin Churchill’s Wizards p. 237.
33. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 156–7.
34. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 62. The story of the sinking of HMS Royal Oak and the dreadful loss of life soon became known. However, the Admiralty did not reveal the number of boy sailors who went down with the ship. It did, though, change the policy with regard to boy sailors, who were henceforth no longer allowed to serve on ships that were on active duty.
35. Peter Calvocoressi and Guy Wint Total War p. 100.
36. John Keegan (ed.) Churchill’s Generals p. 27.
37. For instance, from Bob Boothby and from Harold Macmillan; see Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 302ff. and Harold Macmillan The Blast of War 1939–45 p. 74.
38. From the diary of Henry ‘Chips’ Channon, quoted in Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 294.
39. Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 8 May 1940.
40. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. I pp. 523–4.
41. From John Colville’s interview for The World at War Thames Television documentary series, 1973, producer Jeremy Isaacs. See also John Colville The Fringes of Power – Downing Street Diaries 1939–45 p. 123.
42. Churchill wrongly dates the meeting as being on 10 May, whereas all other accounts place it on the 9th. Also, Churchill forgets that David Margesson, the Tory Chief Whip, was present. Halifax’s diary is quoted in Robert Blake ‘How Churchill Became Prime Minister’ in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) Churchill pp. 265–7. Other accounts have led Andrew Roberts to give another version of these critical few hours in Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership pp. 94–100. Roberts, who is also Halifax’s biographer, recounts several discussions between Chamberlain and Halifax, in which the Prime Minister proposed Halifax as his successor and in which Halifax literally felt pain in the pit of his stomach. Roberts also quotes the recently published diaries of the American ambassador, Joseph Kennedy, who discussed the meeting with Chamberlain later. In both Blake’s and Roberts’s accounts, Chamberlain is more active in trying to prevent Churchill from becoming Prime Minister, and Churchill is more determined to grasp the position.
43. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 305.
Chapter 3 – Action This Day
1. The King’s diary is quoted in John Wheeler-Bennett King George VI: His Life and Reign p. 444. Churchill’s account is in Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. I p. 525.
2. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. I pp. 525–7.
3. Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming (eds) Nella Last’s War p. 55.
4. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. I p. 527.
5. John Colville in Lord Normanbrook (and others) Action This Day: Working with Churchill p. 48.
6. Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 13 May 1940.
7. Hastings Ismay Memoirs p. 158.
8. John Colville The Churchillians pp. 205–6.
9. John Keegan (ed.) Churchill’s Generals p. 27.
10. Hastings Ismay Memoirs p. 159.
11. John Colville The Churchillians p. 146.
12. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord pp. 41–2.
13. Lord Normanbrook Action This Day p. 22.
14. Elizabeth Nel [née Layton] Mr Churchill’s Secretary pp. 29–30.
15. The Cabinet War Rooms, restored as they were left at the end of the war, can be visited today as a part of the Imperial War Museum. See: http://cwr.iwm.org.uk/server/show/nav.221
16. John Keegan (ed.) Churchill’s Generals p. 7.
17. Many of those who worked closely with Churchill describe the tough, demanding hours he worked, for instance John Colville The Fringes of Power passim and The Churchillians pp. 64ff.; Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke War Diaries passim; and Elizabeth Nel (née Layton) Mr Churchill’s Secretary pp. 27ff.
18. Hastings Ismay Memoirs pp. 164–5 and John Colville The Churchillians p. 146.
19. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 339–40 and Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 38–9
20. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 42.
21. There has been much debate about Hitler’s intervention confirming von Rundstedt’s halt order; see, for instance, Andrew Roberts Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership pp. 105–7 and The Storm of War pp. 60–4. Roberts does not accept the argument that Hitler allowed the British Expeditionary Forces to escape in order to get better terms in negotiations with Britain.
