Year: 2020

Harrington Le Mans: Sunbeam’s Lovely Gran Turismo

Harrington Le Mans: Sunbeam’s Lovely Gran Turismo

Moss on Sunbeams

Sun­beam-Tal­bot had a good com­pe­ti­tion pedi­gree before the Sec­ond World War. But the firm was bought by the Rootes Group in 1935, and not much hap­pened for awhile. In 1952, Stir­ling Moss fin­ished sec­ond in a Sun­beam-Tal­bot 90 in the Monte Car­lo Rally—the high point that decade. “You wouldn’t believe how slow my Sun­beams were,” Sir Stir­ling lat­er told my friend, motor­ing writer Gra­ham Rob­son. “Yes I would!” Gra­ham replied.

Arrival of the Sun­beam Alpine sports car in 1959 made com­pe­ti­tion worth con­sid­er­ing. Rootes com­pe­ti­tions man­ag­er Nor­man Gar­rad had the idea that they could win some­thing at the clas­sic Twen­ty-four Hours of Le Mans endurance race.…

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Hitler’s Sputtering Austrian Anschluss: Opportunity Missed?

Hitler’s Sputtering Austrian Anschluss: Opportunity Missed?

Excerpt­ed from “Hitler’s ‘Tet Offen­sive’: Churchill and the Aus­tri­an Anschluss, 1938″ for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. If  you wish to read the whole thing full-strength, with more illus­tra­tions and end­notes, click here.

Bet­ter yet, join 60,000 read­ers of Hills­dale essays by the world’s best Churchill his­to­ri­ans by sub­scrib­ing. You will receive reg­u­lar notices (“Week­ly Win­stons”) of new arti­cles as pub­lished. Sim­ply vis­it https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/, scroll to bot­tom, and fill in your email in the box enti­tled “Stay in touch with us.” Your email remains strict­ly pri­vate and is nev­er sold to pur­vey­ors, sales­per­sons, auc­tion hous­es, or Things that go Bump in the Night.…

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“Casablanca,” Admiral Darlan, and Rick’s Letters of Transit

“Casablanca,” Admiral Darlan, and Rick’s Letters of Transit

"Casablanca's" famous Letters of Transit were signed by General Maxime Weygand, not de Gaulle and not Darlan. This is confirmed by watching the Peter Lorre episode on YouTube. Lorres's character can clearly be heard saying "General Weygand." There is no evidence that a subtitle ever appeared substituting the names of Darlan or de Gaulle for American audiences. (Thanks to reader James Overmeyer for pointing this out.

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Winston S. Churchill’s Three Best War Books (Excerpt)

Winston S. Churchill’s Three Best War Books (Excerpt)

“Three Out­stand­ing War Books” is Excerpt­ed from an essay for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Why set­tle for the excerpt when you can read the whole thing full-strength? Click here.

Bet­ter yet, join 60,000 read­ers of Hills­dale essays by the world’s best Churchill his­to­ri­ans by sub­scrib­ing. You will receive reg­u­lar notices (“Week­ly Win­stons”) of new arti­cles as pub­lished. Sim­ply vis­it https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/, scroll to bot­tom, and fill in your email in the box enti­tled “Stay in touch with us.” (Your email remains strict­ly pri­vate and is nev­er sold to pur­vey­ors, sales­per­sons, auc­tion hous­es, or Things that go Bump in the Night.)…

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He Never Doubted Clouds Would Break: John H. Mather 1943-2020

He Never Doubted Clouds Would Break: John H. Mather 1943-2020

“Why are you buy­ing expen­sive pills over the counter?” asked Dr. John Math­er. We were in an ele­va­tor dur­ing a 2001 Churchill Con­fer­ence. “Don’t you have an hon­or­able dis­charge from the Coast Guard?” He was then a Com­man­der in the U.S. Pub­lic Health Ser­vice and Assis­tant Inspec­tor Gen­er­al at the Veteran’s Admin­is­tra­tion. I’d nev­er thought my four years with the USCG wor­thy of any­thing spe­cial, but I did have my DD-214. Math­er said I was enti­tled: “We issue cheap pills.”

