Showing posts with label Winston Churchill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winston Churchill. Show all posts

Friday, August 1, 2025

Wednesday, August 1, 1945. Laval brought to trial for what many in France had thought or done.

Pierre Laval was brought to Paris to face trial, a crime that a huge percentage of the French population was itself guilty of, accomodating a far right government and turning a blind eye. . . just like many are doing now.

Laval started off for a career in zoology before diverting to law.  Politically, he took a trip through Marxism.  He evolved into a Socialist, and ultimately into a right wing nationalist.

Laval during his trial.

De Gaulle, who was of course on the opposite side of the World War Two contest, said of him:

Naturally inclined, accustomed by the regime, to approach matters from below, Laval held that, whatever happens, it is important to be in power, that a certain degree of astuteness always controls the situation, that there is no event that cannot be turned around, no men that cannot be handled. He had, in the cataclysm, felt the misfortune of the country but also the opportunity to take the reins and apply on a vast scale the capacity he had to deal with anything. But the victorious Reich was a partner who did not intend to compromise. For, despite everything [...] he had to embrace the disaster of France. He accepted the condition. He judged that it was possible to take advantage of the worst, to use even the point of servitude, to even associate oneself with the invader, to make oneself an asset of the most terrible repression. To carry out his policy, he renounced the honor of the country, the independence of the State, and national pride. Now, these elements reappeared alive and demanding as the enemy weakened. Laval had played. He had lost. He had the courage to admit that he was responsible for the consequences. No doubt, in his government, deploying all the resources of ruse, all the resources of obstinacy to support the unsustainable, he sought to serve his country. Let that be left to him!

If everyone who thought the way that Laval did during the war had suffered his fate, the Seine would have run red for years.

The new British parliament assembled.    When Winston Churchill, somebody who never entertained the faults that Laval had, entered the House he was greeted by cheers and singing of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow".  Laborites responded by singing "The Red Flag".

Probably not that one.

Singing The Red Flag was BS.

When Douglas Clifton Brown was re-elected Speaker he said he was not quite sure whether he was becoming chairman of the House of Commons or director of a musical show.

Mines brought Japanese shipping on the Yangtze to a halt.

Allied troops sealed off the Japanese on Bougainville, where fighting was ongoing, off at Buin.

US aircraft struck Japanese positions on Wake Island.

Toyama, Japan, on fire after nighttime raid.

New York Giant Mel Ott became the third member of the 500 home run club with a shot off Johnny Hutchings of the Boston Braves.

The current issue of Vogue was out with an issue on furs, showing how the war time economy was changing to a focus on luxury.

Vogue, posted as fair use.

Well sort of.  Fur coast were a much more Middle Class thing than now imagined. And frankly, as one of the only renewable clothing sources, they still should be.

Would that this would return.

War Winding Down – Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop – August 1, 1945

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 31, 1945. Little Boy assembled.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Friday, July 27, 1945. Preparing the bomb.

Little Boy was delivered to Tinian and preparation to drop it on Japan commenced.

Commencing on the night of July 27, B-29s dropped leaflets on eleven Japanese cities warning them that they were targeted for bombing.

The Chinese took Guilin.

Ernest Bevin became the British Foreign Affairs Secretary.

The World War Two British chiefs of staff had their final meeting with Churchill.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 26, 1945. Churchill out, Attlee in.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Thursday, July 26, 1945. Churchill out, Attlee in.

The Potsdam Declaration was issued:

No. 1382

Proclamation1

Proclamation by the Heads of Governments, United States, China and the United Kingdom

(1) We, the President of the United States, the President of the National Government of the Republic of China and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war.

(2) The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United States, the British Empire and of China, many times reinforced by their armies and air fleets from the west are poised to strike the final blows upon Japan. This military power is sustained and inspired by the determination of all the Allied nations to prosecute the war against Japan until she ceases to resist.

(3) The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan. The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will3 mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.

(4) The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason.

(5) Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.

(6) There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.

(7) Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan’s war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth.

(8) The terms of the Cairo Declaration4 shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.

(9) The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives.

(10) We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as [a] nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established.

(11) Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those industries which would enable her to re-arm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted.

(12) The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.

(13) We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

Potsdam July 26, 1945

Harry S Truman

Winston Churchill

by H. S. T.

