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and his colleagues at the British National Archive, together with their American counterparts at the National Archive in Washington—Tim Nenninger most conspicuous among them—show how magnificently great collections function when staffed by men and women who really care. The Imperial War Museum’s library and manuscript archive become ever more important, now that most 1939–45 eyewitnesses are dead. The Liddell Hart Archive at King’s College, London, holds many important papers, and I am especially grateful for access to Sir John Kennedy’s diary. I am indebted to copyright holders who have given permission for extracts from their material to be quoted in my text, including Antonia Yates for the papers of Capt. Andrew Yates.

Anyone who writes about Winston Churchill must pay tribute to Sir Martin Gilbert, his official biographer, whose work laid the foundations for all who follow. Gilbert’s massive life, accompanied by the equally fascinating companion document collections, represents one of the great scholarly achievements of our time. Future writers and biographers will owe Sir Martin a further debt when he completes his forthcoming volumes of war papers for 1942–45.

Professor Sir Michael Howard, OM, CH, MC, and two other old friends, Godfrey Hodgson and Don Berry, have read my draft manuscript. Both made immensely helpful suggestions and proposed amendments, most of which I have acted upon. I am indebted to Antony Beevor for focusing my attention on Operation Unthinkable, and for the time and advice of Professor David Reynolds, Professor Robert Gildea, Professor Christopher Andrew and Chris Bellamy. In the United States, Dr. Williamson Murray made many helpful suggestions about the text, based upon his own exhaustive knowledge of the period. Dr. Tami Biddle of the U.S. Army War College is extraordinarily generous with her own material, in this case pointing me to Harris’s and Slessor’s 1941 reports from Washington and to important material on Allied relationships in the collection at Carlisle. The contribution of my secretary, Rachel Lawrence, is always indispensable, not least in collating notes and references. So too is that of my infinitely long-suffering wife, Penny, who feels doomed forever to share my spirit existence, focused upon 1939–45. She deserves to believe that some day we shall progress towards a real life in our own times.

In the references below, collections are abbreviated as follows: British National Archive, BNA; U.S. National Archive, USNA; Churchill Archive Centre, CAC; Imperial War Museum, IWM; the Liddell Hart Archive at King’s College, London, LHA; and U.S. Army Military History Institute, USAMHI. After much vacillation, I have omitted references to some documents which have been for many years in the public domain, and which are clearly identified and dated in the text. All direct quotations from Churchill not otherwise sourced are to be found in the two volumes of Martin Gilbert’s biography covering the war years.

Notes

INTRODUCTION

1 “He had once conceived”: Boswell, p. 1100.

2 Andrew Roberts has painted: Roberts, Masters.

3 The most vivid wartime memory: Author interview, 1992.

4 he told his staff: Colville, December 12, 1940.

5 “Everything depended upon him”: Wheeler-Bennett, Action, p. 236.

6 “He was not mad”: Knight, p. 366.

7 “may overstate his indispensability”: Wrigley, p. 85

8 “It would be easy by a cunning”: LHA, MS diary of Maj. Gen. Sir John Kennedy (hereafter “Kennedy diary, LHA”), January 26, 1941.

9 “Churchill so evidently”: Lees-Milne, p. 69, August 19, 1972.

10 “I wish I were twenty”: Nicolson, p. 37, September 9, 1939.

CHAPTER ONE: THE BATTLE OF FRANCE

11 “It was a marvel”: Reynolds, In Command, p.126.

12 “If there is going to be a war”: Baldwin to Lord Davidson, in Young, p. 112.

13 “several fishing rods”: IWM, Sir C. Nicholson Papers, p. 9.

14 “I don’t think WSC will be”: Quoted in Roberts, Masters, p. 199, undisclosed source, May 13, 1940.

15 “It’s all a great pity”: Butler Papers, G11, quoted in ibid., p. 209.

16 “If I had to spend my whole