22. John Lukacs Five Days in London May 1940 p. 19.
23. Minutes of the War Cabinet, ref: CAB 65/13, WM 145.
24. In The Second World War Churchill does not relate the events of the Halifax challenge to his leadership, perhaps not wanting to cast a shadow over Halifax’s reputation, perhaps because he felt awkward about having been nearly deflected at this critical point. He does recount the support he received at the full Cabinet meeting on the afternoon of 28 May 1940 in Vol. II pp. 87–8. The account of the meeting in Hugh Dalton’s diaries and his memoirs is quoted in John Lukacs Five Days in London May 1940 pp. 4–5 and 183–4. And in the same book Lukacs talks of the momentousness of this day on p. 2.
25. Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 4 June 1940.
26. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 469. It has been claimed by David Irving in Churchill’s War Vol. I p. 313 that the BBC transmitted a version of this speech that evening that was not read by Churchill but by an actor, Norman Shelley, well known at the time for playing Larry the Lamb in the BBC’s Children’s Hour. In fact, extracts of the speech on the BBC Home Service News that evening were read by the newsreader, as the Vita Sackville-West comment makes clear. It is possible that Shelley recorded a version of the speech for transmission overseas, but this was not heard in the UK. See D.J. Wenden ‘Churchill, Radio, and Cinema’ in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) Churchill pp. 236–7.
27. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II pp. 136–42 relates the whole story of this trip to France and Churchill’s return.
Chapter 4 – Spitfire Summer
1. Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 18 June 1940.
2. John Colville The Fringes of Power p. 165. Listening to the speech held in the BBC Archives today, he does not come across as tired, nor sound like he is smoking a cigar. But by this point Colville was working with Churchill virtually all day, every day, so his impression is interesting. One of Colville’s dinner companions, who listened to the speech on the radio with him, thought that Churchill sounded like ‘a bishop’!
3. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 571.
4. D.J. Wenden ‘Churchill, Radio, and Cinema’ in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) Churchill p. 238. They were recorded by Churchill in 1949 and were released by Decca as a set of LPs. Some of the versions of Churchill’s wartime speeches that are available today are these later recordings.
5. Warren Kimball Forged in War p. 15 and David Stafford Roosevelt and Churchill p. xvi.
6. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 52.
7. Warren Kimball Forged in War pp. 3ff.
8. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 146.
9. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 345–6.
10. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 37.
11. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 356.
12. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 427 and 689.
13. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 206.
14. Ivan Maisky Memoirs of a Soviet Ambassador: The War 1939–43 pp. 99–100.
15. John Colville The Fringes of Power p. 200.
16. For the Spitfire story, see Taylor Downing and Andrew Johnston Battle Stations pp. 11–35 and Leo McKinstry Spitfire: Portrait of a Legend.
17. Quote from Bob Doe, the third-highest-scoring ace in the Battle of Britain, in Battle Stations – Spitfire Squadron, producer Taylor Downing, director Andrew Johnston, Flashback Television, 2000; and quoted in Taylor Downing and Andrew Johnston Battle Stations p. 44. See also Bob Doe Fighter Pilot.
18. Constance Babington Smith Evidence in Camera p. 62.
19. The evening is recounted in James Marshall-Cornwall Rumours of War pp. 166–71. See also Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 682–5.
20. Hastings Ismay Memoirs pp. 179–80.
21. The speech is from Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 20 August 1940; see John Colville The Fringes of Power p. 227 for the anecdote about the car journey.
22. Violet Bonham Carter in Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI p. 742.
23. Hastings Ismay Memoirs pp. 183–4.
24. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II pp. 293–7.
25. For instance, in Angus Calder The People’s War: Britain 1939–45 and in the spate of books it ushered in. And more recently in Juliet Gardiner Wartime Britain 1939–45 pp. 530ff.
26. David Cannadine (ed.) Winston Churchill: Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat; The Great Speeches p. xiv.
27. Quoted in David Cannadine (ed.) Winston Churchill: Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat; The Great Speeches p. xxxiii.