President of China

by wire

The results of the 1945 British election were announced. The Labour Party won an unexpected landslide over the Conservatives.  Clement Attlee accordingly became the Prime Minister on this day.

The results were not a condemnation of Churchill, but an expression by the British people that they wished to go in a new direction, post war.  One of Labour's slogans had been "Cheer Churchill – Vote Labour"

The British minesweeper Vestal was heavily damaged by a kamikaze attack. 

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 25, 1945. Truman orders the atomic bomb used on Japan.

Friday, July 18, 2025

Wednesday, July 18, 1945. Explosions.

President Truman informed Prime Minister Churchill that the atomic bomb test had been successful in a stating: "Babies satisfactorily born." 

Not so coincidently, American interest in Soviet participation in the war against Japan was noticeably lessened.


A fire broke out on the jetty of the Bedford Magazine during the evening causing a chain reaction of fires, explosions, and concussions that continued for more than 24 hours.  Fifteen people were killed.

Captured German mines in Italy exploded destroying an American Red Cross club resulting in the death of 36 people.

Aircraft from the USS Wasp attacked Wake Island.

The U.S. Army Air Force, flying out of Okinawa, bombed Kiangwan airfield near Shanghai.

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force parades through Rio de Janeiro marking its return from Italy.

The Belgian senate voted to forbid the return of Leopold III.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 17, 1945. The Potsdam Conference begins.

Thursday, July 17, 2025

Tuesday, July 17, 1945. The Potsdam Conference begins.

Churchill, who was actually on his way out due to having lost the recent British election, Truman, who was brand new to the Oval Office, and Stalin.

The Potsdam Conference between Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman commenced.

The immediate topic was the governance of postwar Germany.

The British participated in a carrier raid on Tokyo.

German Field Marshal Busch, the former commander of Army Group Center on the Eastern Front, died at the military hospital in Notts at age 60 due to a heart attack.

The King, Queen and Princess Elizabeth visited Ulster.

Last edition:

Monday, July 16, 1945. Trinity.

Saturday, June 7, 2025

Thursday, June 7, 1945. Returning monarchs.

Today in World War II History—June 7, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 7, 1945: King Haakon VII of Norway and his family return to Oslo on their fifth anniversary of leaving Norway. US Marines cut off Oroku Peninsula on Okinawa. King George VI & Queen Elizabeth visit Guernsey and Jersey in recently liberated Channel Islands. In Honolulu, Hawaii, the USO opens the Rainbow Club, for all races, with staff of all races.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The Battle of West Hunan concluded in a Chinese victory.

The 1st Corps took Bambang on Luzon.

"Men of Co. B., 165th Inf. Regt., 27th Inf. Div, burn out the scaffolding to the entrance of a cave with a flamethrower. The cave is located in the center of Kin, Okinawa, where they are searching for stolen American supplies. 7 June, 1945."

Yontan airfield, June 7, 1945.
 
All German citizens in the zone occupied by the western Allies are order to watch films of Belsen and Buchenwald.

Joseph Stalin instructed the Soviet delegation at San Francisco to drop its request for a Big Five veto over discussion of international disputes in the United Nations.

Winston Churchill refused a demand from the House of Commons to reveal all that was discussed at the Yalta Conference.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 6, 1945. Hitler's body.

    Wednesday, June 4, 2025

    Monday, June 4, 1945. Marines land on the Oroku Peninsula on Okinawa.

    Today in World War II History—June 4, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 4, 1945: US Marines land behind Japanese lines on Oroku Peninsula on Okinawa.

    US Office of Civilian Defense is inactivated.
    From Sarah Sundin's excellent blog.

    The Progressive Conservative Party took control in Ontario's election and would retain power for the next 40 years.



    Churchill made a gaff in an election broadcast by claiming that the  Labour Party, if elected, would cause the creation of "some form of Gestapo".

    Paul Ferdonet, the "Radio Traitor" of Stuttgart, was arrested by French troops in Bavaria.

    Last edition:

    Saturday, May 31, 2025

    Thursday, May 31, 1945. Intervening in Syria.

    Churchill informed de Gaulle that British forces had been instructed to intervene in the Levant in order to end the fighting and the threat it posed to Allied supply lines to the Pacific.  The British soon arranged a ceasefire but British intervention would bring the UK and France to the point of war.


    The Norwegian government started to return to Oslo.

