Authors: Winston Churchill
Never Give In! (69 page)
I could go on for a very long time about your guest. There is no doubt whatever that we have among us today one of the greatest Americans who have reached our shores and dwelt a considerable time among us. We honour him very much for his invariable considerations of the British point of view, for his impartial treatment of all the officers under his command. I know he will tell you when he rises that he never gave an order to a British officer which he could not immediately obey.
We also have made our contribution to the battles on the Continent, and I am quite sure that the influence he will wield in the world will be one always of bringing our countries together in the much more difficult task of peace, in the same way as he brought them together in the grim and awful cataclysm of war. I have had personal acquaintance with him now for three years. It is not much, but three years of this sort may seem five-and-twenty. I feel we have here a great creative, constructive and combining genius, one from our sister nation across the ocean, one who will never speak evil but will always cherish his contact with the British people, and to whom I feel we should at this moment give the most cordial testimony in our power of our admiration, of our affection, and of our heartfelt good wishes for everything that may happen to him in the future.
21 July 1945
Opening of the ‘Winston Club’ for British Troops, Berlin
Churchill felt a close bond with Britain’s Desert Army. The concept of defeating the enemy in the deserts of North Africa, while building up their strength and battle experience until strong enough to embark on the Liberation of Europe, had been his and he had visited them on many occasions along their path to victory.
This morning’s parade brings back to my mind a great many moving incidents of these last long, fierce years. Now you are here in Berlin, and I find you established in this great centre which, as a volcano, erupted smoke and fire all over Europe. Twice in our generation as in bygone times the German fury has been unleashed on her neighbours. . . .
I have only one more word to say to the Desert Rats. You were the first to begin.
The 11th Hussars were in action in the Desert in 1940, and ever since you have kept marching steadily forward on the long road to Victory: through so many countries and changing scenes you have marched and fought your way.
I am unable to speak without emotion. Dear Desert Rats, may your glory ever shine. May your laurels never fade. May the memory of this glorious pilgrimage which you have made from Alamein to the Baltic and Berlin never die. A march – as far as my reading of history leads me to believe – unsurpassed in the whole story of war.
May fathers long tell their children the tale. May you all feel that through following your great ancestors you have accomplished something which has done good to the whole world, which has raised the honour of your country and of which every man has the right to feel proud.
26 July 1945
No. 10 Downing Street
On 25 July Churchill interrupted his participation in the Potsdam Conference outside Berlin, bidding farewell to President Truman and Marshal Stalin, to return to London for the announcement of the election results, which Conservative Party managers confidently believed would return the Conservative Party with a substantial majority. As he recounts in
Triumph and Tragedy:
‘Just before dawn I woke suddenly with a sharp stab of almost physical pain. A hitherto subconscious conviction that we were beaten broke forth and dominated my mind. . . . By noon it was clear that the Socialists would have a majority. At luncheon my wife said to me: “It may well be a blessing in disguise.” I replied, “At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.” . . . At seven o’clock therefore, having asked for an audience, I drove to the Palace, tendered my resignation to the King, and advised His Majesty to send for Mr Attlee.’ The Socialists had won a landslide victory and Churchill issued the following short but dignified statement.
The decision of the British people has been recorded in the votes counted today. I have therefore laid down the charge which was placed upon me in darker times. I regret that I have not been permitted to finish the work against Japan. For this, however, all plans and preparations have been made, and the results may come much quicker than we have hitherto been entitled to expect. Immense responsibilities abroad and at home fall upon the new Government, and we must all hope that they will be successful in bearing them.
It only remains for me to express to the British people, for whom I have acted in these perilous years, my profound gratitude for the unflinching, unswerving support which they have given me during my task, and for the many expressions of kindness which they have shown towards their servant.
The verdict of the British electorate in the summer of 1945 – in the very hour of victory – came as a rude shock to Churchill. But he took the rebuff stoically and set about restoring his strength, his finances and his political fortunes with zest and determination.
With his seminal ‘Iron Curtain’ speech at Fulton in 1946, warning that the West’s erstwhile ally, Russia, had become her sworn enemy, and in his Zurich address, urging France to extend the hand of friendship to a defeated Germany to rebuild the European family, he set the agenda for the post-war years.
Then in 1951, against all the odds, after six years as Leader of the Opposition, he led the Conservative Party to victory, returning to office as Prime Minister, once again, at the age of 76. In 1955, soon after his 80th birthday, he retired from office in a blaze of glory and public acclaim. But even in his sunset years he was a regular attender in Parliament, sitting in his corner seat below the gangway. As the shadows lengthened, few things gave him greater pleasure than the decision of President Kennedy and the United States Congress to confer upon him Honorary Citizenship of the United States in gratitude for the part he had played in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Liberation of Europe. His death on 22 January 1965, at the age of 90, marked the passing of an era for all who had served under his leadership in the cause of freedom.
