May 1, 2013

FINEST HOUR 148, AUTUMN 2010

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(Journey numbers are in parentheses)

1940

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16 May-14 June: Flies five round-trips from London to France. Three flights to Paris,

16-17 May, 21 May, 31 May. (1-3) Two flights farther south, to Briare (on the Loire, 80 miles south of Paris), 11-12 June; to Tours, 13-14 June. (4-5)

1941

4-18 August: Sails on HMS Prince of Wales from Scapa Flow to and from Placentia Bay, Newfoundland for Atlantic Conference with Roosevelt. (6)

13 December-17 January: Sails on HMS Duke of York from Clyde to Hampton Roads (then flies by Navy Lockheed transport, probably a Lodestar, to Washington DC) for meetings with Roosevelt. Returns in Boeing flying boat Berwick from Norfolk to Bermuda, then on to Britain. (7)

1942

7-27 June: Flies in flying boat Bristol from Stanraer, Scotland to Washington for another meeting with Roosevelt; returns from Baltimore by way of Botwood to Stanraer, his first transatlantic round-trip by air. (8)

2-24 August: Flies in Commando from Lyneham to Gibraltar, Cairo, El Alemein, Teheran, and Moscow, and back largely same way. (9)

1943

12 January-7 February: Flies in Commando from Lyneham to Casablanca, also Cairo, Adana, Nicosia, returning via Cairo, Tripoli and Algiers. (10)

5 May-5 July: Sails on HMT Queen Mary from the Clyde to New York. On to Washington by train, then with FDR to “Shangri-la” (Camp David). Returns in flying boat Bristol, flying to Botwood, then Gibraltar. In late May, flies from Gibraltar to Algiers, Tunisia and home to Northolt on Ascalon, the first of his two longest trips during the war. (11)

5-10 August: Sails as “Col. Warden” in HMT Queen Mary from the Clyde to Halifax for first Quebec Conference; returns on battlecruiser HMS Renown. (12) 12 November-17 January: Sails from Plymouth on HMS Renown to Gibraltar, Algiers, Malta and Alexandria. Flies in Ascalon to Cairo and Teheran, and back to Cairo and Tunis. After two-week illness in North Africa, flies to Cairo in RAF Lockheed Lodestar. In January, sails Gibraltar-Plymouth on HMS George V, the second of his two longest trips. (13)

1944

12 June: Sails Portsmouth-Normandy and back on HMS Kelvin to visit Normandy beachheads. (14)

12-23 June: Flies in U.S. Army C-47 Dakota from Heston to Cherbourg; stays on HMS Enterprise off Arromanches 20-23 June. Returns to Northolt by RAF Dakota. (15)

10-29 August: Flies Northolt-Algiers and Naples in Ascalon; several further short legs in RAF Dakotas. Sails on HMS Kimberley along southern French invasion coast. Several other trip segments before return to Northolt. (16)

5-29 September: Sails on HMT Queen Mary to Halifax for Second Quebec Conference, returns from New York. (17)

8-22 October: Flies in Ascalon from Northolt to Moscow via Naples and Cairo, returning to Northolt. (18)

10-14 November: Flies in RAF Skymaster from Rheims to Paris and back. (19)

24-29 December: Flies Athens and back in Skymaster. (20)

1945

3-5 January: Flies in RAF Dakotas to Paris, returning from Brussels. (21)

29 January-19 February: Flies in Skymaster to Malta where accommodated on HMS Orion; flies on to Saki Airport, then motors to Yalta. Stays on HMT Franconia after the conference. Returns to Lyneham in Skymaster via Athens (where he stays on HMS Aurora) and Cairo. (22)

2-6 March: Flies in Skymaster from Northolt to Brussels and back from Rheims. (23)

23-26 March: Flies in RAF Dakota from Northolt to the Rhine and back. (24)

7-25 July: Flies Northolt-Bordeaux/Potsdam for Berlin Conference and for election returns, in Skymaster. (25).

Sources

Douglas Austin, Churchill and Malta: A Special Relationship (Stroud, UK: Spellmount, 2006).
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill VI: Finest Hour, 1939-1941 (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1983).
_____ Winston S. Churchill VII: Road to Victory, 1941-1945 (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1986).
Frank A. De Vine Hunt, Dunkirk to Berlin, June 1940-July 1945:
A Map of the Historic Wartime Journeys…. (London: Reprint Society,
1956). A simplified one-color version is reprinted as a fold-out in Pawle.
Brian Lavery, Churchill Goes to War: Winston’s Wartime Journeys
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007).
Lord Moran, Churchill: The Struggle for Survival (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1966).
Gerald Pawle, The War and Colonel Warden (London: Harrap,1963).
Celia Sandys, Chasing Churchill (London: HarperCollins; New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003).
Jerrard Tickell, Ascalon: The Story of Winston Churchill’s War-time Flights 1943 to 1945 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964).