2019 - Page 7 of 7 - Richard M. Langworth

Bengal Famine: The Hottest of Churchill Debates

13 January 2019 Comments 10 Comments

Bengal 1943-44

Most popular by far: On both the Hillsdale College Churchill Project website and this one, more reader comment is engendered over Churchill’s role in the 1943 Bengal Famine than any other subject. A lot of it, pro and con, is by Indians themselves. This is understandable. The food shortage that ravaged Bengal in 1943-44 was the greatest humanitarian crisis in India’s history. Up to three million people died—5% of the province’s population. Proportionally, think 16 million Americans.

The book that started the controversy, Churchill’s Secret War, is now eight years old.…

Athens 1944: Not Churchill’s Finest Hour? Hmm….

4 January 2019 Comments 0 Comments

Question:

A r eader writes: “Rather late in the day, I have been reading The Spectator (UK) Christmas Special dated 15/21/29 December 2018. Page 28 refers to one Ronnie Boyd, who had been a teenage Ordinary Seaman aboard HMS Ajax in December 1944, when Winston Churchill arrived in Athens to try to end the ongoing civil war.

“British forces ‘helped put down, with considerable force of arms, a perceived partisan/communist uprising—the so-called Battle of Athens, or the Dekemvriana in Greece,’ the article states. There follows the extraordinary statement ‘Not Winston Churchill’s Finest Hour, it has to be said.’…