    Odilo Globocnik, age 41, Austrian Nazi  committed suicide after being captured by the British.

    On Okinawa, the Japanese pulled out of Shuri.

    Japanese resistance ended on Negros in the Philippines.

    Last edition.

    Wednesday, May 30, 1945. Czech reprisals.

    Friday, May 23, 2025

    Wednesday, May 23, 1945. The end of governments.


    Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister, forming a caretaker government in anticipation of July 5 elections.

    The elections would be the first in a decade.

    The German Flensburg government is arrested and deposed by the Allies.


    Himmler committed suicide.  So did German admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, who became a POW during the British occupation of Flensburg.

    Julius Streicher was arrested in Bavaria.

    US attacks on Yokohama bring shipping from the city to an end.

    The United Nations Conference in San Francisco approved veto rights for China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States on the Security Council.


    Last edition:

    Tuesday, May 22, 1945. Operation Unthinkable.

    Thursday, May 22, 2025

    Tuesday, May 22, 1945. Operation Unthinkable.

      

    It was a Churchill ordered study for a war against the Soviet Union, in aid of Poland, coming right after World War Two.

    Unthinkable in deed, it likely would have been a massive failure. By 1945 the Western Allies were fatigued and the concept that "moral remained high" was assuming a lot. The American public, which had been lead to believe that the Soviets were more or less like us, just misunderstood, would not have tolerated a war against the USSR.  Indeed, the American public largely ignored the Soviets until the Berlin Blockade, which came as a shock. The British public was so sick of things that Churchill lost power on July 5, 1945.  The Labour Party had withdrawn support for the coalition government which Churchill governed the day prior.

    OPERATION UNTHINKABLE

    REPORT BY THE JOINT PLANNING STAFF

    We have examined Operation Unthinkable. As instructed, we have taken the following assumptions on which to base our examination:

    The undertaking has the full support of public opinion in the British Empire and the United States and consequently, the morale of British and American troops continues high.

    Great Britain and the United States have full assistance from the Polish armed forces and can count upon the use of German manpower and what remains of German industrial capacity.

    No credit is taken for assistance from the forces of the other Western Powers, although any bases in their territory, or other facilities which may be required, are made available

    Russia allies herself with Japan.

    The date for the opening of hostilities is 1st July, 1945.

    Redeployment and release schemes continue till 1st July and then stop.

    Owing to the special need for secrecy, the normal staff in Service Ministries have not been consulted.

    OBJECT

    The overall or political object is to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and British Empire.

    Even though ‘the will’ of these two countries may be defined as no more than a square deal for Poland, that does not necessarily limit the military commitment. A quick success might induce the Russians to submit to our will at least for the time being; but it might not. That is for the Russians to decide. If they want total war, they are in a position to have it.

    The only way we can achieve our object with certainty and lasting results is by victory in a total war but in view of what we have said in paragraph 2 above, on the possibility of quick success, we have thought it right to consider the problem on two hypotheses:-

    That a total war is necessary, and on this hypothesis we have examined our chances of success.

    That the political appreciation is that a quick success would suffice to gain our political object and that the continuing commitment need not concern us.

    TOTAL WAR

    Apart from the chances of revolution in the USSR and the political collapse of the present regime – on which we are not competent to express an opinion – the elimination of Russia could only be achieved as a result of:

    the occupation of such areas of metropolitan Russia that the war making capacity of the country would be reduced to a point at which further resistance became impossible.

    Such a decisive defeat of the Russian forces in the field as to render it impossible for the USSR to continue the war.

    Occupation of Vital Areas of Russia

    The situation might develop in such a way that Russians succeeded in withdrawing without suffering a decisive defeat. They would then presumably adopt the tactics which they had employed so successfully against the Germans and in previous wars of making use of the immense distances with which their territory provides them. In 1941 the Germans reached the Moscow area, the Volga and the Caucasus, but the technique of factory evacuation, combined with the development of new resources and Allied assistance, enabled the U.S.S.R. to continued fighting.

    There was virtually no limit to the distance to which it would be necessary for the Allies to penetrate into Russia in order to render further resistance impossible. It is far as, or as quickly as, the Germans in 1942 and this penetration no decisive result.

