Year: 2017

Nolan
Dunkirk 2017: avoiding computer imaging made it hard to convey the real dimensions of the operation (see photo below).
Nolan’s Dunkirk: “Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans”

Nolan’s Dunkirk: “Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans”

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(Reviewed for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.) Dunkirk, pro­duced by Christo­pher Nolan, sets out to por­tray the 1940 res­cue of the Allied armies from the clutch­es of Hitler’s Wehrma­cht in terms of courage, hero­ism, sur­vival, and a few exam­ples of cow­ardice. In that he suc­ceeds admirably. In terms of context—in con­vey­ing an under­stand­ing of what Dunkirk was about—he fails utterly.

Drama Sans Meaning

Mr. Nolan says con­text wasn’t the aim. Dunkirk is about com­mu­nal togeth­er­ness and uni­ver­sal good­ness. But that could be shown on any beach in any war in the last hun­dred years from Gal­lipoli to Nor­mandy to Inchon.…

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Tim
Moment of Triumph: Robert Hardy / Winston Churchill returns to the Admiralty, 1939.
“Tim”: In Memory of Timothy Robert Hardy, 1925-2017

“Tim”: In Memory of Timothy Robert Hardy, 1925-2017

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 “What Price Churchill?” Click here for the final moments of a momen­tous tele­vi­sion epic. “Churchill: The Wilder­ness Years” (1981) enshrined him for­ev­er as the great­est of “Churchills” in a sea of pale imi­ta­tions. Mar­tin Gilbert‘s close involve­ment with the scriptwrit­ers gave him truth and sub­stance. In a world of revi­sion­ist his­to­ry, flawed por­traits and over­played roles, it was accu­rate to a fault. Tim­o­thy Robert Hardy was the only actor to play her father for whom Lady Soames would brook no word of crit­i­cism. I’ll always remem­ber her greet­ing Tim with out­stretched arms: “Papa!”

Hardy at Hillsdale

I’m glad we were in time.…

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Indian
Indian infantrymen of the 7th Rajput Regiment on the Arakan front in Burma, 1944. (Wikimedia Commons)
Amnesia or Fantasy? The Indian Contribution in the Second World War

Amnesia or Fantasy? The Indian Contribution in the Second World War

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"The glorious heroism and martial qualities of the Indian troops...shine for ever in the annals of war…. Nearly three million Indians volunteered to serve, and by 1942 an Indian Army of one million was in being, and volunteers were coming in at the monthly rate of fifty thousand…. The response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers, makes a glorious final page in the story of our Indian Empire." Churchill

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invasion
“Operation Sea Lion” (www.YeovilHistory.info)
“Dunkirk” film: What if Hitler had Launched an Invasion?

“Dunkirk” film: What if Hitler had Launched an Invasion?

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Inva­sion in 1940? Tim­o­thy Egan pos­es a thought­ful ques­tion in The New York Times. What if Hitler, not hes­i­tat­ing after Dunkirk, had rapid­ly launched an inva­sion of Britain? In con­vey­ing the movie Dunkirk‘s impor­tance, Egan’s first para­graph is a much bet­ter intro­duc­tion than the film provides: For more than a thou­sand years, the tribes of Europe have stared into the gun-met­al-gray chop of the Eng­lish Chan­nel and thought of con­quest. “We have six cen­turies of insults to avenge,” said Napoleon. I was just there, on the same spring week when the great bedrag­gled scraps of the French and British armies were cor­nered for slaugh­ter by the Nazi war machine 77 years ago.…

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bottle
WSC with the ship’s hot water bottle, Blackie, HMS Prince of Wales, Argentia meeting with FDR, August 1941. Four months later Blackie survived the sinking of the battleship by Japanese aircraft off Malaya.
A Love of the Hot-Water Bottle: Wartime Anecdotes

A Love of the Hot-Water Bottle: Wartime Anecdotes

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Furry Hot-Water Bottles: Churchill was fond of cats, though in their nature, they didn't always return his affections. Nelson was a formidable grey tom which Churchill brought from the Admiralty when he moved to Downing Street in 1940. The aggressive Nelson soon chased away the previous resident, a holdover from Chamberlain, which the Churchill family had christened “Munich Mouser.” Nelson was congratulated.

