We can be assured that Winston Churchill was truly a lion of history, not only because books about him run more than a thousand pages. I just finished reading The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm by William Manchester (1183 pages) and isn’t it pretty good proof of Churchill’s lion-ness that it took three books for the author to adequately cover Sir Winston’s eventful life?
Not sure I’ll ever get around to Manchester’s other books, even though this one was like sitting next to an engaging but long-winded dinner guest.
The world remembers Churchill for flashing the V sign. They also remember his fondness for liquor and fine food, which didn’t dull his edge at all. Mostly, the British people remember him as the man who stood up to Hitler. Take over our island? Our freedoms? Our way of life? Mess with great British empire? Oh no you don’t!
He inspired the rest of Britain to shake their fists at Hitler right along with him, even though their defiance brought them nightly bomb raids, and years of not much chicken in their soup bowls. Not many noodles either.
Last Lion educated me on the breadth of the British empire. I mean, I knew they owned India, Australia and a few other colonies. But Iraq? Singapore? Hong Kong? Was I told this in school?
Not only did they own a collection of nations, but tutored other peoples in the art of nation-running. “The Royal Navy had instructed a generation of Japanese officers in the art of gunnery. . . .
So much went wrong for England, and for so many months. True, they had the Germans stumped once in a while. How do they know our planes are coming? What are those strange towers at the edge of their island?
What England really needed was the help of a rich and powerful friend, say the USA. Last Lion recounts Churchill’s long courtship of Franklin Roosevelt who, at first, wanted no part of anybody’s war. But eventually the plight of the English moved him. “It seems to me that we Americans are like the householder who refuses to lend or sell his fire extinguisher to help out the fire in the home that is next door, although the house is all ablaze and the wind is blowing from that direction.”
But how to pay for the help England needed?
And how to help without looking like he might commit American sons to faraway battles?
I told you, it was a long courtship. That may be a part of the book that exhausts and frustrates you.
Other patience-testers include:
1) Manchester’s details about decisions made, then revised, then revised again
2) the multiple code names for multiple missions—I really couldn’t keep track.
But the glimpses of the great man Churchill—his demands on his staff, his will to win, his humanity toward the defeated, his breakfasts of wine and cigars—kept me reading.
I learned a ton about World War II. The sheer numbers of the dead shocked me. Yes, thousands perished, but we’re talking thousands per incident. Per battle. Per sunken ship. Per bombing raid.
But then there were the days when things went right, such as pre-D-Day, when the English people knew something big was up. No one would tell them what it was, but “Almost five hundred American war correspondents reached that conclusion when they were told to sign powers of attorney and wills. . . . A ten-mile-wide coastal strip from the Firth of Forth to Land’s End had been made off-limits to civilians. . . . Railways had announced that schedules could change without notice and that certain routes and trains would be off-limits to civilians, also without notice.”
Exciting, mysterious times!
And don’t forget about all the romances between American GIs and English girls. We read about those a few weeks ago.
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While I finished Manchester’s book, my town entered its annual Ice Age.
We survive by eating soup.
Tonight, it was Tomato Basil Soup, which contained nearly a V-8’s worth of vegetables.
Mostly, I tasted the carrots.
I think I’ll add more salt to the leftovers.
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