28. Asa Briggs The War of Words pp. 187 and 297.
29. From a speech given at Westminster Hall, London, 30 November 1954 on the occasion of a parliamentary tribute to his eightieth birthday – he was the first prime minister since Gladstone to be in power at the age of eighty.
30. Asa Briggs The War of Words p. 10.
31. E. Bliss (ed.) In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow p. 237.
32. David Reynolds ‘1940: The Worst and Finest Hour’ in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) Churchill p. 254.
33. John Colville The Fringes of Power p. 217.
Chapter 5 – The Wizard War
1. Sir Solly (later Lord) Zuckerman Scientists and War p. 9.
2. See Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. II pp. 508–26.
3. Winston Churchill The World Crisis Vol. II p. 464.
4. Thomas Wilson Churchill and the Prof p. 12.
5. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 338.
6. Lord Birkenhead The Prof in Two Worlds p. 159.
7. Thomas Wilson Churchill and the Prof pp. 29–30.
8. Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 10 November 1932.
9. Thomas Wilson Churchill and the Prof p. 33.
10. Ronald Clark The Rise of the Boffins p. 161; see also Ronald Clark Tizard passim.
11. Ronald Clark The Rise of the Boffins p. 51; see also Ronald Clark Tizard pp. 149–63.
12. David Kahn Seizing the Enigma pp. 68ff.
13. See F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp (eds) Code Breakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park passim and Michael Smith Station X pp. 16ff.
14. Ronald Lewin Ultra Goes to War p. 183.
15. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 611–13, and Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 75 and Ultra Goes to War p. 64.
16. Michael Smith Station X p. 78.
17. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 1185–6 and Michael Smith Station X pp. 79–81.
18. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 340. The meeting is also recounted in R.V. Jones Most Secret War pp. 100–5.
19. R.V. Jones Most Secret War pp. 101–2 and Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 380–2.
20. R.V. Jones Most Secret War pp. 149–51, and John Colville The Fringes of Power pp. 294–5 and The Churchillians pp. 62–3.
21. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 343. There are several accounts of the Battle of the Beams, including Ronald Clark The Rise of the Boffins pp. 98–125, Brian Johnson The Secret War pp. 11–61 and R.V. Jones Most Secret War pp. 92–188.
22. Ronald Clark The Rise of the Boffins p. 136; see also Ronald Clark Tizard pp. 248-252.
23. The official historian was James Phinney Baxter, quoted in Robert Buderi The Invention that Changed the World pp. 27 and 36–7 and Ronald Clark Tizard p. 268.
24. Ronald Clark The Rise of the Boffins p. 215.
25. The Origins and Development of Operational Research in the Royal Air Force HMSO Air Ministry Publication 3368, 1962.
26. For instance, the author’s father, Peter Downing, was recruited into the RAF on graduation from King’s College, London, with a mathematics degree, made a Pilot Officer, given radar operator’s wings and sent immediately by Imperial Airways flying boat to Cairo, a sign of the urgent need for Operational Research mathematicians in the Middle East.
27. See Sir (later Lord) Solly Zuckerman’s memoirs, From Apes to Warlords. Zuckerman later became Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence (1960–4) and then Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Government (1964–71). Despite his senior position he was an outspoken critic of the policy of nuclear deterrence.
28. Ronald Clark The Rise of the Boffins p. 162.
29. Tom Shachtman Laboratory Warriors p. 157.
30. Jeremy Isaacs and Taylor Downing Cold War p. 18.
Chapter 6 – The Generals
1. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 84.
2. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 667.
3. John Keegan Churchill pp. 127–8 and ‘Churchill’s Strategy’ in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) Churchill pp. 333–4.
4. Patrick Delaforce Churchill’s Secret Weapons p. 45 and Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 746–7.
5. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 379.
6. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 981–1000.
7. David Stafford Churchill and Secret Service pp. 231–3.
8. Robert E. Sherwood The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins Vol. I pp. 256–7.
9. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III p. 111, and Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour pp. 1031–3 and Churchill: A Life p. 254.
10. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 57.
