The Library of CongressExhibitionsChurchill Exhibition
Churchill and the Great Republic
Interactive Exhibition About the Exhibition Read More About It Acknowledgements Text Version
INTRODUCTION
TIMELINE
THEMES
  Forebears and Family
Warrior for Empire
Visits to America
American Presidents
The Communicator
The Politician
World War II
Cold Warrior
The Long Sunset
OBJECTS
World War II
The Battle of Britain and the Blitz
In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. The attack touched off the world struggle that Churchill would later call "The Unnecessary War" because he felt a firm policy toward aggressor nations after World War I would have prevented the conflict. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain brought Churchill into government again as First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill became Prime Minister on May 10, 1940, the day Hitler launched his invasion of France, Belgium, and Holland. During the tense months that followed, Britain stood alone with her Empire and Commonwealth, surviving the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. Churchill's speeches and broadcasts carried a message of determination and defiance around the globe.
Related Objects
Winston Churchill. "Finest Hour" speech, June 1940
Engagements card, September 1940
Winston Churchill walks...through the ruins of Coventry Cathedral..., 1942
Ministry of Information. "Bulletin," November 22, 1940
Associated Press. Churchill Dons Helmet, 1940
Herbert Block. Herblock's Own History of the Year--The Worlds of 1940, ca. 1940
Winston Churchill, 1941
Extract from draft of "Finest Hour" speech by Winston Churchill, June 1940
Help From America
Even though the U.S. was desperately trying to build up its military forces throughout 1941, Roosevelt decided to give the British some of the United States' most advanced weapons. Military aid to Britain was greatly facilitated by the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941, in which Congress authorized the sale, lease, transfer, or exchange of arms and supplies to "any country whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the United States."
Related Objects
Justin Murray. Winston Churchill (Befriendus Leaselendus), ca.1945
W. Averell Harriman to Winston Churchill, April 15, 1941
Winston Churchill to W. Averell Harriman, May 20, 1941
Prime Minister Sees Flying Fortresses, June 6, 1941
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, July, 1941
British War Cabinet record of a meeting, July 24, 1941
The Prime Minister's Return Journey Across the Atlantic, August, 1941
Herbert Block. "Working On Him," 1941
The Home Front
Churchill, like all Britons, faced personal hardships during the war. His son Randolph was a soldier serving with a British Special Raiding Squadron and his daughter Mary joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service and served with an antiaircraft unit. Many young children, including Churchill's grandson, were sent away from British cities and other target areas to escape German bombing raids. Wartime shortages and commodities rationing in Great Britain were occasionally alleviated by friendly Americans.
Related Objects
Clementine Churchill to W. Averell Harriman, April 15, 1941
Mary Churchill to W. Averell Harriman, November 27, 1941
Acme. A Chip Off the Old Block, 1942
Clementine Churchill to W. Averell Harriman, June 30, 1942
Randolph Churchill to Winston Churchill, July 10, 1943
Associated Press. Churchills with a British Symbol, 1943
America Enters the War
The Japanese surprise attack on the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought America into the war. Churchill was with the President's special envoy, Averell Harriman, and the U.S. Ambassador to Britain, John Gilbert Winant, when he received the news over the telephone from President Roosevelt. Four days later, Germany declared war on the United States, making U.S. involvement in Europe inevitable.
Related Objects
Winston Churchill to Anthony Eden, December 10, 1941
Winston S. Churchill. The Second World War, vol. 3
"Seppla" [Josef Plank]. Axis bombs severing F.D.R. & Churchill's "hands across the sea," between 1935 and 1943
Chicago Daily Tribune. "America—the Real Center of the World Today," 1942
Churchill-Roosevelt Globes
On the first day of 1942, Churchill and Roosevelt, along with representatives of China and the Soviet Union, signed a declaration creating the United Nations. This wartime alliance eventually grew to include twenty-six countries and to form the nucleus for a lasting international organization. For the next year Churchill tried to forge good working relationships with his most important ally, the United States, as well as with the Soviet Union and the Free French led by General Charles de Gaulle. Churchill often differed with the Americans over questions of grand strategy and the future of the British Empire, but he was able to resolve many issues in the course of face-to-face meetings with Roosevelt in Washington and, later, in Casablanca, Morocco.
