March 15, 2015

Finest Hour 160, Autumn 2013

Page 10

Q: Is there any identification for the only woman (middle ground, above Churchill’s cap) on the famous photograph of Churchill on  the east bank of the Rhine, 25 March 1945?
—ANTOINE CAPET, UNIV. OF ROUEN, FRANCE

A: I have no evidence, but I have always assumed that she was a photographer.  WSC’s uniform is that of Honorary Colonel, 4th/5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion, The Royal Sussex Regiment. —PHC

Q: What were the uses and fates of the fifty old U.S. destroyers exchanged in 1940 for bases in the North Atlantic and Caribbean? For what purposes and for how long were the bases used by the U.S.? Andrew Roberts had some acerbic comments about the ships in Storm of War, but little detail.

A: The Churchills: A Naval History (FH 110, Spring 2001, 26-27) -details the service of HMS Churchill, ex-USS Herndon, later the Soviet Dyeyatielnyi. The destroyers for bases agreement was covered in Fifty Ships That Saved the World, by Philip goodhart (1965).  The definitive work on the 250 destroyers is Flush Decks and Four Pipes, by John D. Alden (1965). Opinion on the usefulness of the destroyers is generally less than positive, but they did provide practical assistance at a critical time when no other resources were available. Lend-Lease: Weapon for Victory by edward R Stettinius, Jr. (1944) provides a more positive contemporary view. I have not come across significant information about the role of the bases. The ninety-nine-year rights to bases in Newfoundland and Bermuda were “freely given” and strategically made a direct contribution to U.S. defence. The rights to the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. lucia, Trinidad,  Antigua and British guiana were “traded.” The greatest legacy of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement is the political climate it established between the “cash and carry” policy and the implementation of lend-lease.
—NEIL COATES

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Q: After meeting Churchill on the Onassis yacht Christina, John F. Kennedy asked his wife, “How did i do?” and she replied, “i think he thought you were a waiter, Jack.”  Was this 1956? Did Churchill snub Kennedy out of his dislike for his father, the defeatist former U.S. Ambassador to Britain?

A: The event actually took place in 1958. The source of the waiter -quote is William Douglas-Home’s oral history at the Kennedy library. William, Prime Minister Alec’s younger brother, was a longtime friend of Jack’s from the period of his father’s ambassadorship to Britain. He was one of the many young men in that set who was besotted by Jack’s sister “Kick” (Kathleen). William and Jackie both say the meeting with Churchill took place when JFK, Jackie, William and his wife shared a vacation house in the South of France. Caroline Kennedy confirms the 1958 date in Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy.

That date makes sense in terms of both John Kennedy’s trips and his wife Jackie’s, as well as Churchill’s presence in the South of France. 1956 is impossible: Jackie did not accompany Jack to Europe that summer (after he lost the vice-presidential nomination) because she was about to have a baby. The baby was stillborn and Kennedy had to be called home.

Of course this was not the first meeting between Sir Winston Churchill and Aristotle Onassis, which Martin Gilbert places in 1956. But it was clearly where Jackie thought Sir Winston took Jack for a waiter.
—BARBARA LEAMING (AUTHOR, CHURCHILL DEFIANT: FIGHTING ON; JACK KENNEDY: THE EDUCATION OF A STATESMAN; MRS. KENNEDY: THE MISSING HISTORY OF THE KENNEDY YEARS).

Editor’s note: Kennedy never actually cruised with Onassis, nor did Churchill before September-October 1958. But JFK met Sir Winston again, more auspiciously, after WSC’s second Christina cruise in February-March 1959. Christina was moored at Monte Carlo, and JFK was invited on board when Churchill expressed a wish to meet “young Kennedy.”

According to Willi Frischauer’s biography Onassis (229), Kennedy chatted about his presidential ambitions, citing his Catholicism as a problem. Churchill replied, “If that’s the only difficulty, you can always change your religion and still remain a good Christian,” prompting a laugh by Kennedy. By this time, for sure, Sir Winston knew exactly who Jack Kennedy was.

We may be sure Churchill never snubbed Jack Kennedy because of his father. Churchill was not a hater. He sent a wreath to the funeral of Jack’s sister Kathleen in 1948, expressed admiration of JFK on several occasions, and congratulated him after his election as president in 1960.