2. 2
CONTENTS
A Journey to World War II Battlefields, Carlo D’Este,
page 3
Tonypandy 100 years On, Dan O’Neil, page 15
H.M.S. Glowworm by James Lancaster, page 19
Churchill Charges Forth with Sword and Pen by John
Chettle, page 24
The Sidney Street Siege January 2011 100 years on, page
34
Churchill in the News, page 47
Interspersed with various
Churchilliana…
Churchillians by-the-Bay Board of Directors: Richard C Mastio,
Chairman and Contributions Editor for The Glow-Worm, Jason
C. Mueller, President, Gregory B. Smith, Secretary and Liaison
with Churchill Centre, Michael Allen, Treasurer. Directors:
Jack Koers, Carol Mueller, Editor of The Glow-Worm, Lloyd
Nattkemper, Dr. Andrew Ness, Barbara Norkus, Katherine
Stathis, and Anne Steele. Glow-Worm named by Susie Mastio
3. 3
FEATURED ARTICLE by CARLO D’ESTE
Author and historian Carlo D'Este speaks during the Kemper Lecture at Westminster
College.
Carlo D'Este (born 1938 in Oakland, California) is a American military historian and
biographer, author of several books, especially on World War II. He is a retired U.S.
Army Lieutenant Colonel.
Biography
D'Este lists his three favorite military historians and influences as: Barbara Tuchman
(The Guns of August), John Eisenhower (The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulge),
and Martin Blumenson (general George S. Patton’s official biographer).
A&E adapted his biography of George S. Patton to television for its Biography (TV
series) (and, presumably, its Biography Channel) in 1995. In 1996, C-span
interviewed him about that book on its Booknotes program.
Writings
• Decision in Normandy: The Unwritten Story of Montgomery and the Allied
Campaign, Dutton (New York, NY), 1983.
• Bitter Victory: The Battle for Sicily, 1943, Dutton (New York, NY), 1988.
• World War II in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945, Algonquin (Chapel Hill, NC),
1990.
• Fatal Decision: Anzio and the Battle for Rome, HarperCollins (New York, NY),
1991.
4. 4
• Patton: A Genius for War, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1995.
• Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life, 1890–1945, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2002.
A Journey to World War II Battlefields
(Part 1)
By Carlo D'Este | Carlo D'Este| War College | Published:
October 04, 2010 at 1:34 pm
The American military cemetery, Carthage, Tunisia. (Shirley D’Este)
In September I was a guest lecturer on a tour of World War II
battlefields in conjunction with the National World War II Museum in
New Orleans. Over a ten-day period we visited a number of historic
places in the Mediterranean, including Kasserine Pass, Malta, the
landing sites and some of the battlefields in Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio.
Starting this month and in the coming months I will be writing my
impressions of what was a memorable and exceptionally edifying trip.
Accompanied by my wife, our trip began in Boston with a very
uncomfortable flight overnight flight to Paris aboard an Air France 747,
which had very narrow seats designed to numb one’s backside sometime
5. 5
within the first hour and a half of flight! From Paris we transferred to a
mercifully short flight to Tunis, where the tour began.
Two nights in one of the world’s great hotels on the beach in Carthage
was a wonderful cure-all for jet lag and a superb introduction to
Tunisia.
Tunisia is a modern Arab nation with, at least on the surface, a
surprisingly liberal Muslim society. In many respects Tunisia is a
unique blend of Western and Arab cultures in a melting pot society. The
nation is multi-lingual: English, Italian and German are frequently
heard in addition to French and Arabic.
The mix of modern and ancient is evident everywhere. Tunis is a very
modern city, while its suburb of Carthage is a pre-historic place with an
incredible history that is thought to date to the 9th century BC.
There is a visible police presence throughout the country and during the
next few days as we saw various parts of the country, we saw patrols
everywhere. They routinely stop cars and people at random to check
their papers. It was abundantly clear that small bribes are the necessary
antidote for those who are stopped and wish to continue without further
harassment.
Despite a vigorous economy and increasing tourism, lip service to
democracy and a reformed political system, under its present ruler,
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, (in power since 1987), Tunisia is
nevertheless an authoritarian police state and a nation where censorship
is routine and criticism of the government, while tolerated, does not
extend to public demonstrations. Much of the censorship and repression
practiced in Tunisia is aimed at curbing Islamic extremism.
The average tourist gets an impression of Tunisia as a progressive
nation where the people seem to be relatively free and content despite
the strong police and security presence. Those who arrive in Tunis by
air have to go through a security check. I made the mistake of noting
my profession on the immigration form as “writer,” which nearly got
me into trouble when the officer thought I was a journalist. I had to
6. 6
hastily explain to another English-speaking officer that I write books
and was in the country only as a “touriste.”
Nevertheless, what separates Tunisia from other Arab states is the
legacy of its modern day leader. When France granted independence to
Tunisia in 1956, one of the first acts undertaken by Habib Bourguiba,
after he assumed the post of prime minister (and later as president-for-
life), was to introduce modern social and economic changes that
Westernized the nation. Tunisia became a secular state in which the role
of Islam was largely marginalized. He closed religious schools, banned
the Islamic law courts (the Sharia), abolished polygamy and granted
women full rights, including the same rights to a free education
(including university) that was granted to males. Women in Tunisia also
have the right to divorce and a large number occupy senior positions in
the government and in both the chambers of Parliament, where they
hold some 20% of the seats.
The literacy rate is around 83% for males and nearly 75% for the entire
population. Starting at the age of six, education up to the age of sixteen
is compulsory and students are not only taught Arabic but also French
and English.
Two World War II veterans lay a wreath in the Court of Honor at the
American military cemetery, Carthage, Tunisia, on Sept. 11, 2010.
(Shirley D’Este)
Before departing Tunis our group visited the American military
cemetery located in Carthage: the only cemetery in North Africa, and
one of the twenty-four permanent overseas military cemeteries
maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).
Completed in 1960, it contains twenty-seven acres of marble headstones,
2,841 in all, ringed by cypress and Russian olive trees that also include
acacia, Aleppo pines and Jerusalem thorn.
7. 7
The cemetery is a prehistoric place built on the ruins of ancient Roman
Carthage. The chimes ring each hour and sometimes mingle with the
Muslim call to prayer from a nearby mosque located just outside the
cemetery.
Four sets of brothers lie side by side and 240 headstones are inscribed:
“Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.”
There are more MIAs and unknowns here than there are headstones.
On the Tablets of the Missing are inscribed the names of 3,274 and a
rosette marks those who have since been recovered and identified. Also
by the Tablets of the Missing is a Statue of “Memory,” while by the
reflecting pool there is a Statue of “Honor.” In the cloister is a Stone of
Remembrance. A Memorial contains a Court of Honor.
On another wall is a large map that highlights the names of the battles
fought in North Africa. Texts are in English, Arabic and French.
Each grave tells a story of a life, a battle and a death. Battles ranging
from Algiers, Casablanca, Oran, Longstop Hill, Sidi bou Zid, Kasserine,
Sbeitla, Faid or perhaps El Guettar or Hill 609. From the dates of their
deaths one can generally surmise the battle where they died.
Also resting here are airmen and others lost in battles in the air and at
sea. Army Air Corps Captain Foy Draper, a 1936 Olympics Gold medal
winner is among those buried at Carthage. Draper ran the third leg of
the famed 4 x 100 relay team in Berlin that also included Jesse Owens,
who ran the first leg. Their feat not only set a world record time of 39.8
seconds on August 9, 1936, but was also yet another rebuff to Adolph
Hitler and his aim of a purely Aryan Olympic games. Their record
stood until 1956. Another member of this famous relay team was Frank
Wykcoff, who won Olympic gold medals in 1928 and 1932, giving him
the distinction for a decade of being called the fastest man on Earth.
In North Africa, Foy piloted an attack bomber from a base at Thelepte,
Tunisia. On Jan. 4, 1943 Foy flew a mission against Axis forces near
Fonduk and never returned.
8. 8
The grave of Pvt. Nicholas Minue at Carthage.
The headstones of Medal of Honor winners are engraved in gold with a
gold star. There is one MOH winner buried here, Polish born Pvt.
Nicholas Minue, Company A, 6th Armored Infantry, the 1st Armored
Div.
