Dan Snow
Appearances
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And they send a new ambassador over to the US in that same time, late fall 1940. Und er ist ein sehr charismatischer Typ. Und es gibt einen berühmten Quote, dass er... Leider kann ich nicht finden, ob es tatsächlich wahr ist. Aber die Geschichte geht. Die Geschichte ist weitgehend erzählt. Er sagt den Journalisten, die ihn begrüßten, als er landete, Na, Jungs, Britannien ist kaputt.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Es ist euer Geld, das wir wollen. Und so, wie du sagst, mit Murrow und so, gibt es auch diese Influenzkampagne, die die britischen Leute zeigt, die Nacht nach Nacht Bomben verursacht. Frauen getötet, Kinder getötet, Häuser zerstört, indiskriminierte Bomben von der deutschen Kriegsmaschine. Also, die Sympathie in den amerikanischen Leuten.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
I'll be back with more American History after this short break.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Well, you know, you're the expert in FDR, Don, with this great series you've been running. But I think the FDR was hoping to avoid war if he could. He was hoping that there would be some way for the Europeans not to drag the world back into kind of global Armageddon, as they've done so many times in the past. But he also is, I think he buys what Churchill's selling.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
He buys the idea that Hitler is evil. He buys the idea it's a threat, an existential threat to democracy. And that's why, and you can see that, because he does answer Churchill's pleas, and he does help I'm astonished when I read about 1941. Before Pearl Harbor, the lengths that the Americans go to help the Brits...
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
in 1941, it actually makes it less surprising that Hitler made the crazy decision to declare war on the Americans after Pearl Harbor. Because from Hitler's point of view, the Americans were kind of in the war. And if you look at Lend-Lease, a great example, in March 1941, you get the Lend-Lease Act passed by Congress, and Churchill said it's tantamount to a declaration of war.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Churchill knows, like, he's got them. This is America are in. They have agreed to provide enormous, enormous military supplies to Britain and its empire and its allies.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Yes, he likes to drink, he's old, he's a sort of Victorian war horse, let loose in this sort of modern age of the mid-20th century. He is also, this is the big thing that the FDR, I think, will always sit between them. He believes in the British Empire passionately.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
1914, Churchill macht ein bisschen mentale Gymnastik, weil Churchill sagt, Hitler ist ein existenzieller Threat für alles Gute in diesem Welt. By the way, India, you're remaining part of the British Empire, for the foreseeable. So, you know, you're like, okay. So, he, and FDR sees that.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
FDR's like, I'm not sending American boys to die, and I'm not sending American dollars to be put to work to keep the British Empire afloat. Like, that's not what, you know what, the name, the name, The Republic, it's the United States of America. Our foundation myth tells you all you need to know about our view of the British Empire, right?
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And this is something I think that Brits, and something we can come maybe to at the end, but Winston Churchill gets fundamentally wrong about the Americans FDR. It's like he thinks they buy into the whole thing and that the British Empire is sort of legitimized. But no, FDR is always going to be like, you are a crazy old aristocrat.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
This is a really important point and it adds to the texture of the story.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Ja, genau. Er wütet ihn sehr hart. Ich meine, wir kommen zu diesem Thema, ich bin mir sicher, aber sie treffen sich tatsächlich Gesicht zu Gesicht. Und Churchill, absolut. Es ist, als würde er auf eine Date gehen. Er wendet sich zurück. Am selben Zeit, als Churchill sich als der Großvater des globalen, als der Kissinger-Figur des Welt. Ich bin derjenige, der alles über Strategie weiß.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Und ich habe in den Tränchen des Weltkriegs gesorgt. Und ich habe das Spiel gespielt. So he's personally quite arrogant, but at the same time he knows. He's just about clever enough to know that he has to subordinate all that to trying to woo the Americans and get them into this war.