Der Spiegel's "The Man Who Saved Europe," a nine-part web-post by Klaus Wiegrefe, oddly reminds me of "The Complete Wrks of Wilm Shkspr (Abridged)," in which three actors present the audience with all of Shakespeare's works in a couple of hours.
There's nothing particularly novel or new in this series. Aside from the familiar attempts to cast Churchill as occasionally demoniac, it agrees that he "Saved Europe." But one would do better reading about World War II on Wikipedia-or, if you have time, one of the good specialty studies, like Geoffrey Best's Churchill and War-or, if you really want to know what Churchill thought, his abridged war memoirs.
The early parts dwell on the duel between Churchill and Hitler, from 1932 through 1941. Wiegrefe then skips ahead to the bombing of Germany (which he says killed mostly civilians, and on which Churchill was strangely ambivalent), and the division of Europe after the war. Much is oversimplified and fails to consider the contemporary reality of fighting for survival-which, after all, is what both sides were doing.
A full-size replica of a Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1 has been parked outside the Churchill War Rooms, where it will remain until the end of the month.
The replica is part of the museum's drive to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Winston Churchill's famous radio address (best known for its refrain, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"). At 3.42pm on Friday, August 20th, there will be a reading of the speech outside the War Rooms, and a Spitfire and Hurricane will fly over Whitehall at 4.05pm.
Churchill spent much of his time during the war in Whitehall, but in the event of an attack directly on the seat of government, the Prime Minister had a secret bunker built in Neasden to accommodate what remained of his Cabinet. We had a nose around last year, and you can visit it during this year's Open House.
CABINET WAR ROOMS, LONDON, AUGUST 20TH- Seven decades to the day after Winston Churchill's inspiring salute to the Royal Air Force as the Battle of Britain was reaching its height, Churchill Centre Honorary Member Robert Hardy, the greatest actor ever to portray Churchill, delivered portions of the Prime Minister's House of Commons speech containing the famous tribute:
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
The original speech was a long overview of the war situation covering many events beside "the great air battle" raging in the skies over Britain. In deference to the occasion, Robert Hardy deftly provided Churchill's tribute to the airmen, which are in bold face on the accompanying text of the full speech.
Have a look at the website collegehumor.com to see how W.W. II might look on Facebook. Good satirical humor combining history with popular laughs; we like it, even though they got the quote wrong. What he really said (1944) was, "The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward."
London, August 5th- According to the Daily Telegraph, "Winston Churchill was accused of ordering a cover-up of a Second World War encounter between a UFO and an RAF bomber because he feared public ‘panic' and loss of faith in religion, newly released files disclose....The allegations involving Churchill were made by the grandson of one of his personal bodyguards, an RAF officer who overhead the discussion...."
The news must be very slow if we have to regurgitate tall tales that never amounted to anything originally:
Finest Hour 115, Summer 2002 Datelines: London, October 21st- "What does all this stuff abut flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth? Let me have a report at your convenience." This WSC to his advisers, who produced a six-page UFO report, hitherto denied by the Ministry of Defence but unearthed by UFO historians Andy Roberts and David Clarke. The "working party on flying saucers" was the idea of Sir Henry Tizard, WC's trusted scientific adviser during the war. The report played down the phenomenon and insisted there was no threat to Britain. But a few months later an order went out expressly banning all RAF personnel from discussing sightings with anyone not from the military. -The Observer