His citation reads:
For distinguishing himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at
the loss of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action with the
enemy on 28 April 1943, in the vicinity of Medjez el Bab, Tunisia. When
the advance of the assault elements of Company A was held up by
flanking fire from an enemy machinegun nest, Pvt. Minue voluntarily,
alone, and unhesitatingly, with complete disregard of his own welfare,
charged the enemy entrenched position with fixed bayonet. Pvt. Minue
assaulted the enemy under a withering machinegun and rifle fire, killing
approximately 10 enemy machinegunners and riflemen. After
completely destroying this position, Pvt. Minue continued forward,
routing enemy riflemen from dugout positions until he was fatally
wounded. The courage, fearlessness and aggressiveness displayed by
Pvt. Minue in the face of inevitable death was unquestionably the factor
that gave his company the offensive spirit that was necessary for
advancing and driving the enemy from the entire sector. (Source:
Congressional Medal of Honor Soclety)
The evening of September 11, after a day full of memories of the fallen
of World War II and of that terrible day in the United States in 2001,
we boarded a small but elegant cruise ship called the Corinthian II and
sailed for Tunisian port city of Sousse. The ship was to be our home for
the next ten days during a voyage that would take us to Malta, Sicily,
and Italy.
The following day our group visited famed Kasserine Pass, the subject
of next month’s article.
• Reprinted from Armchair General Magazine with the
permission of Col. Jerry Morelock, Editor-in-Chief . Col.
Morelock is a former Director of the Churchill Memorial in
Fulton, Mo. Subscribe to Armchair General Magazine
www.armchairgeneral.com Subscribe online and save nearly 40%
9. 9
QUARTERLY QUOTES
Winston Churchill at the Town Hall, Malmesbury, 28
December 1904 (Complete Speeches, 397):
A period of enormous expenditure, of the lavish casting
about of public money for unprofitable objects, has
affected alike the credit and consuming power of the
people . . . After the riot of extravagance comes the pinch
of want. An undue percentage of employment, a
hampering lack of ready money throughout the country, a
restricted credit in business circles, a considerable
increase in pauperism — all follow in the track of the
storm.
The nine most terrifying words in the English
language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to
help.” --Ronald Reagan
10. 10
136th Anniversary of Sir Winston’s Birth
A Pre-Birthday Celebration on November 29, 1963
(A press photo with editorial markings ready to crop)
12. 12
Celia Lee and a Taste of Churchill’s Cake
12:00pm Sunday 5th December 2010 By Mark Chandler »
A chance meeting while lecturing about the birth of Churchill has given one Lewisham
author a unique taste of history.
Celia Lee was giving a talk on the war leader’s premature birth and was
stamping out rumours with the help of vascular consultant Rodney Croft
that Churchill was conceived out of wedlock.
While giving the lecture in his old Conservative constituency of Epping in
Essex she met Mike Tompkins - a chef who baked the great statesman’s
80th birthday cake.
Ms Lee explained: “Mike took the cake personally to 10 Downing Street,
and was graciously received. There was a party with Winston and his wife
Clementine and others.
“Mike produced two framed photographs out of a plastic bag, which show
him with the cake and Winston and his wife Clementine and several others
in Downing Street.
“The table was set for a celebration and the cake was lit by three-tier
candelabras and the cake was iced plain white with icing.”
Mr Tompkins revealed the cake had been made using the same recipe as
the Queen’s wedding cake when she got married after the end of the
Second World War.
Because of the wedding’s timing there was a shortage of ingredients and
so items had to be shipped over from Australia.
Ms Lee said: “Mike did not have these problems when he came to bake his
cake for Winston's 80th birthday in 1954, but rationing was still in place
then. Coupons were still required for luxury items.”
The author, who has written books including ‘The Churchills - A Family
Portrait’ and recently returned from a lecture tour of New York sponsored
13. 13
by the Churchill Society, described the existence of the recipe as “a
bombshell”.
Excited by the discovery, she asked her neighbour Lorna Williams, a
baker, to make her own version of the classic cake - including lashings of
the former prime minister’s favourite Cognac brandy.
Ms Lee, who said: “Lorna kept the icing all white to make it serene for the
birthday of a deceased hero and world leader. It simply says ‘Churchill
136’.”
The finished product is being kept preserved and will be eaten when
members of the Churchill family meet to celebrate his 136th birthday later
this month.
Ingredients: butter, caster sugar, moist Tate and Lyle pieces, flour, frozen whole egg,
honey, salt, spice, cassia, nutmeg, ground ginger, ground cloves, ground almonds,
cherries, currants, sultanas, mixed peel, caramel powder, glycerine, egg colour, oil of
lemon, oil of orange, cognac brandy, sherry, rum.
Cartoon of Churchill's Birthday in 1960
. . This drawing in ink on art paper shows the world
wishing a bed-bound Churchill a Happy Birthday on his
86th. The artist is Frank Williams, a cartoonist for the
Detroit Free Press from the 40s to the 70s.
15. 15
Dan O'Neill: Tonypandy riots left a legacy of
Bitterness
Nov 2 2010 by Dan O'Neill, South Wales Echo
If the fearsome battles between police and miners during the
strike of 1984 can be summed up in one word, that word would
be Orgreave, the Yorkshire coke depot where picketing pitmen
and police in full riot gear went to war. The scenes there, wrote
one historian, “were without parallel in an industrial dispute
this century”.
He was wrong. There is a parallel. When Tonypandy exploded
100 years ago this week.
It began when 70 men of the Ely Pit at Penygraig protested at the
rate for working in a difficult seam. Which meant a seam 18
inches high with a couple of inches of water under their backs.
The management, in tune with the times, simply locked out not
only the 70 but another 900 workers as well.
So the South Wales Miners’ Federation immediately called a
strike of all 12,000 men working in the Cambrian Combine’s pits
in the Tonypandy area. Few expected what came next. On
November 7 the miners found that Leonard Llewellyn, manager
of Llwynypia’s Glamorgan Colliery, was using blacklegs to keep
the pumps working. It was the only pit to do this, a challenge
that couldn’t be ignored.
Thousands gathered to hear strike leader Will John thunder that
the mine had to close. And if police were brought in they would
be driven out – “By force, if necessary”. He was too late. Captain
Lionel Lindsay, the 5ft-1in Chief Constable of Glamorgan, had
already drafted every available officer in the county into the
16. 16
area. Reinforcements from Cardiff, Bristol and Swansea were on
standby as well.
Lindsay recognised the Glamorgan pit as the flash point and
that’s where he concentrated his strength. They prepared for
action when news came that strikers were attacking police in
Clydach Vale, dragging them from their horses, the Echo’s
headline MENACE OF THE MARCH, Ugly Turmoil in Mid-
Rhondda. Which, for most Cardiffians, was a foreign country.
Then the miners, armed with hammers and iron bars, marched
on the Glamorgan Colliery, showering bricks and stones at the
99 police defending it. They were driven back, but the shaken
coal-owners told Lindsay they wanted more than police. They
wanted troops. And quickly.
Winston Churchill, Home Secretary, replied to their appeal:
“Infantry should not be used until all other means have failed.”
Instead, 100 mounted police and 200 “foot constables” were
sent to South Wales by special train while troops were held in
reserve in Swindon. SOLDIERS HELD IN LEASH, trumpeted the
Echo and there was even talk of artillery coming to Rhondda.
Our Own Reporter fuelled talk of civil war with his claim (on the
highest authority) that “steps are being taken by miners to stop
entry of the military into the disturbed areas” – forcing another
miners’ leader, Jack Hopla, chapel deacon, to plead “For God’s
sake stop this violence. The soldiers are only just down the
road. They will be here with bullets”.
At the same time a local magistrate was cabling the Home
Office, “Police cannot cope with rioters. Troops absolutely
necessary”.
The Hussars, though, were still in Cardiff and the Metropolitan
police hadn’t started their march up the valley. That night the
looters moved in, the first brick going through the window of the
shop owned by T P Jenkins, the magistrate who had closed all
public houses that day. Another 63 Tonypandy shops were
17. 17
looted, one belonging to Welsh rugby international Willie
Llewellyn among the few left untouched.
The windows went in. The goods came out. One man was
spotted wearing nine bowler hats, one on top of the other. Sides
of bacon and ham were grabbed, a huge cheese wheeled out,
men ran off laden with clothes and groceries. It ended when a
squadron of the 18th Hussars clattered into town, later relieved
by a company of the Lancashire Fusiliers.
General Neville Macready, the commanding officer, reported:
“Not a shot has been fired. Not a sabre waved.”
He added angrily that most of his problems were down to “the
delusion of the coal-owners that the police and military were
simply their tools”.