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Yeah, and their first wartime meeting took place in August 1941. And again, you can see the sort of power differential here, because Churchill jumps on a battleship and crosses the Atlantic. You know, the Battle of the Atlantic is raging at the moment. And they go to Newfoundland. And so it's a short hop up from FDR's native New York City. But it's a trek for a British Prime Minister to make.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And I don't think he'd have made it unless he needed to. And they party. You know what, they... Und Churchill ist sehr bewegt von diesem Meeting, weil er eine kraftvolle Erinnerung bekommt, dass dies zwei englischsprachige Empires sind, zwei englischsprachige Länder. Sie haben so viel zusammen. Sie haben Bonds von Kindheit, sie haben Bonds von Religion.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Es gibt einen großen religiösen, protestantischen religiösen Service auf dem Deck eines der Kriegsschiffe und die Amerikaner kommen und es gibt einen gemeinsamen Service. Du weißt, es gibt hier viel zusammen. Und Churchill erlaubt sich, zu hoffen, dass das bedeutet, dass The Americans inevitably will come down on the side of the Brits in this great global struggle and back the Brits.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And to a certain extent it's true that that kinship did really matter in the 20th century between the Brits and the Americans. So they also create the Atlantic Charter, which is a vision for a post-war order. Now, Churchill agrees, there will be language in there about self-determination. The peoples around the world will be able to choose their own form of government.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
That includes people in current British colonies. So it shows how much peace prepared to compromise to get FDR on board and to show the rest of the world that the British and Americans are forming a kind of axis here, an alliance.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Yeah, he receives news of Pearl Harbor. And by the way, people forget, the same day as Pearl Harbor, in fact, I think a couple of hours before, the Japanese attacked the British Empire in Asia as well. So Britain... Churchill wächst auf, um zu finden, dass Pearl Harbor passiert, aber er findet auch heraus, dass der britische Empire bereits unter Strain, mit Italien und Deutschland, kämpft.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Er kämpft jetzt auch gegen diesen pazifischen Macht, Japan, aber Churchill lässt sich nicht so beruhigen, weil er sich fokussiert, er weiß, dass der wichtigste Event Pearl Harbor ist, er weiß den wichtigsten Event und er hat gesagt, als er herausgefunden hat, die Nacht, nachdem er herausgefunden hat, hat er das Schlafen des Gebeten und der Dankbarkeit geschlafen und er hat geschrieben, dass Japan jetzt auf der Erde sein würde,
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Und Hitler's fate was sealed. And actually, in terms of predicting the future, that's pretty good going. Churchill's exactly right. America's entry into the war. America being dragged into the war by Japan. Don't forget the very strange declaration of war by Hitler. Roosevelt had a bit of an issue. You get bombed in Hawaii, you can't declare war on Germany.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Aber Hitler machte den Job sehr einfach für ihn. Hitler erklärte die Krieg in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Verfolgt, seltsam, von Rumänien. Und das war eine Strecke für sie. Aber anyway, so Roosevelt sagt, gut, wir sind jetzt dabei. Hitler hat das getan, weil, was ihn betrifft, die verdammten Amerikaner so nahe zu den Briten gearbeitet haben.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Er hätte vielleicht besser involviert, wenn die Japaner involviert wurden, um es zu machen. Und er dachte, es könnte die Japaner ermutigen, ihn zu helfen, die Sowjetunion zu invadieren. Aber das ist ein anderes Thema. So Churchill thinks, right, we're done here. This is it. The statistics now make this look very well-opsided.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
We've got the Soviet Union, we've got the British Empire, we've got the Americans on one side and we've got Japan, Germany, Italy effectively on the other. This is not going to work for them. And he straight away, straight away, tells the king. I think it's the day after Pearl Harbor. Churchill says to the king, I'm off to America. I'm going.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
I'm gonna... And the reason he goes is because he wants to shape American policy. He does not want them terrassing around the Pacific, chasing the Japanese. Churchill thinks they need to deal with Germany first, right? And this is the big thing Churchill wants to achieve, the so-called Germany first mission.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Don, I've always wondered, Don, how do the American people take that? Because I've always thought that was kind of an intro. I know that the Germans have declared war on them, but how did they sell that?
