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side and intermingled in the lines of battle with so much unity, comradeship, and brotherhood as in the great Anglo-American Armies. Some people say, “Well, what would you expect, if both nations speak the same language, have the same laws, have a great part of their history in common, and have very much the same outlook upon life, with all its hope and glory? Isn’t it just the sort of thing that would happen?” And 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, whenever something has to be done for the sake of freedom and fair play all over the world. That is the great hope of the future.”

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 — perhaps you have heard about this — 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, 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, which only the other day added to the information we had, and when all the preparations being made on the coasts of France and Holland could be examined in detail, in scientific detail, that we knew how grave had been the peril, not only from rockets and flying bombs, but from multiple long-range artillery which was being prepared against London. 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.

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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 that you had had enough of me and that I ought to be put out to grass I tell 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.

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 honourable 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 Triumph and Tragedy

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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 labour that the World Organisation 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 the Japanese to make amends for their odious treachery and cruelty. We — like China, so long undaunted — have received horrible injuries from them ourselves, and we are bound by the ties of honour 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 and 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.

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Appendix C, Book Two

MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS,

JUNE 1944 — MAY 1945

(Members of the War Cabinet are shown in italics)

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Notes

1
See map, “Normandy

2
See Volumes 4,
The Hinge of Fate,
pages 287–89, and 5,
Closing the Ring,
page 591.

3
Guenther Blumentritt,
Von Rundstedt,
pages 218, 219.

4
Chester Wilmot,
The Struggle for Europe,
page 318.

1
These attacks were the result of Hitler’s instructions at the Soissons conference. On July 1 Keitel telephoned Rundstedt and asked, “What shall we do?” Rundstedt answered, “Make peace, you idiots. What else can you do?”

2
Author’s italics.

3
The decision to make a landing in Southern France
4
See map, “ Normandy

5
See Volume V
,
page 617.

6
See map, “Northwest Europe”

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1
In order of intensity — i.e., bombs per 100 acres — the order was different: first the City of London area, and then Penge, Bermondsey, Deptford, Greenwich, Camberwell, Lewisham, Stepney, Poplar. Lambeth, Battersea, Mitcham, and Wandsworth.

2
See Volume 5,
Closing the Ring,
pages 236, 239.

3
These shells, which were designed to explode as they passed near the target, were dangerous to use over land, since if they missed the target badly they did not explode until they fell to earth.

4
The exact German figure for flying bombs launched against London from sites in France was 8564, of which 1006 crashed soon after launching.

5
See Volume 5,
Closing the Ring,
pages 231–32.

6
The first long-range rocket to be successfully fired in war had been launched about ten hours earlier, against Paris, but this, as it turned out, was of minor consequence.

7
The German records show that 1190 rockets were successfully launched against London, out of 1359

attempts.

1
Author’s italics.

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2
The complete texts of the more important documents can be studied in Appendix D, Book One.

3
Author’s subsequent italics throughout.

4
The full text of the President’s telegram will be found in Appendix D, Book One.

5
The first major operations in which the “Dragoon” armies took part, after their junction with General Eisenhower’s forces, were in mid-November.

1
See map, “Operations on the Russian Front, June 1944 —

January 1945”.

2
Heinz Guderian.
Panzer Leader,
p. 352.

1
See map, “Northern Italy”.

2
My italics. — W.S.C.

1
The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the Chief of the Air Staff, and out Ambassadors to Egypt and Greece.

2
See Volume 5,
Closing the Ring,
page 536.

3
Ourambassador to Greece.

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1
The Polish Underground Army.

1
Volume 5,
Closing the Ring,
Book Two, Chapter 14,

“Burma and Beyond.”

2
See map, “ Burma, July 1944 — January 1945 ”.

3
The average
yearly
rainfall in London is about twenty-four inches.

4
The late General Wingate’s Long-Range Penetration Group.

1
Among them were two Australian warships, the cruiser
Shropshire
andthe destroyer
Arunta.

2
Suicide bombers made their first appearance in the Leyte operations. The Australian cruiser
Australia,
operating with Kinkaid’s fleet, had been hit by one a few days before, and had suffered casualties but no serious damage.

1
Hans Speidel,
Invasion 1944,
page 146.

2
Author’s subsequent italics

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3
See map, “ South Holland ”.

4
H. St. G. Saunders,
The Green Beret.

5
The Ist Corps at this time was a remarkable example of Allied integration. It consisted of four divisions, English, Canadian, American, and Polish.

6
Sir A. W. Tedder,
Air-Power in War,
pages 118, 119.