The riots gave birth to a new and fiery brand of leader but Jack
Hopla, the peacemaker, went to jail and was never the same after
his release. But the strike he helped lead paved the way for
minimum wages for miners while from then on they became the
elite of British industry, shock troops of the union movement. It
didn’t happen, but the myth that British troops fired on British
workers made Churchill a hate figure for generations of Welsh
men and women. Almost 70 years after the “Tonypandy riots”,
13 years after his death, Churchill’s grandson, another Winston,
asked in the Commons about miners’ pay.
The PM, one James Callaghan, replied: “I hope that Mr Churchill
will not pursue the vendetta of his family against the miners of
Tonypandy for a third generation.”
A century on, though the mines have gone, the bitterness
lingers.
Read More
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/columnists/2010/11/02/dan-o-
neill-tonypandy-riots-left-a-legacy-of-bitterness-91466-
27581447/#ixzz14BIH90wm
18. 18
Americans at the Abbey
DAVID E. SCHERMAN / TIME LIFE PICTURES / GETTY
In 1942, London's Westminster Abbey held Thanksgiving
services for U.S. troops stationed in England. More than 3,500
soldiers filled the church's pews to sing America, the Beautiful
and The Star-Spangled Banner — the first time in the church's
900-year history that a foreign army was invited to take over the
grounds. It was an ironic gesture given the holiday's origins as a
festival for pilgrims fleeing religious tyranny in Britain.
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1862503_1862505_1862518,00.html#ixzz14On
MBlqn
19. 19
Bookworm’s Corner by James R. Lancaster
H.M.S. Glowworm
“We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow-worm.” Winston’s remark to
Violet Asquith, the 19-year old daughter of Herbert Asquith the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, inspired Churchillians-by-the-Bay to adopt Glow-Worm as the title of
their quarterly newsletter. A splendid choice.
Winston’s amusing remark was made at a dinner party in the summer of 1906.
A few months later, on December 12, the Royal Navy, for the first time in its long
history, launched a ship with the name Glowworm. It was a coastal destroyer. In
later years two other Navy ships were called Glowworm: an Insect-Class gunboat
launched in February 1916, and a G-Class destroyer launched in July 1935.
This third Glowworm was the most famous of the Navy’s G-Class fleet of
destroyers. Appropriately, the ship’s motto was Ex tenebris lux – Out of darkness,
light.
20. 20
H.M.S. Glowworm
This destroyer, with a maximum speed of 36 knots and a range of over 5,000
nautical miles, was initially deployed in the Mediterranean Fleet. On the outbreak
of war in September 1939 her main task, as part of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla, was
to intercept enemy merchant ships. She was later transferred to the Home Fleet at
Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. From this anchorage, on 5 April 1940, she
headed out into the North Sea, together with the battle-cruiser H.M.S. Renown and
the destroyers Hero, Greyhound and Hyperion. Their task was to provide cover for
Operation Wilfred — the laying of mines between Norway and her islands, to
prevent German vessels from using these waters to transport Swedish iron ore.
However, the planned mine-laying operation coincided with the German
invasion of Norway on April 7. What happened next was described by Winston
Churchill in The Gathering Storm, recalling his days as First Lord of the
Admiralty:
When the War Cabinet met on Monday morning [April 8], I reported that
the minefields in the West Fiord had been laid between 4.30 and 5.00 a.m. I
also explained in detail that all our fleets were at sea. But by now we had
assurance that the main German naval force was undoubtedly making
towards Narvik. On the way to lay the minefield ‘Wilfred’ one of our
destroyers, the Glowworm, having lost a man overboard during the night,
stopped behind to search for him and became separated from the rest of the
force. At 8.30 a.m. on the 8th, the Glowworm had reported herself engaged
with an enemy destroyer about 150 miles south-west of West Fiord. Shortly
afterwards she had reported seeing another destroyer ahead of her, and later
that she was engaging a superior force. After 9.45 she had become silent,
since when nothing had been heard from her . . .
21. 21
Since the war we have learned from German records what happened to
the Glowworm. Early on the morning of Monday the 8th, she encountered
first one and then a second enemy destroyer. A running fight ensued in a
heavy sea until the cruiser Hipper appeared on the scene. When the Hipper
opened fire the Glowworm retired behind a smokescreen. The Hipper,
pressing on through the smoke, presently emerged to find the British
destroyer very close and coming straight for her at full speed. There was no
time for the Hipper to avoid the impact, and the Glowworm rammed her
10,000-ton adversary, tearing a hole forty metres wide in her side. She then
fell away crippled and blazing. A few minutes later she blew up. The Hipper
picked up forty survivors; her gallant captain was being hauled to safety
when he fell back exhausted from the cruiser’s deck and was lost. Thus the
Glowworm’s light was quenched, but her captain, Lieutenant-Commander
Gerard Roope, was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously, and the story
will long be remembered.
An Admiralty artist’s impression of Glowworm ramming the Hipper
The heroism of the Glowworm’s skipper and crew was a fine example of
Nelson’s last signal at the Battle of Trafalgar – ENGAGE THE ENEMY MORE
CLOSELY. It was not in vain. The Hipper, ten times larger than the Glowworm, was
forced to go to Trondheim for repairs. She was badly damaged, having lost 150
feet of her side plating. She was out of action for a month, one of many German
22. 22
ships to be sunk or damaged during the Norwegian campaign from April to June
1940. Twenty-two German ships, including three cruisers and ten destroyers were
sunk. In addition, five cruisers and two pocket battleships were damaged or put
out of action. These significant losses reaffirmed German respect for the fighting
traditions of the Royal Navy. As Churchill wrote in The Gathering Storm:
At the end of June, 1940, a momentous date, the effective German Fleet
consisted of no more than one 8-inch cruiser, two light cruisers and four
destroyers. Although many of their damaged ships, like ours, could be
repaired, the German Navy was no factor in the supreme issue of the
invasion of Britain.
Lieutenant Commander Gerard Roope
Captain of H.M.S. Glowworm
Captain Roope’s action was the first to be awarded the Victoria Cross in the
Second World War. It was gazetted posthumously, at the end of hostilities in July
1945. It was one of the few awards to be based, in part, on evidence supplied by
the enemy. The Captain of the Admiral Hipper had written to the British
authorities via the Red Cross, recommending the award of the Victoria Cross for
Roope’s “courage while engaging a vastly superior warship”. The citation
published in The London Gazette reads:
ADMIRALTY
Whitehall
10th July, 1945
The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the VICTORIA
CROSS for valour to:
The late Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Broadmead ROOPE, Royal Navy
23. 23
On the 8th April, 1940, H.M.S. Glowworm was proceeding alone in
heavy weather towards a rendezvous in West Fjord, when she met and
engaged two enemy destroyers, scoring at least one hit on them. The
enemy broke off the action and headed North, to lead the Glowworm on to
his supporting forces. The Commanding Officer, whilst correctly
appreciating the intentions of the enemy, at once gave chase. The German
heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper was sighted closing the Glowworm at high
speed, and an enemy report was sent which was received by H.M.S. Renown.
Because of the heavy sea, the Glowworm could not shadow the enemy, and
the Commanding Officer therefore decided to attack with torpedoes and then
to close, in order to inflict as much damage as possible. Five torpedoes were
fired and later the remaining five, but without success. The Glowworm was
badly hit; one gun was out of action and her speed was much reduced, but
with the other three guns still firing she closed and rammed the Admiral
Hipper. As the Glowworm drew away she opened fire again and scored one
hit at a range of 400 yards. The Glowworm, badly stove in forward and
riddled with enemy fire, heeled over to starboard, and the Commanding
Officer gave the order to abandon her. Shortly afterwards she capsized and
sank. The Admiral Hipper hove to for at least an hour picking up survivors,
but the loss of life was heavy, only 31 out of the Glowworm’s complement
of 149 being saved.
Full information concerning this action has only recently been received
and the VICTORIA CROSS is bestowed in recognition of the great valour of
the Commanding Officer who, after fighting off a superior force of
destroyers, sought out and reported a powerful enemy unit, and then fought
his ship to the end against overwhelming odds, finally ramming the enemy
with supreme coolness and skill.
Seven months later, in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 12th February
1946, His Majesty King George VI presented the Victoria Cross to Lieutenant
Commander Roope’s widow. She was accompanied by her son, Michael, who was
serving as a Cadet in the Royal Navy. Ex tenebris lux – Out of darkness, light.
James R Lancaster @ jimlancaster.com
24. 24
Churchill Charges Forth With Sword and Pen
By John Chettle
Winston Churchill wore medals during World War I he had earned since joining the army in 1895 (National Archives).
"I am more ambitious for a reputation for personal courage," Churchill told his mother, "than [for] anything else in the
world," and a couple of decorations would help to "beat my sword into an iron dispatch box," a reference to the place
from which ministers give their speeches in the House of Commons.