Related Objects
Fifty-inch military globe, identical to the globes given to Roosevelt and Churchill
President Roosevelt and his identical globe, 1942
Prime Minister Churchill with the globe presented to him by the United States War Department, Christmas 1942
United Nations
On the first day of 1942, Churchill and Roosevelt, along with representatives of China and the Soviet Union, signed a declaration creating the United Nations. This wartime alliance eventually grew to include twenty-six countries and to form the nucleus for a lasting international organization. For the next year Churchill tried to forge good working relationships with his most important ally, the United States, as well as with the Soviet Union and the Free French led by General Charles de Gaulle. Churchill often differed with the Americans over questions of grand strategy and the future of the British Empire, but he was able to resolve many issues in the course of face-to-face meetings with Roosevelt in Washington and, later, in Casablanca, Morocco.
Related Objects
Charles de Gaulle to Pamela Digby Churchill, January 10, 1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Harry Hopkins for transmission to Winston Churchill, April 12, 1942
Winston Churchill to Sir Stafford Cripps, April 9, 1942
George Scarbo. "We Want Service!," no date
Winston Churchill to John Dill for George Marshall, August 1, 1942
Postponing a Second Front
Germany had gone to war with the Soviet Union in June, 1941, and by August of 1942, the Soviets were fighting for their lives before Stalingrad. To the disappointment of the Americans and the Soviets, however, Churchill used his considerable influence to postpone launching a Second Front against the Germans in northwest Europe. He wanted to exploit successes in the Mediterranean, and he was concerned that a premature assault on the northern French coast might end in failure. In August 1942, Churchill flew to Moscow to tell Stalin that there would be no Second Front in Western Europe that year to draw off German forces. Stalin condemned the Anglo-American decision to abandon the Second Front. Churchill argued: "War was war but not folly, and it would be folly to invite a disaster which would help nobody." Stalin replied, "A man who was not prepared to take risks could not win a war."
Related Objects
Churchill landing in Moscow
W. Averell Harriman, October 15, 1941
Winston Churchill to W. Averell Harriman, November 27, 1941
President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Winston Churchill, April 3, 1942
Winston Churchill and W. Averell Harriman, August 12, 1942
Edward Sorel. First Encounters: Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill, 1991
Office of War Information. Churchill and Stalin in Moscow, 1942
Office of War Information. B-24 Liberator, 1942
Winston Churchill and W. Averell Harriman, August 16, 1942
Northern Africa
By the end of 1942, British forces had been victorious in Egypt at the Battle of El Alamein and, along with the Americans, had successfully landed in northwest Africa. At the Casablanca Conference (January 14-24, 1943) Churchill and Roosevelt decided to continue with operations in the Mediterranean once they had driven the Germans and Italians out of North Africa. This decision was in accord with Churchill's preference for an attack through the "under belly of the Axis" instead of a more direct approach through northwest Europe into Germany. The war in the Mediterranean theater continued to dominate Churchill's thoughts in 1943. After many frustrating delays, Allied forces (principally British, American, and French) wiped out the last remaining Axis (German and Italian) troops in North Africa. They exploited this success by undertaking operations in Sicily and from there moved onto the Italian peninsula.
Related Objects
Winston Churchill. "The Bright Gleam of Victory," 1942
Harry Hopkins to Winston Churchill, November 29, 1942
Bank of England currency note
U.S. Army Signal Corps. Casablanca Conference, 1943
Richard Edes Harrison. "The Not-So-Soft Underside," 1943
Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin
After the Allied successes in the Mediterranean, Churchill's American allies made known their desire to come to grips with Hitler's armies in northwest Europe in a series of additional wartime conferences. These began with the TRIDENT meeting in Washington in May 1943 and culminated in the first meeting of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Teheran, Iran, at year's end. At the conclusion of the Teheran meeting the Americans and Soviets had overridden Churchill's lingering doubts and had secured a firm commitment to launch a cross-Channel attack in northwest France by the late spring of 1944, together with a supporting amphibious operation in southern France.