In the lift with us was Luce Churchill, mar­ried to Sir Winston’s grand­son.…

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Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

Pretend Indians

We all know how a cer­tain Amer­i­can politi­cian was nick­named “Poc­a­hon­tas,” years after claim­ing to be, with­out foun­da­tion, a native Amer­i­can. This has often been tried. Some­times, how­ev­er, it back­fires. “A friend got his son into a bet­ter pub­lic school by declar­ing he was trib­al,” a col­league writes. “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, they didn’t tell the boy, who was then invit­ed to an after-school meet­ing for those inter­est­ed in Indi­ans. My friend attempt­ed to cor­rect him­self, but he found that in that city, you can change your racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion only once.” (Who writes these rules?)

Dur­ing a recent encounter with the med­ical world I received a ques­tion­naire with the inevitable ques­tion, “Race.”…

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Churchll’s “Aryan Stock” Quotation: Principles, Facts and Heresies

Churchll’s “Aryan Stock” Quotation: Principles, Facts and Heresies

An essay on Churchill’s 146th birthday.  “The Aryan stock is bound to triumph”

Suf­fer­ers from “Churchill Derange­ment Syn­drome” hold “Aryan stock” high among Win­ston Churchill’s appalling utter­ances. The remark rose again in cor­re­spon­dence with a jour­nal­ist. I dug out for him the back­ground of that remark, but his report omit­ted it. Out of con­text the quote is mis­lead­ing, so I guess that’s just as well. But rather than write off sev­er­al hours’ research, the facts might here serve to advance reality.

Wales in its Welsh Wis­dom is think­ing of mov­ing stat­ues of Churchill, Nel­son and Gand­hi to a muse­um, the Dai­ly Tele­graph informs us.…

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Churchill on Joan of Arc: Joan as an Agent of Brexit? Maybe not…

Churchill on Joan of Arc: Joan as an Agent of Brexit? Maybe not…

Excerpt­ed from “Angel of Deliv­er­ance: Churchill’s Trib­utes to Joan of Arc,” pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete arti­cle with end­notes and added illus­tra­tions, click here.

“Her gleaming, mystic figure…”

Churchill waxed elo­quent on Joan of Arc in 1938. His words would like­ly not pass with today’s min­ders of Polit­i­cal Correctness:

We see her gleam­ing, mys­tic fig­ure in the midst of the pikes and arrows, and it need­ed not her mar­tyr­dom to win her can­on­iza­tion as a saint not only from the Pope but from the mod­ern world.…

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Old Jags & Allards: The Whimsy and Fun of Dick O’Kane

Old Jags & Allards: The Whimsy and Fun of Dick O’Kane

O'Kane called the Mark IV owners manual a "Monument to the Quaint Assumption.... It assumed you had all sorts of peculiar doodads lying around." The section on brake adjustment begins: "Obtain a steel disc having a circumference of 6.749 inches and being .388 inches in thickness, with a .435-inch square opening offset one-half inch from the centre of the disc..."

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Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Jour­nal­ist Leo McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee is a deft analy­sis of a polit­i­cal odd cou­ple who led Britain’s Sec­ond World War coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Now, eighty years since the death of Neville Cham­ber­lain, he has pub­lished an excel­lent appraisal in The Spec­ta­tor. Churchill’s pre­de­ces­sor as Prime Min­is­ter, Cham­ber­lain nego­ti­at­ed the 1938 Munich agree­ment. “Peace for our time,” he famous­ly referred to it.  In the end, he bought the world peace for a time.

Mr. McK­instry is right to regret that Cham­ber­lain has been rough­ly han­dled by his­to­ry. “The real­i­ty is that in the late 1930s Chamberlain’s approach was a ratio­nal one,” he writes.…

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