This article is from the Winter 2011 issue of MHQ, which will be available on newsstands Tuesday, November 16th,
2010. Visit the HistoryNet store to order your copy today!
Winston Churchill first heard a shot fired in anger at him on the morning of his 21st birthday, in 1895. A newly
commissioned second lieutenant with Queen Victoria's army, he spent a two-month leave observing Spanish troops
trying to quell an insurrection by Cuban colonists. During that day's early morning march, gunfire sounded from afar,
but it did not faze the young Churchill. He was, he wrote in his memoirs, like the optimist "who did not mind what
happened, so long as it did not happen to him." Later that morning, however, as Churchill gnawed on a chicken
drumstick during a break in the march, a volley rang out nearby. A slug passed within a foot of his head and hit a horse
just behind him between the ribs, leaving a dark red circle a foot wide on its bright chestnut coat. Watching the horse
struggle for life, Churchill wrote, "I began to take a more thoughtful view of our enterprise." Over the next five years,
Churchill would see battle in three very similar wars: against the tribesmen on the North-West Frontier of India (now
the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan); against the Dervishes in the Sudan; and against the Boers in the Anglo-Boer
War of 1899–1902. Serving simultaneously as a cavalry officer and newspaper correspondent during much of that time,
he proved an acute observer and a prodigious chronicler, turning out dozens of articles and four books, some still
relevant to modern conflicts.
25. 25
Equally important, these experiences helped mold one of the most influential men in modern history. Thirsting for fame
and glory, Churchill during those years went through a literal baptism of fire. What he saw and learned in the field
sparked what would become a lifelong fascination for battle and war. At the same time, his writings forced him to
confront questions of grand strategy and the nature of conflict.
The British Empire at the end of the 19th century still covered one-quarter of the world's land surface, with 380 million
subjects scattered on every continent. Inevitably, Churchill's combat tours exposed his powerful and impressionable
mind to most of the forces that were to shape the future: war itself, Great Power politics, religious fanaticism, and
nationalism. And while he was devoted to the empire and convinced of its power for good in the world, we can see a
generous mind at work, adamantly resisting any departure from its benign principles, but increasingly conscious of
man's capacity for evil.
Churchill's path to glory was littered with oddly propitious turns. An indifferent student, he entered the army because
his father did not think he was bright enough for the law. At age 20, he graduated from the Royal Military College at
Sandhurst, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 4th Hussars on February 20, 1895, just nine months before he
saw action in Cuba.
As he was to do throughout his career, Churchill went to people at the top to achieve his objectives. Of course, it did not
hurt that he was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill, the former chancellor of the exchequer, and his beautiful and well-
connected American wife, the former Jennie Jerome of New York City. In a bid to be seconded to the staff of the
commander in chief in Cuba, Winston wrote to a former parliamentary ally of his father, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff,
then British ambassador to Madrid, as well as to Lord Garnet Wolseley, the commander in chief of the British Army. To
help pay his way and make his name, he arranged with the Daily Graphic to file occasional dispatches at five guineas
each.
In Cuba, his assignment to the staff of General Álvaro Suáres Valdés introduced him to the finest cigars and meals, rum
cocktails, and the siesta, but it was not an unmitigated privilege. The general often rode to within 500 yards of the
enemy line and, with his white uniform and gold lace, was the target of every sharpshooter, diminishing the life
expectancy of his staff members.
Neither the privileges nor the danger blinkered Churchill's judgment. "There is no doubt," he reported in a dispatch to
the Daily Graphic, that the insurgents "possess the sympathy of the entire population, and hence have constant and
accurate intelligence." The only uniform an insurgent wore was a badge; when removed it was "impossible to tell a
rebel from an ordinary peasant." The island was overtaxed, all offices were reserved for Spaniards, and the
administration was corrupt. It was not surprising, he reported, that the demand for independence was "national and
unanimous."
He found many of the Spanish army operations pointless. For 10 days, he told his readers, he had accompanied 2,000 of
the best Spanish troops under a general who marched hard in search of enemy troops, attacked, and drove them out of
their position. Then, honor seemingly satisfied, the general returned to his cantonments, having taken a low grassy hill
of no importance and killed 30 or 40 rebels. The Spanish officers, he reported, "anticipate a speedy end to the
war…[but] I confess I do not see how this is to be done." As long as the insurgents adhered to the tactics they had
adopted, "they can neither be caught nor defeated."
Churchill did not have high expectations for the rebels either, saying they offered at best "a bankrupt Government, torn
by racial animosities and recurring revolutions." The outlook for Cuba, he concluded in his last dispatch, was a somber
26. 26
one. Churchill delivered this judgment at age 21, after just 16 days in Cuba. Yet its balanced assessment of the
insurgents, the futility of the Spanish strategy, and the ultimate result was an accurate reflection of countless
insurgencies to come.
As happened throughout Churchill's career as a war correspondent, his presumption annoyed the authorities and some of
the press, who wondered what could possibly impel a British officer to get mixed up in such a dispute. The answer, of
course, was ambition, fame, adventure, and the love of danger, or at least the desire for a reputation for courage in the
face of danger, which, he confessed frankly to his mother, would help him as he pursued his political career.
"I am more ambitious for a reputation for personal courage," he told her, "than [for] anything else in the world." A
couple of decorations, he added, would help to "beat my sword into an iron dispatch box," a reference to the place from
which ministers give their speeches in the House of Commons. Not surprisingly he was seen by some as bumptious
and—accurately—as a medal hunter. This didn't bother him. If he was seeking medals, it was his own life that he was
risking.
What did concern Churchill after his return to London was getting another opportunity for action. That came in
September 1896 when he joined his regiment in India, then departed again to be a war correspondent in a pending war
between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. As the Thirty Days' War looked to have been averted by the Great Powers—
and did not break out until April 1897—Churchill returned to England for a vacation when trouble flared on the North-
West Frontier.
"I was on the lawns of Goodwood [a race course] in lovely weather and winning my money," he wrote later, "when the
revolt of the Pathan tribesmen on the Indian frontier began." He had extracted a promise from Brigadier Sir Bindon
Blood, in command of the Malakand Field Force on the frontier, that he would employ him on his staff in such a
contingency, and Blood wrote to tell him that if he could get press accreditation, he would do so. By modern journalistic
standards, this may seem an obvious conflict of interest, and it was unusual even then, but it served to circumvent the
bureaucracy. Churchill demanded $50 a dispatch from the Daily Telegraph and full attribution, but to his annoyance,
after his return to India his mother negotiated only $25 and anonymity.
"Stingy pinchers," he grumbled, but what really hurt was the lack of a byline. How was he to gain fame and fortune if
nobody knew he was there? He need not have worried. Though the "letters" were attributed only to "a young officer,"
Lady Randolph took care to ensure that everyone of note, including the Prince of Wales, knew who had written them.
(He also wrote dispatches for the Allahabad Pioneer.)
General Blood attached Churchill to Brigadier P. D. Jeffreys, who had been directed to conduct a punitive expedition.
This was a relic of the mid-century policies of the British authorities in India, who used such forays to discourage
incursions from warlike tribes in the north. The operations irritated the tribesmen and did not improve the situation, so
they were succeeded by a "forward policy" of pacification, which relied on forward outposts, a civilizing presence,
educational and economic advantages (such as building roads while protecting and encouraging trade), and payments to
local grandees.
27. 27
A warrior-writer of some repute by the end of the Boer War, Churchill formed lifelong impressions, later writing,
"Never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the
tides and hurricanes he will encounter." (Library of Congress).
The forward policy has obvious analogies to current U.S. policy in Afghanistan. So do its drawbacks. The mullahs
simply saw the British as a threat to their faith and power, and the policy began to fail. Then, in 1897, the Turks
defeated the Greeks, a book was published on jihad, Islam welcomed a new caliph, and a new "Mad Mullah" emerged
in India, convinced of his divine mission against the infidel British. In response, Britain reverted to its traditional
punitive expeditions.
As always, Churchill in his dispatches was generous to his opponents. The "brave and warlike" Pathan tribes exhibited
great military skill, he wrote. They followed "a code of honor not less punctilious than that of old Spain…supported by
vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica."
But the tribal society showed all the consequences of such a code. As he put it in The Story of the Malakand Field
Force, his first book, which he wrote in two months upon his return from the campaign, "Except at the times of sowing
and of harvest, a continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout the land. Tribe wars with tribe….To the quarrels
of communities are added the combats of individuals….Every tribesman has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every
man's hand is against the other, and all against the stranger."