    Decisive Defeat of the Russian Forces

    Details of the present strengths and dispositions of the Russian and Allied forces are given in Annexes II and III and illustrated maps A and B. The existing balance of strength in Central Europe, where the Russians enjoy a superiority of approximately three to one, makes it most unlikely that the Allies could achieve a complete and decisive victory in that area in present circumstances. Although Allied organisation is better, equipment slightly better and morale higher, the Russians have proved themselves formidable opponents of the Germans. They have competent commanders, adequate equipment and an organisation which though possibly inferior by our standards, has stood the test. On the other hand, only about one third of their divisions are of a high standard, the others being considerably inferior and with overall mobility well below that of the Allies.

    To achieve the decisive defeat of Russia in a total war would require, in particular, the mobilisation of manpower to counteract their present enormous manpower resources. This is a very long term project and would involve:-

    The deployment in Europe of a large proportion of the vast resources of the United States.

    The re-equipment and re-organisation of German manpower and of all the Western Allies.

     Conclusions

    We conclude that:-

    That if our political object is to be achieved with any certainty and with lasting results, the defeat of Russia in a total war will be necessary.

    The result of a total war with Russia is not possible to forecast, but the one thing certain is that to win it would take us a very long time.

    QUICK SUCCESS

    It might, however, be considered, as result of a political appreciation, that a quick and limited military success would result in Russia accepting out terms.

    Before a decision to open hostilities were made, full account would have to taken of the following:-

    If this appreciation is wrong and the attainment of whatever limited objective we may set ourselves does not cause Russia to submit to our terms, we may, in fact, be committed to a total war.

    It will not be possible to limit hostilities to any particular area. While we are in progress, therefore, we must envisage a world-wide struggle.

    Even if all goes according to plan, we shall not have achieved, from the military point of view, a lasting result. The military power of Russia will not be broken and it will be open to her to recommence the conflict at any time she sees fit.

    Assuming, however, that it is decided to risk military action on a limited basis, accepting the dangers set out above, we have examined what action we could take in order to inflict such a blow upon the Russians as would cause them to accept our terms, even though they would not have been decisively defeated and, from the military point of view, would still be capable of continuing the struggle.

    Churchill had a penchant for such things.  While he was correct about the dangers the USSR posed, fanciful planning was something he had a taste for, and not always wise fanciful planning.

    The Battle of the Hongorai River in New Guinea ended in Australian victory.

    The UK cut rations of bacon, cooking fats and soaps in recognition of the distressed condition of Europe.  POWs would also receive ration cuts.

    President Truman reports to Congress on the Lend-Lease program as of March, 1945.  The UK had received supplies worth $12,775,000,000 and the USSR $8,409,000,000. 

    Reverse Lend-Lease from the UK had amounted to about$5,000,000,000 in the same period.  The existence of Reverse Lend Lease is typically ignored.  The UK, it should be noted, also supplied materials to the Soviet Union.

    US forces entered Yonabaru, Okinawa and captured Conical Hill.

    Lucky Strike Green:

    22 May 1948

    Last edition:

    Monday, May 21, 1945. British government falls apart, French mandates want out, Himmler arrested.

    Tuesday, May 13, 2025

    Sunday, May 13, 1945. "There is still a lot to do".

    Churchill delivered a radio address warning that there was still a lot to do.

    It was five years ago on Thursday last that His Majesty the King commissioned me to form a National Government of all parties to carry on our affairs. Five years is a long time in human life, especially when there is no remission for good conduct. However, aided-by loyal and capable colleagues and sustained by the entire British nation at home and all our fighting men abroad, and with the unswerving cooperation of the Dominions far across the oceans and of our Empire in every quarter of the globe, it became clear last week that things had worked out pretty well and that the British Commonwealth and Empire stands more united and more effectively powerful than at any time in its long romantic history. Certainly we were in a far better state to cope with the problems and perils of the future than we were five years ago.

    For a while our prime enemy, our mighty enemy, Germany, overran almost all Europe. France, who bore such a frightful strain in the last great war was beaten to the ground and took some time to recover. The Low Countries, fighting to the best of their strength, were subjugated. Norway was overrun. Mussolini's Italy stabbed us in the back when we were, as he thought, at our last gasp. But for ourselves, our lot, I mean the British Commonwealth and Empire, we were absolutely alone.

