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By Root 101 0

sea and air. Despite every effort being made to increase war production, Churchill knew that it was only through a massive contribution by the United States to every facet of Britain’s war-making arsenal that Britain could remain effectively at war. From the first to the last days of his premiership, the link to the United States was central to Churchill’s war policy. He spent more time and energy in seeking to obtain help from the United States than in any other endeavour. In the First World War, as Minister of Munitions, he had seen at first hand how decisive the arrival of American troops on the Western Front had been. From July 1917 to November 1918 he had worked in tandem with his American opposite number, Bernard Baruch, to secure the raw materials needed to prosecute the war to victory. In the interwar years he had written articles in the American press and broadcast to the United States across the Atlantic, urging Americans to realize that the conflict in Europe between democracy and dictatorship was also their conflict. While he reluctantly accepted that the United States would remain neutral in 1940, he also understood that he had the power to encourage Roosevelt to give Britain the military, naval and air supplies without which the future was bleak.

The British public knew almost nothing of this aspect of Churchill’s war leadership. His telegrams to Roosevelt, some 1,300 in all, dealing with every aspect of war strategy and planning, were of the utmost secrecy. Many of the decisions he and Roosevelt reached were equally secret. Without them, Britain’s danger would have been far greater. Every aspect of Britain’s war-making capacity was affected and enhanced by the American contribution. At the naval battle of Taranto in November 1940, Britain’s first major victory over the Italians, the location of the Italian fleet had been a triumph of aerial reconnaissance carried out by a squadron of Glenn Martin photographic reconnaissance aircraft newly arrived in Malta from the United States.

The American dimension was to continue to be central to Churchill’s leadership after the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941. Four days after Pearl Harbor, Hitler made his extraordinary mistake— fatal to him in the long run—of declaring war on the United States. Within a month of America’s entry into the war, Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to put the defeat of Hitler in Europe as a priority before the defeat of Japan in the Pacific. This decision ensured that the Allied invasion and liberation of Northern Europe would take place at the earliest possible opportunity. Churchill hoped it could be done before the end of 1942, but he accepted the reality that the build-up of American forces in Britain could not be completed until early 1944.

Despite the demands and pressures of war policy, which kept him at his desk and with his colleagues for many hours each day, Churchill was a very visible Prime Minister. His public face was an all-powerful facet of his war leadership, and he made considerable efforts to find time to be seen by the people. He was surprised to discover, at the height of the Blitz, that the Londoners he met within hours of their homes being destroyed, far from cursing him, greeted him with enthusiasm and exhorted him to defeat the enemy. His travels to bombed-out cities proved an enormous boost to public morale. His initially improvised two-finger “V-for-victory” sign became a cause for cheers and enthusiasm amid the devastation of a night bombing raid. Wherever he went, Churchill was acclaimed and cheered (even in 1945, when the crowds who were celebrating victory then went on to the polling booth and cast their votes against his Party). His military secretary and confidant, General Ismay, later recalled an episode on the third day of Churchill’s premiership: “I walked with him from Downing Street to the Admiralty. A number of people waiting outside the private entrance greeted him with cries of ‘Good luck, Winnie. God bless you.’ He was visibly moved, and as soon as we were inside the building,