Churchill confronted physical danger and death more directly in this campaign than ever before. In his letters,
dispatches, and books, the thought of death is never far away. In a letter to Lady Randolph he confessed that in one
skirmish he was perhaps "very near my end." Referring to his dispatch to the Telegraph, he wrote: "If you read between
the lines of my letter, you will see that this retirement was an awful rout in which the wounded were left to be cut up
28. 28
horribly." He and another subaltern carried a wounded sepoy some distance: "[My] pants are still stained with the man's
blood….It was a horrible business. For there was no help for the man that went down." In his book he was more
insouciant: "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."
In this campaign Churchill developed a philosophy of glory that he adhered to throughout his life, combining an ardent
pursuit of fame, an extraordinary belief in his luck, and a phlegmatic acceptance of death. The pursuit of a military
career, he reflected in his writings, differs from all others:
The only way [a soldier] can hope to rise above the others is by risking his life in frequent campaigns. All his fortunes,
whatever they may be, all his position and weight in the world, all his accumulated capital, as it were, must be staked
afresh each time he goes into action. He may have seen twenty engagements and be covered with decorations and
medals….And yet each time he comes under fire his chances of being killed are as great as, and perhaps greater than,
those of the youngest subaltern….The statesman, who has…made a great miscalculation, may yet retrieve his fortunes.
But the indiscriminating bullet settles everything.
As for the campaign itself, the tribesmen, he reported, "have been punished, not subdued; rendered hostile, but not
harmless. Their fanaticism remains unshaken….The riddle of the frontier is still unsolved." As the campaign wound
down, Churchill returned to the 4th Hussars and peacetime duties in India.
The Story of the Malakand Field Force was received with almost universal enthusiasm. The reviewer in the Athenaeum
called it "a literary phenomenon." Richard Harding Davis, perhaps the greatest American war correspondent, wrote
several years later that it was Churchill's "best piece of war reporting…and to writers on military subjects it is a model.
But it is a model very few can follow, and which Churchill himself was unable to follow, for the reason that only once
is it given a man to be twenty-three years of age….[The actions] which he witnessed and in which he bore his part, he
never again can see with the same fresh and enthusiastic eyes."
For those who study Afghanistan and Pakistan today, the book is still significant. Although Churchill, judging the
conflict by the standards of European wars of the day, was somewhat dismissive of the issues and the scale of
operations, some 120 years later we have become far more conscious of the power of the Islamist ideology driving such
conflicts, and of the capacity of small, fanatical groups to strike disproportionately damaging blows.
Churchill next covered the war against the Dervishes in the Sudan, which arose from the same Islamic zeal Churchill
had encountered on the North-West Frontier. In 1883, the followers of Mohammed Ahmed, who called himself the
Mahdi, or messiah, and had proclaimed a holy war against foreigners, annihilated an army of 10,000 Egyptians led by
an English officer. Sent to Khartoum with vague instructions to restore order and evacuate Europeans, Major General
Charles Gordon dispatched 2,600 women and children to Egypt before he found himself besieged. After more than 300
days, the city fell and Gordon was killed. In the decade that followed, the government in Egypt accumulated the money,
intelligence, and force to meet the 60,000 men on whom Khalifa Abdullah al-Taaisha, who had succeeded the Mahdi,
could call.
Churchill had long coveted the chance of glory in the Sudan. He had made unavailing efforts to attach himself to the
forces of Sir Herbert Kitchener, the sirdar, or commander in chief, of the Egyptian army, which was then led by both
British and Egyptian officers. Kitchener saw no reason to encourage a brash young subaltern who, without the
experience of his seniors, criticized their judgment.
In truth, Churchill had been full of praise for Sir Bindon Blood in India, but he had commented freely on military
29. 29
policy, and that behavior from a subaltern was equally unacceptable. Kitchener firmly rejected the appeals of all the
grand names mobilized by Lady Randolph.
Then, with that luck to which Churchill frequently referred, he was saved by the prime minister, Lord Robert Salisbury,
who had read the Malakand Field Force and invited its author to 10 Downing Street. A courteously worded request
from Salisbury eventually received a grudging acquiescence from Kitchener, and on August 15, 1898, Churchill filed
his first dispatch from Atbara, which lay at the end of a 400-mile railroad built across waterless desert to enable the
British to strike at the Dervishes.
Churchill was attached to the 21st Lancers. The celebrity achieved by his dispatches from India, and then by his book,
meant there was no lack of interest in his reports. Unfortunately, Kitchener's dislike of war correspondents meant that
they had to be sent to the Morning Post in the form of a series of letters to a friend. Once again, Churchill's dispatches
recognized the bravery and fanaticism of the opponent—the Dervishes were "as brave men as ever walked the earth"—
and that the Khalifa represented both the religious and the nationalistic aspirations of his followers. The Khalifa had
announced his intention to destroy the infidels. "Allah," wrote Churchill sardonically, "is said to have fully approved of
his plan."
Winston Spencer Churchill, the famous war correspondent, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, c. 1900 (Library of
Congress).
The most memorable passage concerned Churchill's participation in what was probably the last classic cavalry charge of
the British Army, at Omdurman. The charge arose in part from a misapprehension, since the great mass of the
Dervishes was concealed by a fold in the ground, and the British rode into a trap. The long column of Lancers began to
move against what seemed to be a row of crouching blue figures, firing frantically. Churchill, whose shoulder had once
been dislocated, clutched a Mauser pistol rather than a sword. As the Dervishes came into full view, he realized that
they were 10 or 12 deep.
Suddenly he was in their midst, but they were not so thickly packed that he collided with any of them. The Dervishes
30. 30
were hacking at the horses, firing their rifles, pressing the muzzles into the very bodies of their opponents. Some
Lancers were dragged from their horses. Churchill saw a gleam of a curved sword and fired. Then suddenly he was
through the mass, with horses spouting blood, men clutching arms and faces cut to pieces, "gasping, crying, collapsing,
expiring." He was untouched. "It passed like a dream," he told his mother, "and some part I cannot quite recall."
The charge won extravagant praise and three participants were awarded Victoria Crosses. But it was, wrote the
Marquess of Anglesey in his History of the British Cavalry, "the most futile and inefficient part of the battle."
The Mahdists left some 15,000 of their dead and wounded on the battlefield. Churchill reported that they "strewed the
ground in heaps and swathes." The battle opened the way to the fall of Khartoum. It was, Churchill wrote in The River
War, published in two volumes in 1899 to almost universal approbation for its honest assessments of the British Army
at war, "the most signal triumph ever gained by the science of arms over barbarians."
Churchill admired Kitchener's cool precision, his careful planning, and the magnitude of his achievement in conquering
the Sudan. But he wrote scathingly of the shooting of wounded Dervishes, and of the treatment of the Mahdi's corpse.
"The corpse of the Mahdi was dug up," Churchill wrote in The River War. "The head was separated from the body, and,
to quote the official explanation, 'preserved for future disposal'—a phrase which must in this case be understood to
mean, that it passed from hand to hand till it reached Cairo."
Even before the book was published, Churchill resigned his commission and returned to England to run for Parliament
for the Conservatives, in Oldham, Lancashire. In this case his usual good luck came in disguise. He lost, but the defeat
led to his traveling to South Africa as a war correspondent. In hindsight the Boer War seems a minor prelude to the
Great War, but it was the first conflict since the Crimean War to be waged by Britain against a modern army. It was also
the war that made Churchill an internationally known figure, and opened up the political career of which he dreamed.
The Morning Post agreed to pay Churchill's expenses: $5,000 for four months' work and $1,000 a month thereafter,
probably the most lucrative contract won by a newspaper war correspondent up to that time. He took with him a letter
of introduction from the colonial secretary, his personal valet, a new adjustable Ross telescope, a Voigtlander field
glass, ample wine, and 18 bottles of 10-year-old Scotch whiskey, among other refreshments.
The story of the South African campaign is the story of Churchill's adventures, though from the start his judgment of the
Boers and the probable length of the war was far sharper than that of the military authorities. Three days after his
arrival, he wrote his mother: "We have greatly underestimated the military strength and spirit of the Boers. I very much
doubt whether one army Corps will be enough."
That insight clearly contributed to Churchill's lifelong recognition of the perils of going to war. "Let us learn our
lessons," he wrote many years later, reflecting on the Boer and other wars. "Never, never, never believe any war will be
smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will
encounter."