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Er schreibt seiner eigenen Familie, es ist, als ob er ein Mitglied der Familie ist. Es nimmt die Residenz auf. Es ist verrückt.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Nein, genau. Paul Roosevelt, um den Mann völlig nackt zu sehen, das ist, wie ich es mir vorstelle, ein furchtbarer Gedanke. Ja. Und dann gibt es viele amerikanische Geschichten, wie viel er trinkt. Er trinkt riesige Mengen von Sherry in seinem Zimmer vor dem Frühstück. Ich meine, es ist absolut erstaunlich, wie viel er trinkt.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Listen, that is very weird for the military and I think we accept it now because of NATO and the World War II, but there is nothing more important for a state than directing its own military affairs. The idea that you subordinate yourself to other people.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
It's one thing being in a kind of alliance situation where a sort of alliance commander can be like, I'd love it if you chaps moved that way, but this is integrated command structure. This is you salute your superior officer and take an order as if he's from your nation and he's not. It's an extraordinary idea. And in the First World War, it hadn't happened.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Right at the end, in the First World War, the Americans had fiercely guarded their independence. Pershing, he would lend units to the French and the British. The British and French in the First World War had been like, just send us Americans and we'll stick them in our battalions and we'll send them to the front. And the Americans were like, no, no, no, no.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
They will fight under American officers, under American flags. And the same is true throughout history. But what happens here? You say you're going to send a supreme allied commander for Europe. He's going to be an American and British generals and officers will serve under him. So you're right. You're right to focus on that. It's a hugely important thing. But my goodness, how powerful.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Yes, I'm somebody who gets quite queasy when special relationships are mentioned. But it is certainly true that the OG special relationship, the one between these two men, was very special. And they spent a huge amount of time together. They spent a huge amount of time on the phone.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Wild. In person. You know, Churchill... Wenn man sich Churchills Reise allein in World War II anschaut, ist es überraschend. Er fliegt rickety alte Flugzeuge über, wenn nicht gegenwärtige Lande, sicherlich Luftraum, das getestet wurde. Er geht in Schiffen überall.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Es ist verrückt. Er ist ein älterer Kerl. Und das ist, du weißt, die Reise ist nicht komfortabel und sicher in dieser Periode. Er hat an einer Stelle ein Flugzeug, er wird fast hyperthermisch und riskiert, dass es nach Nordafrika geht. Das ist ein riesiger, riesiger Lauf.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Und es ist die epische Koalition-Natur dieses Krieges, der Art und Weise, in der die Alliierten zusammenarbeiten können, der nur Hitler's Fate verhindert. Ich meine, er hat keine Hoffnung. Er hat keine Hoffnung.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Yes, Churchill was very nervous about the amphibious assault on Europe. He'd been thrown out of government for a disastrous amphibious assault in Gallipoli in the First World War. He was very nervous about this and he did not want to go before he felt they had overwhelming, overwhelming force and superiority. So They did not go in 1943. Stalin was begging them to go in 1943.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
They did not go in 1943 and they went in 1944. I think Churchill was a large part of securing that delay.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
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American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
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American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
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American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Well, this is the huge question. This is the great hinge point of modern British history. It's what everyone is obsessed by. These few days in May 1940, when the fate of Britain, its empire and probably the democratic world hung in the balance. You have the greatest defeat in the history of the British Army takes place on the continent of Europe. And we've had a few. We've had a few knockbacks.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
There was a little local difficulty down there in Virginia in the early 1780s. Some of your listeners may remember. But this was a humiliation, a catastrophe. The British and French armies together combined, still on paper, there's still two great imperial states on earth. They were eviscerated, destroyed, humiliated by the German war machine in May 1780. 1940.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
