Quotes from book
The Second World War

The Second World War

Winston S. Churchill

The Second World War is a history of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill. Churchill labelled the "moral of the work" as follows: "In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill".Churchill wrote the book, with a team of assistants, using both his own notes and privileged access to official documents while still working as a politician; the text was vetted by the Cabinet Secretary. Churchill was largely fair in his treatment, but wrote the history from his personal point of view. He was unable to reveal all the facts, as some, such as the use of Ultra electronic intelligence, had to remain secret. From a historical point of view the book is therefore an incomplete memoir by a leading participant in the direction of the war.

“One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

“In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Post-war years (1945–1955)
Source: The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948) Moral of the Work, p. ix http://books.google.de/books?id=HzlT3t05OHoC&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q&f=false

“I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Post-war years (1945–1955)
Source: On his appointment as Prime Minister, May 10, 1940; The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948).

“No, bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Minute (1 June 1940) in response to the suggestion of Kenneth Clark (Director of the National Gallery) that the National Gallery's paintings should be sent to Canada, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 449
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“The whole world is against Hitler and Hitlerism. Men of every race and clime feel that this monstrous apparition stands between them and the forward move which is their due, and for which the age is ripe. Even in Germany itself there are millions who stand aloof from the seething mass of criminality and corruption constituted by the Nazi Party machine. Let them take courage amid perplexities and perils, for it may well be that the final extinction of a baleful domination will pave the way to a broader solidarity of all the men in all the lands than we could ever have planned if we had not marched together through the fire.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

The Second World War (1939–1945)
Source: Broadcast (12 November 1939), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 81

“We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (8 May 1945) from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill, 1941-1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 1344
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“When I make a statement of facts within my knowledge I expect it to be accepted.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

To Joseph Stalin in 1944, on the fact that there had been no plot between Britain and Germany to invade the Soviet Union. The Grand Alliance, Winston S. Churchill.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

speech at Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942
The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. Fred R. Shapiro, Yale University Press (2006), p. 153 ISBN 0300107986
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“I hope very much that the archway into the Chamber from the Inner Lobby—where the Bar used to be—which was smitten by the blast of the explosion, and has acquired an appearance of antiquity that might not have been achieved by the hand of time in centuries, will be preserved intact, as a monument of the ordeal which Westminster has passed through in the Great War, and as a reminder to those who will come centuries after us that they may look back from time to time upon their forbears who “kept the bridge In the brave days of old.””

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Rebuilding the House of Commons, Speech to the House of Commons https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1945/jan/25/house-of-commons-rebuilding, 25 January 1945.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“In order to win this war Hitler must destroy Great Britain. He may carry havoc into the Balkan States; he may tear great provinces out of Russia; he may march to the Caspian; he may march to the gates of India. All this will avail him nothing. It may spread his curse more widely throughout Europe and Asia, but it will not avert his doom. With every month that passes the many proud and once happy countries he is now holding down by brute force and vile intrigue are learning to hate the Prussian yoke and the Nazi name as nothing has ever been hated so fiercely and so widely among men before. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire—nay, in a certain sense, the whole English-speaking world—will be on his track bearing with them the swords of justice.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (9 February 1941), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 1009
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“These cruel, wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, a part of Hitler’s invasion plans. He hopes, by killing large numbers of civilians, and women and children, that he will terrorise and cow the people of this mighty imperial city … Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Radio broadcast during the London Blitz, September 11, 1940. Quoted by Martin Gilbert in Churchill: A Life, Macmillan (1992), p. 675 ISBN 0805023968
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“We ask no favours of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary, if tonight the people of London were asked to cast their votes as to whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of all cities, an overwhelming majority would cry, "No, we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, they have meted out to us." {applause} The people of London with one voice would say to Hitler: "You have committed every crime under the sun. Where you have been the least resisted there you have been the most brutal. It was you who began the indiscriminate bombing. We remember Warsaw! In the first few days of the war. We remember Rotterdam. We have been newly reminded of your habits by the hideous massacre in Belgrade. We know too well the bestial assaults you're making upon the Russian people, to whom our hearts go out in their valiant struggle! {cheers} We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will! You do your worst!”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

and we will do our best! {sustained cheering} Perhaps it may be our turn soon. Perhaps it may be our turn now."
July 14, 1941, in a speech before the London County Council. The original can be found in Churchill's The Unrelenting Struggle (English edition 187; American edition 182) or in the Complete Speeches VI:6448.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“Now that they have begun to molest the capital, I want you to hit them hard − and Berlin is the place to hit them.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

To the Chief of the Air Staff (26 August 1940) after the Luftwaffe bombed London, quoted in John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939-1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985), p. 230
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatreds, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame, has now resolved to try to break our famous Island race by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and all over the world, which will glow long after all traces of the conflagration he has caused in London have been removed. He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady and consuming flame until the last vestiges of Nazi tyranny have been burnt out of Europe, and until the Old World—and the New—can join hands to rebuild the temples of man's freedom and man's honour, upon foundations which will not soon or easily be overthrown.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (11 September 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 779
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible to get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Conversation with Lord Moran, August 14, 1944.
Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940-1965 (London: Constable & Company, 1966), p. 167.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“We have differed and quarrelled in the past but now one bond unites us all—to wage war until victory is won, and never to surrender ourselves to servitude and shame, whatever the cost and the agony must be.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (19 May 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 364
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“I spoke of the melancholy financial position of Great Britain. Half our foreign investments had been spent in the common cause when we stood alone. There is a great external debt of three thousand million pounds. We should require time to get on our feet again. The President listened closely, attentively and sympathetically. He spoke of the immense debt the Allies owed to Britain for that period when she fought alone. "If you had gone like France," he added, "we might well be fighting the Germans on the American coast at the present time."”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Churchill's account of his conversation with President Truman (18 July 1945), quoted in Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940-1965 (London: Sphere, 1968), p. 298
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“First, Poland has been again overrun by two of the great powers which held her in bondage for 150 years but were unable to quench the spirit of the Polish nation. The heroic defence of Warsaw shows that the soul of Poland is indestructible, and that she will rise again like a rock which may for a spell be submerged by a tidal wave but which remains a rock.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

BBC broadcast (“The Russian Enigma”), London, October 1, 1939 ( First Month of War (excerpt) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Et45bs95I, transcript of the full text https://ww2memories.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/churchills-ww2-speech-to-the-nation-october-1939/).
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Radio broadcast http://books.google.com/books?id=_YBkWL9XBfcC&q=%22We+do+not+covet+anything+from+any+nation+except+their+respect%22&pg=PA403#v=onepage to German occupied, Vichy, and Free France (21 October 1940)
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“The traditional British view is that character is what matters in a general. They like a solid, simple man, with no newfangled nonsense about him. He should be preternaturally silent. If by chance he thinks at all he should not let this leak out, otherwise confidence would be destroyed.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Today's Battles. Collier's, 7 October 1939.
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol I, Churchill at War, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 487. ISBN 0903988429
The Second World War (1939–1945)

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