The Boers, mostly farmers from the two independent inland states of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, had
invaded the Cape Colony and Natal, Britain's two coastal colonies in Southern Africa. Perhaps the finest mobile
mounted infantry in the world, they had attacked a British advance column in Natal, killed the commander, Major
General Sir Penn Symons, rounded up several thousand of his troops, and were besieging 9,600 British soldiers in the
garrison town of Ladysmith in Natal, as well as Kimberley and Mafeking in the Cape Colony.
Churchill hastened to the Natal front, some hundred miles from the east coast port of Durban, and at once destiny took
31. 31
him firmly in its grasp. An old friend from India, Captain Aylmer Haldane, invited Churchill to join him on an armored
train containing a company of the Dublin Fusiliers and another of Durban Light Infantry, with an antiquated 7-pounder
muzzle-loading naval gun. These troops were to reconnoiter along the tracks to the railroad junction town of Colenso.
Reports indicated no enemy within the next few miles.
The train completed its reconnaissance and on its return, as it rounded a corner, they could see newly made
entrenchments. The Boers waited until the train was within 600 yards of their position, then opened fire with two field
guns, Maxim machine guns, and a large number of rifles. The driver put on full steam, ran down a steep gradient, and
crashed into a pile of stones artfully placed across the line to derail the train.
The three cars ahead of the locomotive were flung onto the embankment or across the track. The Boers' fire was intense,
if not particularly accurate. As Haldane noted in his later report, Churchill offered to help clear the line while the
captain, dazed from the crash, organized those in the armored cars to return fire. The first thing was to detach the car
that was half off the rails. Volunteers were called for, and after much pushing, the locomotive giving a shove, the car
fell off the line. But it became jammed in the derailed car and Churchill had to search for a chain that could be used to
pull back the obstruction.
There was still not enough room for the locomotive to get past. For 70 minutes Churchill and the other volunteers
struggled, amid "clanging, rending iron boxes with the repeated explosion of the shells and the artillery, the noise of the
projectiles striking the ears…the grunting and pulling of the [locomotive]—poor, tortured thing, hammered by at least a
dozen shells, any one of which, by penetrating the boiler, might have made an end to all."
At length, it cleared the obstruction, so Haldane permitted the driver to retire slowly, putting as many of the wounded as
possible aboard the locomotive. Churchill ran back to help extricate the other unwounded men, and found himself in a
railroad cutting almost alone. Unbeknownst to him, two soldiers, without authority, had waved white handkerchiefs in
surrender. The Boers were rounding up prisoners and Churchill turned to escape. Several Boers began firing at him.
One, just 40 yards away, took careful aim. "Death stood before me, grim sullen Death without his light-hearted
companion, Chance," he reported later. He slowly held up his hands.
"I cannot speak too highly of his gallant conduct," wrote Haldane in his official report. A wounded officer, interviewed
by a local newspaper, described his conduct as "that of as
brave a man as could be found."
A youthful-looking Prime Minister Churchill inspecting
Civil Defense personnel in London at the outbreak of the
Second World War (National Archives).
But Churchill was now in the humiliating position of being a
prisoner of war in Pretoria, the Boer capital. The account of
his escape is crowded with the same daring and
extraordinary luck that characterized his conduct on the
train. He climbed over a well-lighted fence surrounding the
prison. With no map, he guided himself by the stars, then
leapt onto a passing train, jumping off as it approached the
border with Portuguese East Africa. He stumbled—by
chance—into one of the few houses owned by an
32. 32
Englishman, who helped conceal him on a train bound for the coast. He arrived back in Durban just as the British had
suffered the last of three terrible defeats during the so-called Black Week. But tales of his exploits quickly traveled the
world. As his son later wrote, like Lord George Byron after the publication of Childe Harolde, Churchill awoke one
morning, at the age of 25, and found himself famous.
There was much more to report. He wrote two books based on his dispatches: From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria
and Ian Hamilton's March. Far earlier than most, he understood that this would be a long and arduous war—in truth
Britain's Vietnam. It was the culmination of a series of experiences given to few young men, and few young men would
so comprehensively have understood them, and put them to such world-shaping use some 40 years on. Time and again
we read in his dispatches accounts of the passionate nationalism of the Boers, both young and old. It was a powerful
lesson in the dangers of underestimating an enemy, a mistake he did not make when confronted with the rise of Adolf
Hitler, who was also tapping into resentful nationalism, in this instance of the Germans.
"Reprinted with permission of MHQ: The Quarterly
Journal of Military History, Copyright 2010, Weider
History Group. For subscription information to MHQ,
see MHQmag.com."
1998 Pol Roger Cuvee Winston Churchill.
Prestige cuvee is the term for the finest champagnes
made. Each Champagne house creates its own name for
its top champagne and makes it only in the best years.
Prestige cuvees are made from the finest grapes selected
from grand cru-rated vineyards and are aged from five to
eight years in the winemaker's cellar, longer than any
other champagne. But such attention comes with a price.
33. 33
In 1984, Pol Roger created its Cuvee Winston Churchill
to honor one of the 20th-century's great statesman and
devoted drinker of Pol Roger champagne. Churchill's
infatuation with Pol Roger began at a luncheon given by
the British Ambassador to France a few months after the
liberation of Paris. At the table was the beautiful Odette
Pol Roger and the wonderful 1928 Pol Roger champagne.
Churchill was smitten by the former, and claimed to drink
Pol Roger on a daily basis thereafter.
Cuvee Winston Churchill is always a full-bodied champagne. The blend of pinot noir and
chardonnay changes with the vintage, but what is consistent are the rich, complex aromas
and flavors, and the finish that seems eternal. The 1998 Pol Roger Cuvee Winston
Churchill's delicate bubbles release aromas of toasted hazelnuts, gingerbread and citrus.
Fruit flavors from guava to lime cross the palate with a body as big as the man the cham-
pagne is named for.lton,
The third annual Winston Churchill Student Essay Contest 2010-2011
is being sponsored by the National Churchill Museum located on the
campus of Westminster College, Fulton Missouri.
The essay topic is “Winston Churchill: A Renaissance Man?” and is
open to any student in grades 6-12 in the United States! Find details and
submission guidelines at www.nationalhurchillmuseum.org Click on
School Programs, Student Essay Contest.
Submissions must be received by 11:59pm on April 11, 2011
Cash prizes for the top three essays at the middle school level and high
school level will be awarded with a total value of $900.00!
Contact: Mandy Plybon, Education & Public Programs Coordinator,
573.592.6242 or Mandy.Plybon@churchillmemorial.org
34. 34
The Sidney Street Siege
The Illustrated London News reporting the news of
the siege in 1911
HISTORY: Churchill's role in deadly siege remembered in new
exhibition
ON a January night in 1911, the Home Secretary,
Winston Churchill, had to deal with a deadly stand-off
between police and burglars in east London.
Long before he became the MP for Woodford and 30
years before he made his famous 'The Few' speech
about the airmen of the Battle of Britain, Churchill
took centre stage during the Siege of Sidney Street,
35. 35
which is the subject of a new exhibition, London
Under Siege: Churchill And The Anarchists, at The
Museum of London Docklands.
The siege came two weeks after the robbery of a
nearby jewelers in Houndsditch, when three
policemen were shot dead and two were disabled for
life.
Two members of the gang of Latvian revolutionaries
who had attempted to break into the jewelers had
gone into hiding in a flat in Sidney Street and were
surrounded by more than 200 armed police officers.
Churchill ordered back-up from the Scots Guards and
when the flat the Latvian gunmen were hiding in burst
into flames, he stopped the fire brigade from
extinguishing it.
The two dead gunmen were later found inside the
building – one on the first floor, where he had been
shot and the other on the ground floor, where he had
died from smoke inhalation.
The Museum of London's exhibition will look at
Churchill's role in the siege, which many accused him
of overplaying to gain political popularity.
The overcoat he was wearing on the day will be on
display and the curator of Social and Working History
at the museum, Julia Hoffbrand, said she hoped to
find the top hat he was wearing as well.
“It may still exist somewhere and it would be really
interesting to find it,” she said. “So if anyone has a
battered top hat in their attic, please let us know.”
Weapons belonging to the gunmen, newsreel and
eyewitness accounts from the day of the siege will
36. 36
also be on show, as well as the orders of service from
the funerals of the murdered policemen.
The museum is running the exhibition in partnership
with the Jewish East End Celebration Society.
One of the society's members, Clive Bettington, said:
“The siege of Sidney Street is part of East End and
socialist folklore and the area at the time was home to
radical political groups, most of whom had come from
Eastern Europe, thus helping exaggerate people's
imaginations about immigration and other cultures.”
