Month: December 2020

Harrington
A fanciful Sunbeam brochure shows the 1962 Harrington as raced at Le Mans that year.
Harrington Le Mans: Sunbeam’s Lovely Gran Turismo

Harrington Le Mans: Sunbeam’s Lovely Gran Turismo

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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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Anschluss
“Sind wir auf dem richtigen Weg nach Wien?” Road map in hand, Hitler arrives at the Austrian border. The Wehrmacht’s breakdowns of men and equipment soon had him infuriated. Can’t help thinking, if that fellow saluting had been holding a pistol, how history might have changed. (H. Blair Howell, Creative Commons)
Hitler’s Sputtering Austrian Anschluss: Opportunity Missed?

Hitler’s Sputtering Austrian Anschluss: Opportunity Missed?

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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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Darlan
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” —Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart. right) in “Casablanca,” with Henreid, Bergman and Rains, 1942. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
“Casablanca,” Admiral Darlan, and Rick’s Letters of Transit

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

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"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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war books
“I asked him what he had thought when the 21st Lancers had gone headlong into a gully filled with quite unexpected and extremely bad-tempered Dervishes. He said, ‘It was very stimulating, but I did think: Suppose there is a spoil-sport in the hole with a machine gun?'” —Anthony Montague Browne. The Battle of Omdurman, 2 September 1898. Oil on canvas by William Barnes Wollen, 1857-1936. (Walker Art Gallery, Wikimedia Commons)
Winston S. Churchill’s Three Best War Books (Excerpt)

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

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“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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Mather
“With his only grandchild Maggie Sue. She is 9 now, but it shows the joy they had in each other.” —Alexandra Mather Bourne
He Never Doubted Clouds Would Break: John H. Mather 1943-2020

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

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“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
“Pocahontas Saves the Life of Captain John Smith,” painting by Johann Friedrich Engel, 1921. (Wikimedia Commons)
Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

Pocahontas: Randolph Churchill’s Jibe at the Race Question

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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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