Their Finest Hour by Winston Churchill

Author:Winston Churchill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Europe, Churchill, World War II, 1939-1945 - Campaigns - France, Diplomatic history, France - History - 1914-1940, 1940, Winston, Battle of, 1939-1945, General, Campaigns, Britain, Great Britain, Historical, 1939-1945 - Diplomatic history, Biography & Autobiography, Military, World War, France, History
ISBN: 9780395410561
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 1986-04-11T10:00:00+00:00

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5

The United States Destroyers and

West Indian Bases

* * *

My Appeal for Fifty American Destroyers — Lord Lothian’s Helpfulness — My Telegram to President Roosevelt of July 31 — Our Offer to Lease Bases in the West Indies — My Objections to Bargaining About the Fleet — Further Telegram to the President of August 15 — The President’s Statement — My Speech in Parliament of August 20 — Telegram to the President of August 22 — And of August 25 — And of August 27 — Our Final Offer — My Assurance About the Fleet of August 31 — Statement to Parliament of September 5.

ON MAY 15, as already narrated, I had in my first telegram to President Roosevelt after becoming Prime Minister asked for “the loan of forty or fifty of your older destroyers to bridge the gap between what we have now and the large new construction we put in hand at the beginning of the war. This time next year we shall have plenty, but if in the interval Italy comes in against us with another hundred submarines we may be strained to breaking-point.” I recurred to this in my cable of June 11, after Italy had already declared war upon us. “Nothing is so important as for us to have the thirty or forty old destroyers you have already had reconditioned. We can fit them very rapidly with our Asdics…. The next six months are vital.” At the end of July, when we were alone and already engaged in the fateful air battle, with the prospect of imminent invasion behind it, I renewed my request. I was well aware of the President’s good will and of his difficulties. For that

reason I had endeavoured to put before him, in the blunt terms of various messages, the perilous position which the United States would occupy if British resistance collapsed and Hitler became master of Europe, with all its dockyards and navies, less what we had been able to destroy or disable.

* * * * *

It was evident as this discussion proceeded that the telegrams I had sent in June, dwelling on the grave consequences to the United States which might follow from the successful invasion and subjugation of the British Islands, played a considerable part in high American circles. Assurances were requested from Washington that the British Fleet would in no circumstances be handed over to the Germans. We were very ready to give these assurances in the most solemn form. As we were ready to die, they cost nothing. I did not, however, wish, at this time, on what might be the eve of invasion and at the height of the air battle, to encourage the Germans with the idea that such contingencies had ever entered our minds. Moreover, by the end of August our position was vastly improved. The whole Regular Army was re-formed, and to a considerable extent rearmed. The Home Guard had come into active life. We were inflicting heavy losses on the German Air Force, and were far more than holding our own.

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