London Under Siege: Churchill And The Anarchists opens on
December 18 and runs until April 2011 at the Museum of London
Docklands in West India Quay. Entry is free.
When the Queen told Churchill: Stop
making me sit through these dreadful
films
Ghastly ordeal: Queen Elizabeth II arriving for a Royal Film Premier of Rob Roy
in 1953. She was not impressed by the film.
For nearly 50 years the Queen has graced the red carpet at Royal Film
Performances.
37. 37
But newly discovered documents show that in the early years of her
reign she found the movies so dreadful she complained to then Prime
Minister Sir Winston Churchill during an audience at Buckingham
Palace.
She may have once even considered boycotting the event.
The 1954 Royal Performance of the film Beau Brummell - starring
Stewart Granger and Elizabeth Taylor - was a particular cause of
displeasure. The Queen and her officials were also unimpressed by
three previous films - Where No Vultures Fly, Because You’re Mine and
Rob Roy The Highland Rogue.
In a memo concerning the Beau Brummell screening dated November
19, 1954, Churchill’s Private Secretary David Pitblado told Sir Frank
Lee, the Permanent Secretary at the Board of Trade:
‘The Prime Minister asked me to look into this when he returned from
his audience with the Queen. The Queen had told him what a bad film it
was and he, on his own initiative, wanted to see what could be done
about it for the future.’
The declassified documents show that both Buckingham Palace and
Downing Street began to despair with the choice of films in the Fifties.
In a further memo dated November 25, 1954, Sir Frank noted: ‘There is
no doubt at all that the quality of the films shown to HM on the last four
occasions (which I have also had the misfortune to attend) ranged from
the mediocre down to the vulgar and distressing.
38. 38
Not amused: The Queen disliked the film Beau Brummel (left) with
Stuart Granger and Elizabeth Taylor, so much she complained to the
PM Winston Churchill
‘The whole evening is a long and garish ordeal; it is not surprising that
both HM herself and most outside critics should ask whether the
selection of the main film to be shown could not be radically improved.’
Officials at Downing Street and Buckingham Palace secretly lobbied the
Film Industry to overhaul the event. Film bosses reluctantly agreed to
drop the stage show which accompanied the chosen film and to cut back
the number of ‘meet and greets’ expected of the Queen.
They also accepted the appointment of an independent figure
from outside the movie business to chair the panel that chose the
film. He was given the power of veto over the final choice of
movie.
The changes were a success and the Queen was delighted with
the selection of Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief in 1955.
An unsigned memo said: ‘Lieutenant Colonel Charteris, an
Assistant Private Secretary to the Queen said that Her
Majesty had enjoyed the film (as I did myself) and was
happy with the revised arrangement . . . She had
particularly welcomed the elimination of the stage show and
the fact that, for her, the whole occasion had lasted for no
more than 2 hours 40 minutes.
Second great fire of London:
Christmas 1940, the blitz of St Paul's
Cathedral
By Nigel Blundell 19/12/2010
39. 39
Flames and smoke billow all around as the unmistakable shape of St Paul’s
Cathedral rises out of this scene from hell. Artist rendering of photo.
St Paul’s Cathedral became an inspiration to the British people
during the Second World War .The general population was
subjected to the might of the German airforce’s Blitzkrieg attack
on major cities across the UK .Throughout the Blitz, St Paul’s
miraculously escaped major bomb damage, whilst buildings in
the surrounding areas were reduced to rubble. Images of St
Paul’s framed by the smoke and fire became a symbol of the
nation’s indomitable spirit. In 1945 services at St Paul’s,
marking the end of the war in Europe, were attended by 35,000
people.
This picture was to become one of the Second World War’s most iconic -
images.
40. 40
London was burning. Huge pillars of fire swept through the streets. But at
the centre of the raging inferno St Paul’s stood firm, a symbol of the
nation’s defiance and its people’s courage.
Now the historic photo – taken 70 years ago on the evening of December
29, 1940, when the Luftwaffe unleashed its firestorm on the capital – has
been digitally enhanced to give it colour
And the impact is all the more horrific for it.
From a vantage point on a Whitehall rooftop, Winston Churchill was
moved to fury as he watched the mass of flames spreading across the city, -
according to a new book about the Blitz.
He turned to an aide and growled: “We’ll get the bastards for this.”
He ordered that St Paul’s must be saved at all costs.
He knew how it would lift the spirits of a war-weary public if they could
see it had survived the onslaught – but for a while it looked as if the great
landmark would surely be lost.
That night more than 1,500 fires were burning, from 100,000 bombs
dropped by German raiders. They turned the City of London’s Square
Mile into a furnace. In the 1,000-degree heat, stone walls cracked and
crumbled, iron girders twisted and glass melted, and road surfaces burst
spontaneously into flames.
From 100 miles away on the French coast, German observers could see
the night sky light up. An American war reporter based in the city cabled
his office with the news: “The second Great Fire of London has begun.”
And perched high above Fleet Street, photographer Herbert Mason
captured the astonishing sight of the cathedral dome, surrounded by
devastation but still standing proud.
41. 41
David McCullough's new book based on concert with Mormon
Tabernacle Choir
By Hillel Italie (CP) –
NEW YORK, N.Y. — David McCullough's latest book project did
not begin with a president or a great war. It started with his
friendship with Larry H. Miller, the late owner of the Utah Jazz
basketball team.
"He was a phenomenal success in business and a success at
almost everything he touched. Here's a fellow who had little
education, who fairly late in life became interested in American
history and interested in how teaching could be improved, a
subject close to my heart," McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize
winning historian, said during a recent telephone interview from
his home in Maine.
"I helped him set up a summer seminar program for history
teachers in Utah, whereby it was made possible to spend several
weeks brushing up on history in general. I was invited to lecture
at several of the universities in Utah. One thing led to another.
Larry became quite ill with diabetes and one of his last wishes to
me was to take part in the Christmas concert with the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra."
42. 42
Miller died in February 2009. In December, McCullough was
among the guests at the annual Mormon Tabernacle
performance on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, where he
discussed two Christmas songs, "O Little Town of Bethlehem"
and "I'll Be Home for Christmas," and their ties to a Christmas
Eve ceremony at the White House in 1941, less than three weeks
after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. President Franklin
Roosevelt spoke briefly from the White House balcony about
celebrating a holiday during wartime, then introduced a surprise
guest, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had
secretly crossed the Atlantic Ocean to appear with Roosevelt.
"He wasn't even mentioned in the program," McCullough said
of Churchill. "He risked his life to be there."
McCullough's talk has just come out in book form, the 56-page
"In the Dark Streets Shineth," released by the Salt Lake-based
Shadow Mountain Publishing. "Dark Streets" includes a DVD
of McCullough's reading with the choir, photographs from the
1941 White House gathering and pictures of World War II
soldiers.
Known for such historical works as "Truman" and "John
Adams," McCullough has strong memories of the war and
personal attachments to both Christmas songs cited. "O Little
Town of Bethlehem" was a favourite of McCullough's father.
"I'll Be Home for Christmas," written during the war by Buck
Ram, Kim Gannon and Walter Kent and popularized by Bing
Crosby, "still melts me," McCullough says.
"I was still a boy in World War II. I was 11, 12 years old, but old
enough to be very aware of what was going on, reading
newspapers and knowing that older young men in our
neighbourhood were away," says the 77-year-old historian, a
Pittsburgh native. "There were stars in the window and all of
that, so it was a vivid part of my whole life."
43. 43
McCullough noted in his talk last year that Churchill had never
heard "Little Town of Bethlehem," a carol authored by
clergyman Phillips Brooks in the 1860s, until the morning
following his joint appearance with Roosevelt, when he attended
a Christmas service with the president. McCullough noted that
Churchill had declared on Christmas Eve that for the holidays
"each home throughout the English-speaking world should be a
brightly lighted island of happiness and peace."
His wishes unconsciously echoed "Little Town of Bethlehem"
and its line, "Yet in the dark streets shineth the everlasting
Light."
Link to an article of interest:
Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org)
Source URL (retrieved on Dec 16, 2010): http://nationalinterest.org/article/the-
importance-being-winston-4577
The Importance of Being Winston
December 16, 2010
John Lukacs
IN AUGUST 1942, Churchill and Stalin met for the first time. That event was the
least discussed and yet perhaps the most important among the many “summits”
of the Second World War.
The entire history of World War II proves the then-supreme importance of great national
leaders and of their relationships. How contrary this is to the widely accepted and trusted
idea: that history and politics and societies are governed by economic and “material
factors,” that the primary importance of individual persons belongs (if it ever belonged)
to earlier ages.