    In July, August, and September, 1940, forty or fifty squadrons of British fighter aircraft broke the teeth of the German air fleet at odds of seven or eight to one in the Battle of Britain. Never before in the history of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. The name of Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding will ever be linked with this splendid event. But conjoined with the Royal Air Force lay the Royal Navy, ever ready to tear to pieces the barges, gathered from the canals of Holland and Belgium, in which an invading army could alone have been transported. I was never one to believe that the invasion of Britain would be an easy task. With the autumn storms, the immediate danger of invasion in 1940 had passed.

    Then began the blitz, when Hitler said he would rub out our cities. This was borne without a word of complaint or the slightest signs of flinching, while a very large number of people-honor to them all-proved that London could take it and so could the other ravaged centers.

    But the dawn of 1941 revealed us still in jeopardy. The hostile aircraft could fly across the approaches to our island, where 46,000,000 people had to import half their daily bread and all the materials they need for peace or war, from Brest to Norway in a single flight or back again, observing all the movements of our shipping in and out of the Clyde and Mersey and directing upon our convoys the large and increasing numbers of U-boats with which the enemy bespattered the Atlantic-the survivors or successors of which are now being collected in British harbors.

    The sense of envelopment, which might at any moment turn to strangulation, lay heavy upon us. We had only the northwestern approach between Ulster and Scotland through which to bring in the means of life and to send out the forces of war. Owing to the action of Mr. de Valera, so much at variance with the temper and instinct of thousands of southern Irishmen, who hastened to the battlefront to prove their ancient valor, the approaches which the southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by the hostile aircraft and U-boats.

    This was indeed a deadly moment in our life, and if it had not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera or perish forever from the earth. However, with a restraint and poise to which, I say, history will find few parallels, we never laid a violent hand upon them, which at times would have been quite easy and quite natural, and left the de Valera Government to frolic with the German and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart's content.

    When I think of these days I think also of other episodes and personalities. I do not forget Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde, V.C., D.S.O., Lance-Corporal Keneally, V.C., Captain Fegen, V.C., and other Irish heroes that-I could easily recite, and all bitterness by Britain for the Irish race dies in my heart. I can only pray that in years which I shall not see the shame will be forgotten and the glories will endure, and that the peoples of the British Isles and of the British Commonwealth of Nations will walk together in mutual comprehension and forgiveness.

    My friends, we will not forget the devotion of our merchant seamen, the vast, inventive, adaptive, all-embracing and, in the end, all-controlling power of the Royal Navy, with its ever more potent new ally, the air, which have kept the life-line open. We were able to breathe; we were able to live; we were able to strike. Dire deeds we had to do. The destruction or capture of the French fleet which, had it ever passed into German hands would, together with the Italian fleet, have perhaps enabled the German Navy to face us on the high seas. The dispatch to Wavell all round the Cape at our darkest hour, of tanks-practically all we had in the island-enabled us as far back as November, 1940, to defend Egypt against invasion and hurl back with the loss of a quarter of a million captives the Italian armies at whose tail Mussolini had planned a ride into Cairo or Alexandria.

    Great anxiety was felt by President Roosevelt, and indeed by thinking men throughout the United States, about what would happen to us in the early part of 1941. This great President felt to the depth of his being that the destruction of Britain would not only be a fearful event in itself, but that it would expose to mortal danger the vast and as yet largely unarmed potentialities and future destiny of the United States.

    He feared greatly that we should be invaded in that spring of 1941, and no doubt he had behind him military advice as good as any in the world, and he sent his recent Presidential opponent, Mr. Wendell Willkie, to me with a letter in which he had written in his own hand the famous lines of Longfellow, which I quoted in the House of Commons the other day:

    Sail on, O Ship of State!

    Sail on, O Union strong and great!

    Humanity with all its fears,

    With all the hopes of future years,

    Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

    We were in a fairly tough condition by the early months of 1941 and felt very much better about ourselves than in the months immediately after the collapse of France. Our Dunkirk army and field force troops in Britain, almost a million strong, were nearly all equipped or re-equipped. We had ferried over the Atlantic a million rifles and a thousand cannon from the United States, with all their ammunition, since the previous June.

    In our munition works, which were becoming very powerful, men and women had worked at their machines till they dropped senseless with fatigue. Nearly one million of men, growing to two millions at the peak, working all day had been formed into the Home Guard, armed at least with rifles and armed also with the spirit "Conquer or Die."