11. David Stafford Churchill and Secret Service pp. 250–4.
12. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 73 and Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III p. 223.
13. John Keegan (ed.) Churchill’s Generals p. 80 and Hastings Ismay Memoirs pp. 269–71.
14. John Colville Fringes of Power p. 404. Colville and Churchill also discussed Wavell’s dismissal in this after-dinner conversation in the garden. Colville told Churchill that Wavell would probably write his memoirs after the war and put his own side of the story of his dispute with the Prime Minister. Churchill replied that he would write his version as well ‘and would bet he sold more copies’! This amusing aside proves that Churchill was thinking about writing his own account of the war as early as 1941.
15. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III pp. 331–3.
16. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III pp. 320–3. In this account, written in the late 1940s, Churchill was careful not to reveal the Ultra secret. He used phrases like ‘Intelligence reports from one of our most trusted sources’ and spoke of ‘reliable agents’ in the neutral countries. The story of breaking the Enigma codes was not made public until the 1970s. See also David Stafford Churchill and Secret Service pp. 258–9.
17. Sir John Martin Downing Street: The War Years p. 58.
18. David Fraser Alanbrooke p. 202.
19. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 160–1.
20. John Keegan (ed.) Churchill’s Generals p. 90.
21. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 590. In their ‘Introduction’ to the War Diaries, Danchev and Todman explore the circumstances of the writing of the diaries: pp. xiff. The original diaries are held at the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s College, London.
22. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VI: Finest Hour p. 1251.
23. David Stafford Churchill and Secret Service p. 261.
24. Eyewitness interview with Colonel Manteuffel in Thames TV’s The World at War episode ‘Barbarossa’, producer Jeremy Isaacs, director Peter Batty. See also Richard Holmes The World at War p. 191.
25. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III p. 538.
26. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III pp. 539–40.
27. These three papers are reproduced in Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III pp. 572–86.
28. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III p. 588.
29. The speech is quoted in full in David Cannadine (ed.) Winston Churchill: Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat; The Great Speeches pp. 226–33.
30. Lord Moran Churchill at War 1940–45 pp. 17–18.
31. Lord Moran Churchill at War 1940–45 p. 22.
32. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 78.
33. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 67.
34. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV pp. 343–4. General Brooke comments in his diary on the generosity of the US offer of Sherman tanks, which had already been allocated to a US armoured division: see Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 269.
35. Lord Moran Churchill at War 1940–45 pp. 57–8.
36. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 293. Churchill had initially offered Auchinleck’s role to Brooke himself, who had been sorely tempted by ‘the finest command I could hope for’. But he felt he lacked experience in desert warfare and was ‘able to render better services to my country’ by remaining as CIGS. See Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 293–7.
37. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 254.
Chapter 7 – The Admirals
1. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 529.
2. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III p. 101.
3. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III p. 106 and Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 61.
4. Churchill liked to include documents that showed him in a good light in his post-war history and this directive is reproduced in full in Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III pp. 107–8.
5. Stephen Roskill, the official historian of the naval war, is highly critical of this instruction, which he calls one of the most extraordinary signals of the war. See Stephen Roskill Churchill and the Admirals p. 125.
6. Stephen Roskill Churchill and the Admirals pp. 178 and 125.
7. Stephen Roskill Churchill and the Admirals pp. 183ff. and Richard Ollard ‘Churchill and the Navy’ in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) Churchill pp. 392–3.
8. The most obvious example of this was in Alan Brooke’s war diaries. These first came out when released to Arthur Bryant for his two books The Turn of the Tide 1939–43 and Triumph in the West 1943–46 in 1957 and 1959. By contrast, Andrew Cunningham in Admiral A.B. Cunningham: A Sailor’s Odyssey, Arthur Harris in Bomber Offensive and Montgomery in his memoirs were all quite bland about their disagreements with the Prime Minister.
9. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III p. 551.
10. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV pp. 43–4.
11. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV pp. 87–8.
12. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV p. 81.
13. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory pp. 57–9.