Related Objects
Winston Churchill to Jacob Devers, October 11, 1943
U.S. Army Signal Corps. Conference of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marshal Josef Stalin and Prime Minister Winston Churchill . . . , 1943.
Teheran Conference commemorative postcards, 1943
Summary of the third regular session of the Teheran Meeting, November 30, 1943
Autographed card, 1943
Associated Press. Churchill At Work on the War Again, 1943
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
Both the war against Nazi Germany and efforts to stop the Holocaust were hampered by anti-Semitism. Axis propaganda sought to portray Churchill, who was sympathetic to Zionist aims and had many Jewish friends, as part of a supposed Jewish conspiracy. Nevertheless, Churchill expressed his outrage as the scale of the Nazi atrocities against the Jews became apparent. It was, he said, "probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world."
Related Objects
"Seppla" [Josef Plank], Churchill as an octopus, between 1935 and 1943
Winston Churchill to Franklin Roosevelt, August 23, 1944
Winston Churchill to Anthony Eden, July 7, 1944
Winston Churchill to Anthony Eden, July 11, 1944
Operation Overlord
As the Allies were learning details of the Nazis' ongoing mass-murder program taking place at the Auschwitz death camp, the greatest Anglo-American action of World War II began: the cross-Channel airborne and amphibious attack known as "D-Day." Churchill enthusiastically supported this operation, long-advocated by the Americans, after some initial hesitation and despite his hopes for an Italian campaign. On June 6, 1944, the Allied Expeditionary Forces landed more than 150,000 British, Canadian, and American troops on the Normandy coast. The invasion, which was code-named "OVERLORD," marked the opening of the final drive to defeat German forces in northwestern Europe. A number of deception measures, outlined by Churchill at the Teheran Conference, helped make D-Day a success. The most important of these was "FORTITUDE SOUTH," the creation of a phantom group of armies that supposedly were to invade the European mainland after the actual Normandy landings. These measures were greatly assisted by the use of highly secret ULTRA intelligence, generated by the British from deciphered radio communications.
Related Objects
Associated Press. A Serious Inspection, 1944
Twelfth Army Group. Situation - 2400 HRS 6 JUNE 1944 HQ. FUSAG, 1944
Dwight David Eisenhower. "Order of the Day," June 6, 1944
D-Day Landing
U.S. Maritime Commission. Bird's-eye view of landing craft, barrage balloons, and allied troops landing in Normandy, France on D-Day, 1944
Admiral Bertram Ramsay to Winston Churchill, May 16, 1944
George McDonald to Carl Spaatz, June 21, 1944
Cartoon showing D-Day invasion of France by British troops in a parody of the Bayeux Tapestry, 1944
Victory and Defeat
For Churchill, the last year of the war was a time of great triumph and bitter disappointment. Allied ground forces began to break through enemy defenses late in July 1944 and were soon threatening Germany itself. A Nazi counteroffensive--the Battle of the Bulge-- proved to be only a temporary setback, and the war's outcome seemed certain. Looming postwar problems, however, cast a shadow over the impending triumph as Soviet armies advanced through Eastern Europe and the Balkans, imposing communism in their wake. Churchill's great wartime partner, Franklin Roosevelt, and his great wartime enemy, Adolf Hitler, both died in April 1945. The European war ended the following month. But in the middle of the final wartime conference, held in Potsdam, Germany, he learned of his own political defeat, as the British electorate turned him and his Conservative Party out of office.
Related Objects
W. Averell Harriman to Franklin Roosevelt, October 11, 1944
Manuscript map, 1945
Memorandum of conversation, Yalta Conference, February 4, 1945
Crimean Conference, 1945
Churchill on the Siegfried Line, 1945
Clementine Churchill to W. Averell Harriman, April 13, 1945
Associated Press. Churchills Leave Thanksgiving Service, 1945
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