5 War Memos by Churchill December 25, 2012
Posted by cantueso in Churchill, history, WWII.trackback
They show how Churchill micro-managed his war.
He tried to have all of it under his own personal control:
He monitored supply dates and delays, the logistics, each of the ships, the air force, the technology and what the Germans were doing; the maps, the allies, the supposedly neutral countries, US public opinion, raw materials, air raids, import stats, food stats.
The generals may have thought he was sort of a backseat driver.
The war memos are in the annexes of Churchill’s History of WWII
Below is the famous portrait photo taken by Karsh. It comes with its story at http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/
‘… 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 …’
…..
One very sad moment in his life is that they cracked the German code about a city to be bombed and he did not evacuate the city and let the people get killed or the Germans would have known Brits had cracked their communication code. He suffered greatly for having to make such a terrible decision.
I know. He wrote about those things. There were quite a few of that kind in WW2. Maybe the most difficult one was when “the enemy” (Japanese?) advanced towards some fort (Singapore?). He had to tell the troups who were stationed there that they had to die fighting to delay the enemy’s advance so that the next in line could get ready to defend themselves.
The problem is that he himself was fearless. As a young man he was extremely fit and enjoyed risk, was thrilled by it, lived for it, told his men to stay back, he would go first.
I think he believed vaguely in “destiny” and may have reasoned that if he was destined to die, so be it. He had never read a book until he was 21, when he decided to ask his mom to buy him “all the important books” and send them to him in India where he was stationed.