6 August 1945
No.
10 Downing Street
On 6 August, President Truman announced that American and British scientists had developed an atomic bomb and that the first had that day been dropped on Hiroshima. Mr Attlee then issued the following statement prepared by Churchill before he left office.
By the year 1939 it had become widely recognised among scientists of many nations that the release of energy by atomic fission was a possibility. The problems which remained to be solved before this possibility could be turned into practical achievement were, however, manifold and immense; and few scientists would at that time have ventured to predict that an atomic bomb could be ready for use by 1945. Nevertheless, the potentialities of the project were so great that His Majesty’s Government thought it right that research should be carried on in spite of the many competing claims on our scientific manpower. . . .
On October 11, 1941, President Roosevelt sent me a letter suggesting that any extended efforts on this important matter might usefully be co-ordinated, or even jointly conducted. Accordingly, all British and American efforts were joined, and a number of British scientists concerned proceeded to the United States. Apart from these contacts, complete secrecy guarded all these activities, and no single person was informed whose work was not indispensable to progress.
By the summer of 1942 this expanded programme of research had confirmed with surer and broader foundations the promising forecasts which had been made a year earlier, and the time had come when a decision must be made whether or not to proceed with the construction of large-scale production plants. Meanwhile it had become apparent from the preliminary experiments that these plants would have to be on something like the vast scale described in the American statements which have been published today.
Great Britain at this period was fully extended in war production, and we could not afford such grave interference with the current munitions programmes on which our warlike operations depended. Moreover, Great Britain was within easy range of German bombers, and the risk of raiders from the sea or air could not be ignored. The United States, however, where parallel or similar progress had been made, was free from these dangers. The decision was therefore taken to build the full-scale production plants in America.
In the United States the erection of the immense plants was placed under the responsibility of Mr Stimson, United States Secretary of War, and the American Army Administration, whose wonderful work and marvellous secrecy cannot be sufficiently admired. The main practical effort and virtually the whole of its prodigious cost now fell upon the United States authorities, who were assisted by a number of British scientists. The relationship of the British and American contributions was regulated by discussion between the late President Roosevelt and myself, and a combined policy committee was set up. . . .
By God’s mercy British and American science outpaced all German efforts. These were on a considerable scale, but far behind. The possession of these powers by the Germans at any time might have altered the result of the war, and profound anxiety was felt by those who were informed. Every effort was made by our Intelligence Service and by the Air Force to locate in Germany anything resembling the plants which were being created in the United States. In the winter of 1942–43 most gallant attacks were made in Norway on two occasions by small parties of volunteers from the British Commandos and Norwegian forces, at very heavy loss of life, upon stores of what is called ‘heavy water’, an element in one of the possible processes. The second of these two attacks was completely successful.
The whole burden of execution, including the setting-up of the plants and many technical processes connected therewith in the practical sphere, constitutes one of the greatest triumphs of American – or indeed human – genius of which there is record. Moreover, the decision to make these enormous expenditures upon a project which, however hopefully established by American and British research, remained nevertheless a heart-shaking risk, stands to the everlasting honour of President Roosevelt and his advisers.
It is now for Japan to realise, in the glare of the first atomic bomb which has smitten her, what the consequences will be of an indefinite continuance of this terrible means of maintaining a rule of law in the world.
This revelation of the secrets of nature, long mercifully withheld from man, should arouse the most solemn reflections in the mind and conscience of every human being capable of comprehension. We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce to peace among the nations, and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe they may become a perennial fountain of world prosperity.
SURRENDER OF JAPAN: ‘THE TRUE GLORY’
15 August 1945
House of Commons
On 9 August the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. On 14 August Japan surrendered. One of the key factors in Churchill’s political defeat had been the war-weariness of British troops after five long years of war. It was assumed that the defeat of Japan would take one to two years and cost one to two million Allied casualties. Many wanted to get home and reckoned that would happen quicker under the Socialists. In the event, Japan surrendered within a month of the General Election.
This crowning deliverance from the long and anxious years of danger and carnage should rightly be celebrated by Parliament in accordance with custom and tradition. The King is the embodiment of the national will, and his public acts involve all the might and power not only of the people of this famous Island but of the whole British Commonwealth and Empire. The good cause for which His Majesty has contended commanded the ardent fidelity of all his subjects spread over one-fifth of the surface of the habitable globe. That cause has now been carried to complete success. Total war has ended in absolute victory.