44. 44
Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny
(Documentary)
By RONNIE SCHEIB
A Moriah Films production in association with the Friends of
Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. Produced
by Rabbi Marvin Hier, Richard Trank. Co-producer, Katrin
Osmialowski. Directed, written by Richard Trank, from
original written material by Trank, Marvin Hier.
With: Winston S. Churchill, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Celia
Sandys, Martin Gilbert.
Richard Trank's old-fashioned docu "Winston Churchill:
Walking With Destiny" casts its titular icon as the sole
savior of Great Britain, Europe and the free world. Pic
benefits greatly from Ben Kingsley's brilliantly nuanced
reading of frankly bombastic narration, and from the
cavalcade of well-edited newsreel clips that propel its
hindsight-determined story arc. As produced by Moriah
Films, a division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, pic
has an implicit metaphor -- a vision of a lone embattled
country courageously prevailing against impossible
odds, underscored by frequent quotations from Israel's
first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion -- that should
attract Jewish auds on its Oct. 29 release.
To its credit, and perhaps to the disappointment of some, docu never
deviates from its central focus; its treatment of the Holocaust is always
secondary to its portrait of an unquestionably great statesman. Swell
footage of some 300,000 Allied troops under heavy bombardment on the
beaches of Dunkirk, improbably rescued by a motley British fleet of
battleships, destroyers, yachts and fishing trawlers, loses none of its pathos
over time; viewers can readily comprehend the galvanizing effect of this
Churchillian maneuver on England's resolve to stubbornly resist Nazi
rule.
45. 45
Friday, October 22, 2010 9:45 AM
From: John David
Olsen<jolsen@winstonchurchill.org>
ChurchillChat@googlegroups.com
We recently created the Churchill Centre Channel on you
tube. You can now find uploaded there a video that was
produced for the Centre some years ago narrated by Gregory
Peck. The video include a message from Lady Soames, The
Hon. Celia Sandys and Sir Martin Gilbert. You can find it
under "Uploads" and there you will find Part 1 and Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/user/ChurchillCentre
Introducing our newest Churchillian by-the-Bay, Genevieve
Esmé Mueller-- 4th generation member joining Great-
Grandmother, Grandmother, and her Parents.
46. 46
Our Next Event will be in Monterey at the Casa Munras:
Saturday, March 12th 2011 featuring two speakers: our
previous speaker David Ramsay in tandem with Steve Harper.
Here's some background:
The topic will be on Dunkirk starting at 10:00 with a
presentation by David Ramsay; as you know his father Sir
Bertram Ramsay was responsible for the evacuation of
Dunkirk. Following a break, Steve Harper who also has a
Dunkirk history and association will give his presentation
which will include pictures from the 2010 Dunkirk reunion
event. Per David Ramsay:
Steve’s grandfather, James Procter, who had been in the
merchant navy, served under my father at Dover in WWI
when he commanded firstly a monitor (a floating gun
platform) and then a destroyer and again in 1940 when he was
the mate in one of the merchant ships sent to Dunkirk to bring
off soldiers. He himself is a keen member of the Association of
Dunkirk Little Ships, who make the voyage from Ramsgate to
Dunkirk every fifth year on the anniversary of the evacuation,
most recently this year when we all met up in Dunkirk. He and
some colleagues are also involved in a project to put together a
film on Dunkirk which is currently at film script stage about
which he could tell you more than I could. I have read and
liked some early versions of the script, which recently won an
award at the Houston Film Festival
He is an executive with Aerojet which is based in Seattle and
which produces rocket fuels.
47. 47
Reservation and Menu selections will be sent next year.
Next Save the date: May 14th 2011 and the topic will be On
Becoming Churchill by Michael McMenamin Details next
issue.
CHURCHILL IN THE NEWS
Our Work is not yet done…
Herald staff
During the presentation of his new show, 94-year-old tango legend Horacio Salgán
recalled what happened when Bernard Shaw invited Winston Churchill to see his latest
play. Churchill turned down the offer saying that he couldn’t make it, yet Shaw insisted:
perhaps overwhelmed by Shaw’s perseverance, Churchill replied “Ok, I’ll do my best to
pop by, if I don’t die before. By Mariana Marcaletti
Neosho Daily News
Posted Oct 15, 2010 @ 01:05 PM
…Winston Churchill failed at every attempt to gain public
office until he became prime minister of Great Britain at age
62.
Fox News:
48. 48
Mara Liasson: Nancy Pelosi did two things for which she will go down in history: She
was an incredibly effective majority leader and Speaker when there was a opposition
president. And when she was in the majority she was the hammer that got through
President Obama’s agenda. However that’s a completely different role from what she
wants to do now. In which I think, she’s kind of like Winston Churchill, she’s
accomplished historic things for the Democrats and they should be sending her off in a
blaze of glory and adjusting for a new regime.
By STAFF REPORTER
Published: 17 Sep 2010
WARTIME leader Sir Winston Churchill really was in the hot seat as he
helped repel the Nazis — he had the world's first heated TOILET SEAT
installed in his plane.
At the end of World War II the former Prime Minister had the electric lavatory
seat built in the loo of his private Skymaster aircraft.
Historian Nick Loman says he was prompted to request the seat after a
particularly chilly trip back from Crimea.
So the plane's crew contacted the General Electric Company and asked if they
could provide "a hot seat for the Old Man".
Mr Loman, 65, from Devon, said the firm's designers used a wire heating element
to warm the seat which turned on automatically when the lid was lifted.
Mr Loman, who has collected Churchill memorabilia for 30 years, said: "Not
many people knew that Churchill had his own planes - three in all.
"They had electrical customisation, with a lavatory that was the first in the world
to have an electronically heated seat."
The loo seat was eventually lost on a mission to China when the plane was
damaged and abandoned on a Chinese scrap heap.
POSTED: 28/09/2010 08:28:55
Churchill rocks UK from beyond the grave!
ANI
London, October 03, 2010
release.
Released to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the battle, Reach For the Skies features the Central Band of
the RAF and some of Churchill's most rousing speeches from 1940.
49. 49
The Few and Their Finest Hour are set against music for the first time.
The album also includes war classics such as the Dambusters March, Battle of Britain March and
633 Squadron. It is dedicated to The Few.
It has even outsold other new albums by pop and rock legends Eric Clapton, David Bowie and Neil
Young.
"It is great that to a long list of Official Chart stars including Elvis, Madonna, Cliff and The Beatles,
we can now add Winston Churchill,” Sky News quoted Official Charts Company managing director
Martin Talbot as saying.
"It is also a tribute to the amazing sacrifices of our servicemen that the British public have bought this RAF album
in such large numbers," Talbot added.
Dickon Stainer, president of record label Decca, added: "Churchill's speeches are as potent today as they were
70 years ago when they motivated the RAF to one of the greatest victories in British history."
Churchill had
many qualities we admire
By Pam Kelley Reading Life Editor Sunday, Nov. 07, 2010
Sir Winston Churchill was strong, witty, quirky.
1940 AP FILE PHOTO
When the third volume of "The Last Lion" is published, it will join hundreds of books on
Winston Churchill, including more than 30 by Sir Martin Gilbert, his official biographer.
What makes Churchill so popular?
There is, of course, his role as Britain's prime minister during World War II. Many credit
Churchill, more than anyone, with saving the world from Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.
50. 50
"He stood up, took responsibility and motivated a world to feel they could overcome the
worst tyranny in history. Wow," says Craig Horn of Weddington, chair of the Churchill
Society of North Carolina.
Yet there's much more. Churchill was an Army officer, a war correspondent, a painter, a
brilliant orator, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.
"He's a real character, a joy to be in the company of," says Paul Reid, who is completing
the third volume of "The Last Lion," William Manchester's Churchill biography.
He was by turns rude, witty, quirky, anti-intellectual. He loved Gilbert and Sullivan
recordings, cigars and alcohol. He often drank a glass of wine with breakfast, followed
during the day by scotch and soda, port, champagne, brandy.
He was a horrific driver who believed people shouldn't be in his way. He was overweight,
didn't exercise and lived to 90. He died in 1965.
He snarled at subordinates but loved small children, whom he called "wollygogs."
And he was quotable. Churchill's words have filled multiple books. Among his most
famous were these, delivered to the House of Commons in 1940 after the evacuation of
British and French armies from Dunkirk, France, as the Germans advanced:
"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall
fight on the seas and 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!"
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/11/07/1818375/churchill-had-many-
qualities-we.html#ixzz14fEvhWii
Until next issue,
Happy New Year