14. David Kahn Seizing the Enigma pp. 195–213.
15. This incident was transformed in the movie U-571, written and directed by Jonathan Mostow, 2000. In one of the worst Hollywood distortions of history, U-571 shows a group of American submariners deceiving a U-boat into surrendering so they can capture the vital Enigma machine and code books. The derring-do of the U-boats, their captains and their crews has generated lots of films, from The Enemy Below (1957) to Das Boot (1981).
16. Sir John Martin Downing Street: The War Years p. 97.
17. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 361.
18. Harold Macmillan War Diaries: Politics and War in the Mediterranean, January 1943 to May 1945 p. 9.
19. Lord Moran Churchill at War p. 99.
20. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 186.
21. P.M.S. Blackett Studies of War p. 238.
Chapter 8 – Bombing
1. Constance Babbington Smith Evidence in Camera pp. 71–6 and Max Hastings Bomber Command pp. 80–3.
2. Max Hastings Bomber Command pp. 82–8.
3. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II pp. 405–6.
4. Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany Vol. I p. 179.
5. Winston Churchill Second World War Vol. IV p. 250.
6. Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany Vol. I p. 182.
7. Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany Vol. I p. 186 and Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. III p. 748.
8. Max Hastings Bomber Command p. 135.
9. Sir Arthur Harris Bomber Offensive pp. 151–5 and Henry Probert Bomber Harris pp. 133–4.
10. Cherwell’s minute is quoted at length in Thomas Wilson Churchill and the Prof p. 74.
11. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 101.
12. Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany Vol. I p. 336.
13. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV p. 433.
14. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV p. 443.
15. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV p. 253.
16. Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany Vol. II pp. 12–13.
17. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory pp. 295 and 302.
18. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 303.
19. Max Hastings Bomber Command p. 189.
20. This film is held at the Landesmedienzentrum in Hamburg. Clips of the film are regularly shown in television documentaries.
21. The Goebbels quote is from his diary entry of 29 July 1943; Albert Speer Inside the Reich pp. 283–4.
22. Max Hastings Bomber Command p. 257.
23. Henry Probert Bomber Harris p. 221.
24. The Dam Busters, producer Robert Clark, director Michael Anderson, starring Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis and Richard Todd as Guy Gibson, Associated British Picture Coproration, 1954. The film is based on a book by Paul Brickhill.
25. Albert Speer Inside the Reich pp. 280–1.
26. Martin Gilbert Auschwitz and the Allies p. 270.
27. Martin Gilbert Auschwitz and the Allies p. 285. For the recent debate about whether the Allies should have bombed Auschwitz, see William D. Rubinstein The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis and Michael J. Neufeld and Michael Berenbaum (eds) The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? For the aerial photographs themselves and a summary of these issues, see the TV documentary Auschwitz: The Forgotten Evidence, producer Taylor Downing, director Lucy Carter, Flashback Television, 2005.
28. Max Hastings Bomber Command p. 244.
29. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV pp. 466 and 468.
30. See David Reynolds In Command of History pp. 320–4 and 396–8.
31. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory pp. 1160–1.
32. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 1257.
Chapter 9 – Overlord
1. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 190
2. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory pp. 379–80.
3. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV p. 724.
4. Max Hastings Overlord p. 23. See also Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 527.
5. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. IV pp. 729 and 741.
6. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V p. 76.
7. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 441–2.
8. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 480 and see also p. 445.
9. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V p. 123.
10. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 219.
11. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V p. 128.
12. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 497.
13. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory pp. 522 and 524 and Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 222.
14. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory pp. 539 and 543.
15. Quoted from the Stilwell Papers in Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 228. See also Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 478. Brooke had wanted the conference to be over before it had begun, knowing how unpleasant it would be ‘the most unpleasant we have had yet, and that is saying a good deal’. Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 475.
16. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory pp. 578–9.
17. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V pp. 329–30.
18. Lord Moran Churchill at War p. 171.
19. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 586 and Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V p. 338.
20. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V p. 339 and Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 231.
21. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V p. 371.
22. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 602 and Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V p. 372.
23. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V pp. 372–87, Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory pp. 604–28, Lord Moran Churchill at War pp. 181–91, Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 497–8, and Sir John Martin Downing Street: The War Years pp. 124–33.
24. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 771.
25. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. II p. 602 and John Colville The Fringes of Power p. 275.
26. Patrick Delaforce Churchill’s Secret Weapons pp. 27–8.
27. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 516–17.
28. The minute is reproduced as a facsimile with Churchill’s handwritten notes in Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V opposite p. 78; see also J. Evans, E. Palmer and R. Walter (eds) A Harbour Goes to War pp. 5ff.
29. Hastings Ismay Memoirs p. 309.
30. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 554.
31. Hansard Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 6 June 1944.
32. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 802.
33. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. VI pp. 10–12 and Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 556–8.
Chapter 10 – Victory and Defeat
1. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 424.
2. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. V p. 206.
3. Dwight D. Eisenhower Crusade in Europe p. 260.
4. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 521, 525 and 528.
5. Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 238.
6. John Keegan (ed.) Churchill’s Generals p. 99.
7. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 533.
8. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 535 and 537.
9. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 544.
10. Captain Harry C. Butcher Three Years with Eisenhower p. 545; see also Ronald Lewin Churchill as Warlord p. 251 and Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 877.
11. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. VI p. 85 and Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 899.
12. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. VI p. 198. Churchill tells this story in the last volume of his memoir–history, published in 1954, after Stalin’s death. Martin Gilbert notes that some of the official record of this discussion was later removed as it might ‘seem most inappropriate for a record of this importance’: see Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 992. The original piece of paper clearly showing Stalin’s blue tick is reproduced in Jeremy Isaacs and Taylor Downing Cold War p. 12.
13. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. VI p. 205.
14. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 1017.
15. Mary Soames Clementine Churchill p. 364.
16. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 673.
17. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries pp. 676–7.
18. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 1289.
19. Stephen Ambrose Eisenhower and Berlin 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe pp. 53–65.
20. John Colville The Fringes of Power pp. 595–6.
21. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds) Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries p. 687.
22. Elizabeth Nel (née Layton) Mr Churchill’s Secretary p. 176.
23. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. VII: Road to Victory p. 1347.
24. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. VI pp. 498–9.
25. Paul Addison The Road to 1945 pp. 150–1.
26. Winston Churchill The Second World War Vol. VI p. 583.
Chapter 11 – Churchill’s War
1. John Colville The Fringes of Power p. 509.
2. David Reynolds In Command of History pp. 28ff.
3. John Colville The Churchillians p. 143.
4. Robert Rhodes James Churchill: A Study in Failure is an early example, from 1970; Clive Ponting Churchill (1994) and Nigel Knight Churchill: The Greatest Briton Unmasked (2008) are later examples of this more hostile take on Churchill.
5. Speech given at Westminster Hall, London, 30 November 1954, on his eightieth birthday, quoted in David Cannadine (ed.) Winston Churchill: Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat; The Great Speeches pp. 334–7.
6. Asa Briggs The War of Words pp. 9–10.
7. R.V. Jones Most Secret War p. 107.
8. Elizabeth Nel (née Layton) Mr Churchill’s Secretary p. 58 and in interview with Flashback Television in 2006.
9. Nigel Knight Churchill: The Greatest Briton Unmasked passim. One of the great British military strategists, Basil Liddell Hart, also criticised Churchill’s strategic vision in A.J.P. Taylor et al. Churchill: Four Faces and the Man pp. 155–202.
10. David Reynolds ‘1940: The Worst and Finest Hour’ in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds) Churchill p. 249.
11. Martin Gilbert Winston S. Churchill Vol. III: 1914–1916 p. 693.
12. Ruth Ive The Woman Who Censored Churchill p. 75 and in an interview for Churchill and the President, producer Taylor Downing, director Patrick King, Flashback Television, 1999.