Admiral Lord Fisher Archives - Richard M. Langworth

OMG — “Lord Fisher comes aboard.” Cartoon on Churchill’s reappointment of retired Admiral Fisher as First Sea Lord shortly after the start of the First World War. (Cartoon by F.H. Townsend in Punch, public domain)

OMG: Churchillian Origins of the Popular Texters’ Phrase

31 May 2023 Comments 0 Comments

Yes, credit OMG to Admiral Fisher. He had a flamboyant writing style, often signing his letters to Churchill, “Yours till a cinder” or "Yours till Hell freezes over." Many other other loquacious salutations made his lexicon of salubrious sign-offs. Given his sudden resignation and disappearance from the Admiralty in May 1915, they were rather less than sincere.

Dardanelles-Gallipoli Centenary

25 April 2015 Comments 0 Comments

Anzac Day, April 25th, marks the Centenary of the landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula, in the end a tragic failure, with heavy losses of British, Australian and New Zealand life. Churchill usually comes in for (and deserves) some of the blame, but rarely does everybody “get it right.” Such is a piece in Forbes: “Winston Churchill’s Terrible Leadership Failure.”

This piece gets several facts wrong and oversimplifies to the point of confusion. Churchill’s failure was over the Dardanelles naval attack of 18 March 1915; the landings on Gallipoli came in late April, after the naval attack had failed, and were not directed by him.…