In the space of a couple of weeks, the Germans just run rings, literally run rings around them and reach the coast and divide great chunks of the force from each other. It's a complete defeat. It's a disaster.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Well, Churchill becomes Prime Minister on the day the Germans invade France and the Low Countries, right? So Churchill has been Prime Minister for a couple of weeks. He's staring down the barrel at the worst defeat in British history. Then France drops out of the war, signs a peace with Hitler.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And Britain and its empire, we should say huge empire, but Britain and its empire are alone fighting against Germany. And this is like, Churchill's waited his whole life. You said it in your brilliant introduction, like, Churchill's got fate or destiny on speed dial. He used to tell people when he was a kid, one day, one day I shall save the British Empire. He grew up in a palace.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
He's the grandson of a duke. His forebears stretch back performing all sorts of important tasks through history. One of his ancestors was the greatest general in British history, the Duke of Marlborough. So he was trained and put pressure on himself to be a great man. That's all he wanted to do in his life. And now is his chance and it's all gone to ashes.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
So Britain is fighting for its life against Germany. Churchill has two very simple ideas. This is what makes him a great man. He made many, many, many mistakes, but he had two very simple ideas in 1940. And on those two things rests his reputation. One is he knew he could not compromise with Hitler. Hitler represented an evil that was almost unprecedented in human affairs.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
This was not like Napoleon, this was not like Kaiser Wilhelm, this was not like Louis XIV, this was not like King Philip of Spain. We could live with those guys. It would be awkward, but this is an existential threat to everything that Winston Churchill believes. Everything, liberal democracy, western democracy, everything that it stands for. So he's got that idea in his head.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
So he's going to fight, even if he has to turn Britain into a graveyard, a bomb-blasted graveyard to do so, he's going to fight Hitler. His second idea is he's going to drag the Americans in. He knows he can't win without America. So he says to his son on 18th of May 1940, super early when you think about it, I shall drag the United States in.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And with American manpower, with American military might, with American industrial might, Britain and America together could beat Germany. That's it. That's his strategy. It's clear and he pursues it.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Well, he loved America. His mum was American. The only thing I have in common with Winston Churchill, sadly, is that my dad's a Brit, my mum's North American, my mum's Canadian. So he's one of those many Brits who has this kind of transatlantic heritage. And he thinks he can do business in America. He thinks of himself in some ways as an American.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
There was a great moment in New York when he was hit by a car. I think it was in the 1920s. And he got hit by a car and he managed to get the doctor to prescribe him a vast amount of alcohol in Prohibition-era America. America to make sure he could survive. So he writes straight away to FDR and he says, look, we are doing our best. The scene has darkened swiftly.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
We are about to be attacked here ourselves. No question. We're getting ready for invasion. We're getting ready for be it air assault, be it airborne assault or even naval assault. And we're going to fight. We're going to fight. Don't you worry. And by fighting, we're fighting not just for Britain, we're not just for its empire, we're fighting for you.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
We're fighting for western democratic liberal democracies. Not unlike a certain Ukrainian president has been doing for the last few years. He goes, look, every dollar you spend now giving to us to fight Putin is a dollar you won't have to spend fighting him yourself in a few years time. So that is Churchill's exact pitch. And he says, what we need are destroyers. We need ships.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And we do, he does say, we'll go on paying dollars as long as we can. So we're going to pay for this stuff. But I'd like to feel confident that when we can no longer pay, you will give us the stuff all the same. And then he finishes by saying, if you leave this too long and we're knocked out of this war, well then you've got a big problem, USA. You've got a European continent dominated by...