    Later in 1941, when we were still all alone, we sacrificed, to some extent unwillingly, our conquests of the winter in Cyrenaica and Libya in order to stand by Greece, and Greece will never forget how much we gave, albeit unavailingly, of the little we had. We did this for honor. We repressed the German-instigated rising in Iraq. We defended Palestine. With the assistance of General de Gaulle's indomitable Free French we cleared Syria and the Lebanon of Vichyites and of German intrigue. And then in June, 1941, another tremendous world event occurred.

    You have no doubt noticed in your reading of British history that we have sometimes had to hold out all alone, or to be the mainspring of coalitions, against a Continental tyrant or dictator for quite a long time-against the Spanish Armada, against the might of Louis XIV, when we led Europe for nearly twenty-five years under William III and Marlborough and 130 years ago, when Pitt, Wellington, and Nelson broke Napoleon, not without the assistance of the heroic Russians of 1812. In all these world wars our island kept the lead of Europe or else held out alone.

    And if you hold out alone long enough there always comes a time when the tyrant makes some ghastly mistake which alters the whole balance of the struggle. On June 22, 1941, Hitler, master as he thought himself of all Europe, nay indeed soon to be, he thought, master of the world, treacherously, without warning, without the slightest provocation, hurled himself on Russia and came face to face with Marshal Stalin and the numberless millions of the Russian people. And then at the end of the year Japan struck her felon blow at the United States at Pearl Harbor, and at the same time attacked us in Malaya and at Singapore. Thereupon Hitler and Mussolini declared war on the republic of the United States.

    Years have passed since then. Indeed every year seems to me almost a decade. But never since the United States entered the war have I had the slightest doubt but that we should be saved and that we had only to do our duty in order to win. We have played our part in all this process by which the evildoers have been overthrown. I hope I do not speak vain or boastful words. But from Alamein in October, 1942, through the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa, of Sicily and of-Italy, with the capture of Rome, we marched many miles and never knew defeat.

    And then last year, after two years' patient preparation and marvelous devices of amphibious warfare-in my view our scientists are not surpassed by any nation, specially when their thought is applied to naval matters-last year on June 6 we seized a carefully selected little toe of German-occupied France and poured millions in from this island and from across the Atlantic until the Seine, the Somme, and the Rhine all fell behind the advancing Anglo-American spearheads. France was liberated. She produced a fine Army of gallant men to aid her own liberation. Germany lay open.

    And now from the other side, from the East, the mighty military achievements of the Russian people, always holding many more German troops on their front than we could do, rolled forward to meet us in the heart and center of Germany. At the same time in Italy Field-Marshal Alexander's Army of so many nations, the largest part of which was British or British Empire, struck their final blow and compelled more than 1,000,000 enemy troops to surrender. This Fifteenth Army Group, as we call it, are now deep in Austria joining their right hand with the Russians and their left with the United States Armies under General Eisenhower's command.

    It happened that in three days we received the news of the unlamented departures of Mussolini and Hitler, and in three days also surrenders were made to Field-Marshal Alexander and Field-Marshal Montgomery of over 2,500,000 soldiers of this terrible warlike German Army.

    I shall make it clear at this moment that we have never failed to recognize the immense superiority of the power used by the United States in the rescue of France and the defeat of Germany.

    For our part we have had in action about one-third as many men as the Americans, but we have taken our full share of the fighting, as the scale of our losses shows. Our Navy has borne incomparably the heavier burden in the Atlantic Ocean, in the narrow seas and Arctic convoys to Russia, while the United States Navy has used its massive strength mainly against Japan. It is right and natural that we should extol the virtues and glorious services of our own most famous commanders, Alexander and Montgomery, neither of whom was ever defeated since they began together at Alamein, both of whom had conducted in Africa, in Italy, in Normandy and in Germany battles of the first magnitude and of decisive consequences. At the same time we know how great is our debt to the combining and unifying of the command and high strategic direction of General Eisenhower.

    Here is the moment when I must pay my personal tribute to the British Chiefs of the Staff with whom I have worked in the closest intimacy throughout these hard years. There have been very few changes in this powerful and capable body of men who, sinking all Service differences and judging the problems of the war as a whole, have worked together in the closest harmony with each other. In Field-Marshal Brooke, Admiral Pound, Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and Marshal of the R.A.F. Portal a power was formed who deserved the highest honor in the direction of the whole British war strategy and its agreement with that of our Allies.

