11 Winston Churchill Stories You've Probably Never Heard
One of my previous newsletters included a short excerpt from the response that the author Rick Atkinson provided to a question I asked about how he organized his research materials. One other thing he shared was an observation that: “… the heart of your question is really: how do you distinguish between this that you use and this that you don’t use.”
When I started gathering research for my book, just about everything I read was new, interesting, and potentially useful. Now that I’m at the point where I can more sharply focus on specific people and events, I find that I have an enormous number of “this that you don’t use” stories that do not really fit with my book. Many of these stores are, nonetheless, interesting, Some are entertaining. A few are even enlightening.
It’s probably no surprise that a number of the stories I’ve gathered are about Winston Churchill. I’d like to share 11 that you might not have heard. I'm throwing a lot at you here! These stories are "snackable." Feel free to read them in multiple gulps, in any sequence. I hope you will also feel free to share them with everyone you know!
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1. Oliver Lyttelton, also known as Lord Chandos, served several different roles in Churchill’s Cabinet, including Minister of Production. He writes in his memoirs of a late-night meeting in the underground War Room:
“A proposition was put before us by the Prime Minister involving military action of an unusual kind, and for some reason he turned upon me and said, “What do you think?” I answered that it would obviously take six to eight weeks to prepare the military action and that I thought during that period we should try to obtain our requirements by diplomatic means. This infuriated the Prime Minister. “I have never heard in all my life,” he said, rounding on me, “a more idiotic suggestion advanced by a senior Minister of the Crown. Always an excuse for doing nothing,” he growled, like a wounded lion. I … could only reply, “I’m sorry, but that is my opinion and you asked me for it.” Anthony Eden, who took the same view as I, was extremely annoyed, and a sharp argument ensued. It went on far beyond midnight and then suddenly the Prime Minister grinned and said, “In short, we unanimously adopt the idiotic suggestion of the Minister of Production.” Who can be angry with such a man?”
Chandos, The Memoirs of Lord Chandos, p. 163-164
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2. John Colville, who was one of Winston Churchill’s assistant private secretaries, has enjoyed a well-deserved posthumous surge in prominence thanks to Erik Larson’s best-selling book, The Splendid and the Vile. In addition to Colville’s diaries, which Mr. Larson mined for so much fascinating detail, Churchill’s former confidant wrote nine other books.
In Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle, Colville remarked upon Churchill’s hesitance to speak ill of other parties, despite the slings and arrows that he endured in public life. One exception occurred during a conversation during the War, when Churchill declared: “I hate nobody except Hitler – and that is professional.”
Colville, Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle, p.11
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3. Many stories have been written about Winston Churchill’s afternoon naps and his ability to quickly fall asleep. Lord Halifax wrote about Churchill’s sleeping prowess: “Winston said that he got into bed and said “To hell with everybody”, and was asleep in two minutes. He had only missed one night’s sleep in the last ten years. Everybody supposed that this would be during Dunkirk. But he said it was the night of Anthony’s resignation from Neville Chamberlain’s Government.”
Note: Anthony Eden resigned as Foreign Secretary in February 1938, due to serious disagreements with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain over how Britain should deal with Benito Mussolini and Italy.
Birkenhead, Halifax, The Life of Lord Halifax, p. 559
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4. General Sir Edward Louis Spears was the subject of one of my previous newsletters. When I visited the Churchill Archives at Cambridge University, I spent the better part of a day working with General Spears’ papers. While I was paging through documents in a collection of source materials for Assignment to Catastrophe, Spears’ two-part book about the buildup and early days of World War II, I came across a two-page typed document titled “Sayings of Winston.” It’s likely that Spears intended to use these quotes at some point, but I don’t believe he ever found a home for them.
One brief story mentions a letter that British intelligence sources had recently intercepted from a “distinguished foreigner” who had recently lunched with Churchill, and “praised him fulsomely.” When a copy of the letter was forwarded to Churchill, he wrote in the margin “A drop of dew on thirsty soil.”
Spears also quoted Admiral Roger Keyes, a long-time acquaintance who had tried unsuccesfuly for some time to arrange a meeting with the prime minister. On a note in which Keyes suggested “I presume I can ask to see an old friend,” Churchill wrote in the margin: “Old friends should not presume.” (This quote is even better if you imagine it in Churchill’s voice).
SPRS 8/20, Assignment to Catastrophe Source Material, Churchill Archives Center, Churchill College, University of Cambridge
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5. Jack Churchill was Winston’s younger brother, born five years after the future Prime Minister. An issue of Finest Hour, the quarterly publication of the International Churchill Society carries an article titled “Jack Churchill: The Faithful Brother.”
When Jack was still just two years old, he was considered “a slightly serious child.” When a visitor once asked Jack “if he was a good boy,” he replied “Yes, but brother is teaching me to be naughty.”
Jack Churchill: The Faithful Brother – by Celia and John Lee, Finest Hour, Spring 2017, No. 176 p. 21
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6. Rab Butler was considered by John Colville and others to be “one of the most eminent British statesmen of the mid-twentieth century.” Butler held multiple ministerial posts during his career. He was an ardent appeaser and was extremely loyal to Neville Chamberlain. Butler and Churchill were ideological opposites for decades. He once called Churchill “a half-breed American.” And yet, Churchill summoned Butler to the Cabinet Room to ask him to retain his position as Foreign Office Under Secretary.
Butler shares so much fascinating detail in his story of that meeting, that I cannot begin to paraphrase it. Here is Butler’s account.