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
A massively powerful Nazi war machine with the wind at its back. And trust me, he says to Roosevelt, you'd rather deal with me. You'd rather give me some battered old chips, a bit of cash. Give that stuff to me now, because otherwise you're going to be fighting Hitler and it's going to be bad.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Das ist eine tolle Frage. Das ist etwas, worüber ich nicht genug denke. Roosevelt hatte ein riesiges Problem. Wie du sagst, du hast das Faktum gequotet. Die Amerikaner wollten nicht gegen Hitler in 1940 in die Waffe gehen. Und verständlich. Wenn ich auf der Beachtür der Great Cemetery auf der Omaha Beach Day schaue, und ich da rumlaufe, sehe ich 19-jährige Kinder aus Omaha.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And I think, what are they doing here so far from home? Like, it's hard. This is a hard thing to sell to people, right? So I respect the American people and their desire to stay out of trouble. If I lived in the middle of America, you bet I wouldn't be clamoring to fight Germany. But I think that what Churchill does is he launched an influence campaign, right? His speeches are great.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Some of the funniest speeches ever made in the English language, up there with the Gettysburg Address and... He's setting this up. He's setting this up as a global... War against evil. That he hopes will help Roosevelt. If he just goes, this is an old-fashioned British... The Brits have been fighting on the continent for 300 years.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
We've been swapping provinces with the French and the Austrians and the Germans. He doesn't want it to be seen as that kind of war. This is not like, oh, we'll take Alsace-Lorraine, we'll give you back Gibraltar, you know, all that kind of stuff. This is a all or nothing fight against something that is evil.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
And he's doing that to try and help Roosevelt, to try and say, I'm going to sell this in a different way.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Yeah, we sometimes think, it's so true, man. We sometimes think of these guys as old school, patrician, pre-internet, pre-TV, grand strategists. These two were ferocious PR guys. They knew exactly what was going on. They knew exactly how to move democratic audiences one way or another.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
The Brits faced a very tough battle against Germany. They were two equally matched prize fighters. They would have been punch-runk by the end. I mean, you're going to end up in a situation not unlike the Napoleonic Wars, where Britain wouldn't have been able to get an army ashore on the continent to take on the German war machine.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
But the Germans wouldn't be able to build a fleet to cross the... It's the same problem Napoleon's got, right? So you're going to end up with this kind of maritime power against this continental European power. And it's going to be a bit of a stalemate. Now, Germany conquered this vast empire in Europe from the biggest since the Caesars, right?
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
So you've got from the border of France to the Vistula River in what is now Poland. If he'd actually exploited that empire and kind of mobilized it in an effective way, instead actually it was... Ja, ja, dieses massive Headstart.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Well, Churchill is one of several letters. He writes to us all the time, saying, please get involved in the war and please send us more stuff. And as you say, he spends the summer of 1940 trying to avoid outright defeat. They do that in the Battle of Britain. They defeat the German Air Force in the Battle of Britain. They then move to a situation of, well, stalemate.
American History Hit
FDR & Churchill
Neither side can land a knockout blow. And Churchill wants to get to a place where you can move towards victory. And to do that, he needs American resource. He needs American money and weapons and industrial output and things like that. And so he says in December 8th, he goes, Britain is approaching the point where we are bankrupt. We cannot pay for things in cash.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Yeah, that's right. I mean, the Americans were very present in London, and I think the reports they were sending back, the stories of resistance, the stories of bravery, and the stories of the horror inflicted by Hitler's aircraft, those bombers, helped to move the American public towards a place where they were ready to support the British war effort, perhaps even join the British war effort.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
one of the most famous journalists in US history, Edward R. Murrow. Ed Murrow was here in London. He would broadcast for CBS from a basement below the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation's broadcasting house. And he would send daily updates, really, on the destruction and the death, but also on the lives of Londoners, the people carrying on trying to make the most of it.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So this is modern war correspondence that your listeners will be so familiar with. And He used to begin his broadcasts with the iconic, what is now the iconic phrase, this is London. And then he'd end them by saying, good night and good luck.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Well, Lindsay, now it's time for me to turn the tables on you, because I want to know more about the American side of this story. Because after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America is dragged into World War II. Hitler then declares war on the USA days later. For Churchill, he sees this as something like salvation. He's actually pleased about that. He doesn't make any bones about it.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And he jumps on a ship almost as soon as possible because he wants to be in the heart of the action. He wants to get to the White House and he wants to meet American decision makers, most of all the president. Tell me, how does that trip go and how do they start forging that special relationship?
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
When Churchill heard the news of Pearl Harbor, he didn't disguise the fact. He was ecstatic. He believed Britain was now saved.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And then Churchill, as you said, jumps on a ship almost immediately. And he arrives at the White House with all sorts of ideas, all sorts of solutions and a big shopping list as well. And he writes to his cabinet minister and says that he was treated like a member of the family. But he's clearly forging a very, very close personal relationship. Tell me some more about that.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Sounds to me from your book like he needs to charm Eleanor Roosevelt as well. He wasn't the easiest guest. He had a man of appetites.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And then I learned from your book, he drank a lot of booze, and some of that was before breakfast. Yeah.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And he also had an unexpected encounter when Roosevelt stumbled across Churchill completely naked.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
It's a fun story, but it does feel like the beginning of a very, very close relationship between two sovereign nations fighting alongside each other at war. Churchill and Roosevelt, they managed to keep things very tight between these two nations.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
What do you think was achieved across those three weeks that Churchill spent at the White House?