    It may well be said that never have the forces of two nations fought side by side and intermingled into line of battle with so much unity, comradeship, and brotherhood as in the great Anglo-American army. Some people say, "Well, what would you expect, if both nations speak the same language and have the same outlook upon life with all its hope and glory." Others may say, "It would be an ill day for all the world and for the pair of them if they did not go on working together and marching together and sailing together and flying together wherever something has to be done for the sake of freedom and fair play all over the world."

    There was one final danger from which the collapse of Germany has saved us. In London and the southeastern counties we have suffered for a year from various forms of flying bombs and rockets and our Air Force and our Ack-Ack Batteries have done wonders against them. In particular the Air Force, turned on in good time on what then seemed very slight and doubtful evidence, vastly hampered and vastly delayed all German preparations.

    But it was only when our Armies cleaned up the coast and overran all the points of discharge, and when the Americans captured vast stores of rockets of all kinds near Leipzig, and when the preparations being made on the coasts of France and Holland could be examined in detail, that we knew how grave was the peril, not only from rockets and flying bombs but from multiple long-range artillery.

    Only just in time did the Allied Armies blast the viper in his nest. Otherwise the autumn of 1944, to say nothing of 1945, might well have seen London as shattered as Berlin. For the same period the Germans had prepared a new U-boat fleet and novel tactics which, though we should have eventually destroyed them, might well have carried anti-U-boat warfare back to the high peak days of 1942. Therefore we must rejoice and give thanks not only for our preservation when we were all alone but for our timely deliverance from new suffering, new perils not easily to be measured.

    I wish I could tell you tonight that all our toils and troubles were over. Then indeed I could end my five years' service happily, and if you thought you had had enough of me and that I ought to be put out to grass, I assure you I would take it with the best of grace. But, on the contrary, I must warn you, as I did when I began this five years' task-and no one knew then that it would last so long-that there is still a lot to do and that you must be prepared for further efforts of mind and body and further sacrifices to great causes if you are not to fall back into the rut of inertia, the confusion of aim, and the craven fear of being great. You must not weaken in any way in your alert and vigilant frame of mind, and though holiday rejoicing is necessary to the human spirit, yet it must add to the strength and resilience with which every man and woman turns again to the work they have to do, and also to the outlook and watch they have to keep on public affairs.

    On the continent of Europe we have yet to make sure that the simple and honorable purposes for which we entered the war are not brushed aside or overlooked in the months following our success, and that the words freedom, democracy, and liberation are not distorted from their true meaning as we have understood them. There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites for their crimes if law and justice did not rule, and if totalitarian or police governments were to take the place of the German invaders.

    We seek nothing for ourselves. But we must make sure that those causes which we fought for find recognition at the peace table in facts as well as words, and above all we must labor that the world organization which the United Nations are creating at San Francisco, does not become an idle name; does not become a shield for the strong and a mockery for the weak. It is the victors who must search their hearts in their glowing hours and be worthy by their nobility of the immense forces that they wield.

    We must never forget that beyond all lurks Japan, harassed and failing but still a people of a hundred millions, for whose warriors death has few terrors. I cannot tell you tonight how much time or what exertions will be required to compel them to make amends for their odious treachery and cruelty. We have received-like China so long undaunted-we have received horrible injuries from them ourselves, and we are bound by the ties of honor and fraternal loyalty to the United States to fight this great war at the other end of the world at their side without flagging or failing.

    We must remember that Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were and are all directly menaced by this evil Power. They came to our aid in our dark times, and we must not leave unfinished any task which concerns their safety and their future. I told you hard things at the beginning of these last five years; you did not shrink, and I should be unworthy of your confidence and generosity if I did not still cry, "Forward, unflinching, unswerving, indomitable, till the whole task is done and the whole world is safe and clean."

    The Battle of Pokoku and the Irrawaddy River operations in Burma ended in a British victory.

    Riots took place outside of a Catholic Church in Santiago Chile where a memorial Mass for Mussolini was being offered.

    German Army Group E surrendered for the most part, although some of it continued to fight on in Slovenia.

    In Czechoslovakia German forces continued to retreat to the west in spite of the war having ended in hopes of surrendering to the Americans rather than the Soviets, but they were not putting up an armed resistance.

    Marines took Dakeshi Ridge on Okinawa.

    Last edition:

    Saturday, May 12, 1945. Shortened futures.