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rascals
Officers in the Inter-Regimental Polo Tournament at Meerut, 1899. Churchill is standing second from right. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”: Churchill and India

“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”: Churchill and India

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“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”

“Pow­er will go to the hands of ras­cals, rogues, free­boot­ers; all Indi­an lead­ers will be of low cal­i­bre & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and sil­ly hearts. They will fight amongst them­selves for pow­er and India will be lost in polit­i­cal squabbles.”

The state­ment above is attrib­uted to Churchill. I can­not find it, as a speech or in a book. Although it is wide­ly and increas­ing­ly quot­ed in the Indi­an press and, giv­en what is hap­pen­ing, he seems to have been prophet­ic! —K.P., India

This post has the dis­tinc­tion of engen­der­ing the most com­ment among the 500 on my web­site.…

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Churchill Myth and Reality at Nashville, Oct. 14th

Churchill Myth and Reality at Nashville, Oct. 14th

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Nashville, Tenn., October 2017

The Churchill Soci­ety of Ten­nessee held its autumn ban­quet pro­gram in Nashville on the evening of Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 14th. Our guest speak­er, Richard M. Lang­worth, CBE dis­cussed “Win­ston Churchill: Cur­rent Con­tentions.” Some 200 mem­bers and friends attended.

Resid­ing in Moul­ton­bor­ough, New Hamp­shire and Eleuthera, Bahamas, Lang­worth is a writer and pub­lish­er of works on Win­ston S. Churchill and auto­mo­tive his­to­ry. His newest book is Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What He Actu­al­ly Did and Said (McFar­land, August).

Churchill Works

Lang­worth is also author or edi­tor of A Connoisseur’s Guide to the Books of Sir Win­ston Churchill, Churchill in His Own Words, Churchill By Him­self and nine oth­er books about Churchill.…

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Dunkirk
Scene from “Dunkirk.” (Warner Brothers)
Is the Movie “Dunkirk” Dumbed Down?

Is the Movie “Dunkirk” Dumbed Down?

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Reviews of Christo­pher Nolan’s new film on Dunkirk, which take quite oppo­site points of view.

Dunkirk without Context

Dorothy Rabi­nowitz, in The Wall Street Jour­nal, pro­claims “the dumb­ing down of Dunkirk.” Mr. Nolan, she writes:

…con­sid­ers Dunkirk “a uni­ver­sal story…about com­mu­nal hero­ism.” Which explains why this is—despite its impres­sive cin­e­matog­ra­phy, its mov­ing por­trait of suf­fer­ing troops and their rescuers—a Dunkirk flat­tened out, dis­con­nect­ed from the spir­it of its time, from any sense even of the par­tic­u­lar mighty ene­my with which Eng­land was at war.

When an event in his­to­ry has become, in the mind of a writer, “uni­ver­sal” it’s a tip-off.…

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Duke
Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
Lady Randolph & Winston Churchill on Blenheim

Lady Randolph & Winston Churchill on Blenheim

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I am asked what Churchill wrote and thought about his birth­place, Blenheim Palace, Wood­stock, Oxford­shire. The first words I recall are those of his moth­er Jen­nie: “with par­don­able pride.” They occur ear­ly in The Rem­i­nis­cences of Lady Ran­dolph Churchill (1908). I always loved her descrip­tion. One regrets the decline of peo­ple who can write like Jen­nie. She ranked with Lady Diana Coop­er, and I think her son’s writ­ing tal­ent was inher­it­ed from her.…

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Congress
Churchill at the Joint Session, 19 May 1943. (Library of Congress)
Churchill’s 1943 Speech to Congress

Churchill’s 1943 Speech to Congress

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A friend writes ask­ing for the audio of Churchill’s sec­ond of three speech­es to Con­gress, and pos­es a ques­tion: “Roo­sevelt attend­ed nei­ther the 1941 nor 1943 speech­es. Why not?”

Click here for clear audio of the 50-minute speech.

Pres­i­dents nev­er attend speech­es to Con­gress by for­eign heads of state or gov­ern­ment. Part of this is cer­tain­ly cour­tesy, so as not to steal focus from the guest. In a deep­er sense, it is an asser­tion of the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers between Con­gress and the Exec­u­tive. A sim­i­lar tra­di­tion in Britain is when the House of Com­mons slams the door on Black Rod, when he sum­mons Mem­bers to the House of Lords to hear the Queen’s Speech.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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