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And it's interesting is that there's a mix of good vibes and relationship building, but also very practical things like pooling, shipping and more arms and munitions heading over to Britain. So a successful trip and the start of a successful, well, you'd say friendship, wouldn't you? I mean, they spent a lot of time together during the Second World War.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
This is a great question, Lindsay, because Churchill was initially a bit reluctant to head back into the cockpit of violence that was Northwest Europe. Everyone who studies European military history realizes that Northwest Europe is where empires go to duke it out. That's where Napoleon, that's where the Kaiser, that's where Louis XIV, that is where the game of empires is settled. And
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And it's because of the geography, and it's because of the sea, and it's because of all kinds of interesting reasons. But Churchill didn't want to go back there. He'd been in the trenches on the Western Front in the First World War. He said, chewing barbed wire on the Western Front, there must be other alternatives to that. He was always looking for opportunities.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Attack in the Baltic, attack in the Balkans, attack up through Italy. He thought there must be other ways of cracking this tough battle. European problem, other than just going landing, marching across France and Belgium like his ancestor done, like he'd done in 1914 to 18, and dealing with those same casualties. And so he managed to get that so-called second front postponed.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
It would not happen in 1942, despite the Howls of the Soviet Union. Stalin going, please land in France. Please take the pressure off me. It would not happen in 1942. Churchill managed to get it postponed. It did not happen in 1943. Instead, Allied troops would advance up Italy. But it would happen in 1944.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And Churchill took a lot of persuading that the plan was in place and they would land with success. And even more important than the landing, they'd be able to deal with the vaunted German armoured divisions after they landed.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Well, I could talk about this all day because I've been so lucky to meet so many of these veterans. And one told me he was a commando, and he sailed down out of Southampton, round the Isle of Wight, and there were ships and boats, the biggest fleet ever assembled in history. Something like 7,000 ships and boats in all, and a good chunk of them were
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
in this stretch of water called the Solent behind the Isle of Wight very near where I am now actually and he said as they came down he was in the first wave and foghorns and horns were going off on the decks of these ships and ships whistles and there was this sound and he said it was like coming out of the tunnel at Wembley about to play a soccer match for England Wembley's our national stadium and he said it was so pumped up that at the exact moment if my own nan had walked past my own grandma had walked past in a
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
I'll never forget that. You know, this is a guy who's 19, 20 years old, and he's just sliding out from British shores, heading across to a very uncertain fate on the German-occupied French coast. But in the opening minutes, that unit, they did get ashore, and they got ashore reasonably safely with not so many casualties. On the beach, they landed.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
There had been very effective preparation, airstrikes, which had suppressed the Germans in their bunkers. There had been a massive naval bombardment, a huge gathering of battleships out to sea. We have a cruiser, we have a ship left called HMS Belfast, now a museum ship. And that cracked...
