Per the previous post, I append for reader comment the contents of my next book, Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What Churchill Stood For.

I have written on most of these matters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowledge and cross-reference the work of experts who know far more than I, particularly in the fields of genealogy and medicine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “contact” page.

The historian David Stafford wrote: “Myth only develops and takes hold when the time is right, and the climate has long been ripe for the emergence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a totalitarian foe and smote an evil empire.”

Churchill myth is born both of exaggeration and criticism, created either to glorify the record or to belabor it. The former I suppose is somewhat less harmful, born of ignorance. The latter obfuscate the record and distract us from the truth, sometimes intentionally.

Paul Addison wrote, “Paradoxically, I have always thought it diminishes Churchill to regard him as superhuman,” Yet Professor Addison has no doubt about Churchill’s greatness. The most memorable words on that subject were by Churchill’s official biographer, the late Sir Martin Gilbert:

In every sphere of human endeavour, Churchill foresaw the dangers and potential for evil. Many of those dangers are our dangers today. Some writers portray him as a figure of the past, an anachronism, a grotesque. In doing so, it is they who are the losers, for he was a man of quality: a good guide for the generations now reaching adulthood.

The aim of this book is to skewer the most popular allegations about Churchill, to offer readers what he really thought and did, sometimes about matters that are still on our minds today—for as Twain wrote, history never repeats; but sometimes it rhymes.

Youth: Lady Randolph’s indiscretions…The parentage of Jack Churchill…The Menace of Education….The death of Lord Randolph…Women’s Suffrage.

Young Parliamentarian: The loss of  the Titanic…The unpleasantness on Sidney Street…”The sullen feet of marching men in Tonypandy“…Irish independence.

World War I: Warmonger image, peacemaker reality…Defense of Antwerp…Dardanelles and Gallipoli…Sinking the Lusitania…Chemical warfare...America’s involvement in the Great War.

Between the World Wars: “Taking more out of alcohol”…“The foul baboonery of Bolshevism”…Trial by Jewry…”Half-Naked Fakir“…”The Truth About Hitler.”

World War II: Broadcasting the war speeches…Refugees and enemy aliens…Torture as tool or terror…Bombing of Coventry…Pearl Harbor…The Holocaust…Famine in Bengal…Destruction of Monte Cassino…Overtures to Mussolini…Feeding occupied Europe…Firebombing Dresden.

Postwar Years: The fate of Eastern Europe…Nuking the Soviets…The Conservative Party…”Only to have accomplished nothing in the end.”

Appendix: “Things That Go Bump in the Night” (so far-fetched that they defy categorizing). Converting to Islam…A life twice-saved by Alexander Fleming...Engineering the Wall Street Crash…The myths of the Black Dog and an unhappy marriage.

There certainly have been a variety of different accounts, even supposedly by eyewitnesses, that contradict each other as to how much Winston Churchill had learned from the Boniface (later Ultra) decoders as to the main target for the German “Moonlight Sonata” air raid on the Midlands in November 1940, and when did he ascertain it. Whether he mistook it for a feint, with London the actual target, of whether he knew of Coventry and left it to its fate rather than compromise Britain’s ability to crack the German Enigma codes seems to depend on one’s feelings toward Churchill.…

Not quite robust enough. Churchill neither “mistook” Coventry for a feint, nor left Coventry to its fate. To believe he “let Coventry burn” does not depend on your “feelings toward Churchill.” It depends on whether you know the facts.

The facts are that Churchill, leaving for the country that night, read a despatch in his car. It predicted a heavy raid upon London, not Coventry. The PM determined not to spend the night in safety while the capital was under attack. He turned around and went back to Downing Street. Also, when the truth was known, RAF fighters were mustered to defend Coventry. Unfortunately, it was too little and too late.

More WW2 Myths

The largest section of Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality examines World War II: the leading source of Churchill myths. Did an actor deliver his broadcasts? Was Coventry bombed to protect his sources of intelligence? Was Churchill against the Second Front in France? Did he exacerbate the Bengal famine, destroy Monte Cassino abbey, refuse to bomb Auschwitz or feed the oppressed in occupied Europe? No. But no World War II canard is more persistent than the story that Churchill firebombed Dresden in hatred and revenge for Germany’s bombing of Coventry. That one has been around for over fifty years.

See also “Nashville (6) The Myth of Dresden and ‘Revenge Firebombing.'”