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Re: What the papers say.
From my perspective the media will only ever publish what they consider will sell copy, it may not be all untrue but it will certainly be spun to suit their own thinking.
There have been many things said a bout Churchill, if all true the some good some bad.
The Gallipoli disaster was mainly of his making and many never forgave him for that.
When the War Rooms in Whitehall were opened after the compulsory 30 year wait those that went in were very suprised to find papers of his with plans for the war still to be going in 1960.
Good mate of mine did his time as an apprentice chef with three years at the London Savoy hotel and one in a top French hotel.
He told me the wingers in the Savoy Grill hated it when Churchill came in for lunch. He would order a steak, a very large Brandy and a Cigar.
Would take one bite from the steak, drink copious amounts of Brandy and very often fall asleep at the table the cigar burning the cloth.
But as he was seen as the nations hero no one would dare to stop him.
Maybe the man for the time, as they say cometh the hour, cometh the man.
But in the North of UK he was not that popular, closure of some ship yards did him ho favors.
After the war he was on a grain to Carlise to make a speech, the train was stopped when a bomb, home made not German, was found on the line, he went back to London.
I haver no feelings either way to him, but reading of some of his actions and failures makes good reading.
Bloody Krauts, the morning I was born they dropped a bomb on the local railway station only a kilometer down from the hospital, not the best way to begin life.
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Re: What the papers say.
#21 John last line, you began life 9 months earlier.! Having been bombed out in three different cities I probably have Hitler to thank for giving me a taste for travel, or as my mother would have said a taste for trouble, as I got blamed for everything!
As for Churchill falling asleep at the lunch table, I've known many who've done that and they didn't put in the hours or have the responsibility he did, a hole in a tablecloth was a small price to pay, you can bet your bottom dollar the Savoy didn't lose any money over it
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Re: What the papers say.
Overlooked by the majority of historians, the sacrifice of Britain’s civilian fourth service in 1939-1945 has faded, sadly, from the national consciousness, although high tribute was paid to it when memories were clearer. During a speech in London in 1950, Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, hero of the climactic Battle of El Alamein in October 1942, said, “Victory was won in Hitler’s war not only by the courage and skill of the fighting services, but also by the quality of the ships and men of the Merchant Navy who transported us to our overseas bases and battlefronts, and maintained us there till the job was done.”
Prime Minister Churchill wrote, “We never call on the officers and men of the Merchant Navy in vain,” and during his victory broadcast in May 1945 he declared, “My friends, when our minds turn to the Northwestern Approaches, we will not forget the devotion of our merchant seamen … so rarely mentioned in the headlines.”
On October 30, 1945, Parliament carried a resolution: “That the thanks of this house be accorded to the officers and men of the Merchant Navy for the steadfastness with which they have maintained our stocks of food and materials; for their services in transporting men and munitions to all the battles over all the seas, and for the gallantry with which, though a civilian service, they met and fought the constant attacks of the enemy.”
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Re: What the papers say.
Ivan, there is no doubt he was the man for the time and if you look at the others available at the time you see more so.
Chamberlain would have sold us down the river, but I think it was the appearance of USA which made life better for UK in the long run.
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Re: What the papers say.
#24 without a doubt the USA helped and lets face it without them Australia would now be speaking Japanese and there wouldn't have been any £10 Poms and we (the UK) would have been fluent in German, as would Canada, and as Roosevelt once said, the Germans are not getting a foothold in Canada (if the UK fell) as there were too many ethnic and ancestral Germans in the USA who may have supported the Nazi Party, so it was self interest as well as Pearl Harbour that brought the USA into the war, and not as upholders of the free world as they liked to portray themselves
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Re: What the papers say.
The Germans had a foot hold in the Chanel Islands, Jersey, but they never ventured to UK from there.
Would have thought it would have been a point from where an incision could have been organized.
But then again maybe that was not the way they wanted to enter the UK>