“I was sent for by the new Prime Minister who was sitting in the Cabinet Room, his face flushed, his eyes gleaming, trying to light the remains of a very wet, half-bitten-through cigar with the aid of a Bunsen burner. He came to the point at once: “I wish you to go on with your delicate manner of answering parliamentary questions without giving anything away.’ I said, ‘Thank you very much. We have disagreed a great deal in the past; now I shall do my best to serve you.’ He bowed very formally. We discussed whether, like his predecessor, he wished me to bring Foreign Office parliamentary questions to him, and he indicated that he would be too busy with other things. He showed me the message he was sending next day to Mussolini (‘Down the ages above all other calls comes the cry that the joint heirs of Latin and Christian civilization must not be ranged against one another in mortal strife’), which I noted would rank with some of the greatest expressions of history. Finally, I was given insights into the reasons for my reappointment which could not have been obtained at second hand from his entourage. He said, ‘Although we have had disagreements, you once asked me to your private residence.’ ‘That was not very remarkable,’ I pointed out. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘but it shows goodwill.’”
Butler, The Art of the Possible, p. 85
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7. I have to include one other Rab Butler story. It’s about a walk through the garden at 10 Downing Street with Churchill and Lord Halifax (who began life as Edward Wood).
Butler writes that they “were invited to march up and down in the garden of No. 10 while Winston was rehearsing his speech ‘We shall fight on the beaches.’ There we were, the lanky Edward, the stocky Winston and myself. As Winston declaimed, he turned to us and said, ‘Would you fight in the streets and on the hills?’ Pacific as we were we warmly agreed, saying, ‘Yes, certainly, Winston’, and then continued to march up and down with him.
Butler, The Art of the Possible, p. 85-86
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8. Mary Shearburn served as a secretary to Churchill, and eventually married his bodyguard. This recollection – an except from her book – was included in a collection of reflections about the Prime Minister.
“My first interview with him lasted only a few minutes, at the end of which he smiled and said, “I’d like you to come down to Chartwell as soon as possible and stay for a month – to see how we get on together.” I went there the following day. The month passed and I found myself intensely interested in the work and beginning to feel a profound admiration for my new employer. Nothing was said after four weeks as to whether I was to stay or go, and one night, after a late session, I reminded him that I was only on trial and asked him to let me know whether I was to remain. He looked quite taken aback – as if the thought had gone completely out of his mind – then, to my great pleasure, he bowed slightly and said gravely, “I am satisfied – if you are.” It was one of those moments which he endows with his own special charm.”
Eade, Churchill By His Contemporaries, p. 158, from Secretary to Churchill - by Mary T.G. Thompson, aka Miss Shearburn
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9. The most out-of-the-box Churchill book that I encountered was In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing The Second World War. When you read this much about a historical figure, you come across so many stories that are repeated over and over. Command of History was a fascinating source of fresh information. Very little of it fits with my book, but I especially enjoyed its fascinating insights into the writing side of Churchill’s life.
“Churchill liked to say that he wrote “the way they built the Canadian Pacific Railway. First I lay the track from coast to coast, and after that I put in the stations.””
Reynolds, In Command of History, p. 69
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10. Lord Halifax, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, had been asked to deliver the British reply to a sham of a peace offering from Adolf Hitler in June 1940. Halifax was not comfortable with the message he had drafted, and asked Prime Minister Churchill to review his speech.
Specifically, Halifax wished to convey that “whatever successes Hitler might achieve in Europe or elsewhere, unless and until he could make an end of the British Navy, Army and Air Force, his problem was not solved. I told Churchill that it was obviously awkward, from the point of view of style and presentation, having to mention the three Services, though it was no doubt unavoidable.”
Churchill paced the room for several minutes, turned to Halifax and offered: “Why not say ‘unless that man can sap the might of Britain’”
Halifax employed Churchill’s suggestion, and later marveled: “… what an example of how to use language – and nearly all monosyllables.”
Halifax, The Fullness of Days, p. 229
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11. This is a story of one of Churchill’s best-known quotes. Most people have heard this quote, but not everyone has heard about its emotional origin.
In August 1940, as the Royal Air Force was in the early thick of the Battle of Britain, Churchill and General Hastings “Pug” Ismay – his chief staff officer – visited the Operations Room of No. 11 Group, Fighter Command. Churchill was engrossed with the sounds and sights, the stories of the pilots, and the map table that showed the approaching Luftwaffe attackers. Ismay wrote that “There had been heavy fighting throughout the afternoon; and at one moment every single squadron in the Group was engaged; there was nothing in reserve … I felt sick with fear.” Most of the pilots returned from their air battles, but some did not. Churchill and Ismay departed that evening for Chequers, Britain’s country residence for its Prime Ministers.
Shortly after their car left the airfield, “Churchill’s first words were: ‘Don’t speak to me; I have never been so moved.’ After about five minutes he leaned forward and said, ‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.’ The words burned into my brain and I repeated them to my wife when I got home. Churchill too, had evidently photographed them in his mind; for as everyone knows, he used them in a speech that was heard throughout the world.”
Ismay, The Memoirs of Lord Ismay, p. 179-180
When he shared insights into his research process, one other thing that Rick Atkinson mentioned was a quote from Keats that was often used by Civil War historian Shelby Foote. “A fact is not a truth until you love it.”
I hope you love these stories nearly as much as I do.
Thanks for reading,
Bill