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Some of the porcelain in the toilets, in the ship's heads, so great were the vibrations caused by the ship's guns firing again and again. So those shells were landing on the beach and they were suppressing those German positions. And then there was the floating tanks, these strange floating tanks championed by Churchill and others.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And they would go in and provide armoured support exactly as those troops, those commandos landed on the shore. So actually, on Sword Beach, where this one commando I mentioned, where he landed, they got ashore. There were some casualties, but they managed to break through Hitler's Atlantic Wall, and they were advancing into Normandy minutes after they landed.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
There was, of course, one exception to that, Omaha Beach, where the Americans fought a terrifically hard battle. against German positions. If anyone's been to Omar Beach, they'll know that there's cliffs there, there's bluffs. The Germans have the advantage of height. It is a terrifying place to land.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
The Germans, for various reasons, were a greater state of readiness, and the Americans there took terrible casualties as they fought heroically into and through those German positions.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
You're right. There's tactical readiness and then there's strategic readiness as well. And the Germans didn't think the Allies were going to land in Normandy. It's about 60 miles from where I am now on the coast of the UK to Normandy Beach. In fact, about 70 miles. At its closest, the channel is only 20 miles. So if you go from Dover in Kent across to Calais, it's only 20 miles away.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So of course, the assumption was they'd attack across the narrows. And Hitler was convinced. Hitler had a meeting with a Japanese military official in Berlin, and the Japanese official reported it back to Japan. And we were able to, we know this because the codebreakers at the time were able to decrypt and intercept this message.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
It's reported that Hitler was sure there'd be a diversionary attack in Normandy, but the main attack would come across the Narrows in Calais. And that's for several reasons. Double agents were feeding Hitler that information. There was something called Operation Fortitude, which was a massive deception campaign. There was a fake US Army group.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
The best general, the Allied best general, was thought to be General Patton. the American general who'd showed his excellence in North Africa and Italy. And he was stuck in Kent. He was furious about that. He was stuck in Kent with a fake army, issuing orders, making public appearances, inspecting dummy tanks made out of plastic and balsa wood and rubber, fake landing craft.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So he was making as much noise as he could in Kent while the real force left for from the area where I am now, around the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton, and went that further distance across the Channel. So the Allies just ran rings around the Germans. There was another fake army in Scotland, in fact, to make the Germans believe that actually the second front would be Norway.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
It would drive the Germans out of occupied Norway. So the Germans did not have a clue what was going on. And as a result, when even after D-Day landings had begun, Hitler was not convinced this was the main effort. Hitler wanted to keep elite units in and around Calais to wait for the Allied landings there that he was expecting at any time.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
This is a great moment because, in fact, Churchill was fierce. Churchill wanted to be present at D-Day. And, in fact, Eisenhower was furious at Churchill. Churchill wanted to go along on one of the battleships and watch the bombardment and be there as it was all happening. And in the end, King George VI said, you are absolutely not to go to D-Day.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So instead, Churchill was in the UK and he went to Parliament on the 6th of June, on the day of those D-Day landings. It's just a reminder that in parliamentary democracies, the business of being... accountable to parliament didn't come to an end. Just as the American elections went ahead, even though it was the time of war, so Churchill had to pay attention.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
He had to go to parliament and he had to inform MPs and via the MPs, their constituents, the British people, he had to inform them on the progress of the war. Churchill shares, this speech is so exciting, he shares the kind of intelligence that he's getting from the battlefield. He says, "'Reports are coming in in rapid succession.'"
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So far, the commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan. And what a plan! He calls it this vast operation, undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place. And I'm not sure he's wrong about that. I mean, it's always a little bit of Churchill overstatement.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
But actually, in June 1944, it's hard to think of anything that had ever taken place on a bigger scale. than D-Day, and he goes through some of the challenges that the troops faced. He talks about how tactical surprise has been attained, and we hope to furnish the enemy with a succession of surprises during the course of the fighting.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And then, as with all these Churchill speeches, he comes back to one of his central points, and that is the centrality of his alliance with the He says, "'Complete unity prevails through the Allied armies. There is a brotherhood in arms between us and our friends of the United States.'"
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
The quickest way to win World War II was the great powers working as closely as possible together, and that's particularly the United States and the British Empire. And Hitler's only chance of success, for example, by this stage, is to try and drive a wedge between the British and the Americans. And Churchill was just not going to let that happen.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
I'd love to ask you, Lindsay, is FDR under the same kind of pressures to talk to the American people on the 6th of June?
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Thank you so much for having me. It's a great honor.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Yeah, I think that's very interesting, Lindsay. I mean, clearly, look, we're all imperfect. They were both imperfect men. There's a huge debate here in the UK about Churchill, hero, villain. And actually, he's all those things. He's everything.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
He was the man who attempted to preserve the British Empire, who didn't want to give India its independence, and yet the man who also defended liberal democracy in Britain. You know, he was a bundle of contradictions, a truly extraordinary man, but clearly the right person at the right time for that particular job. Yeah. I'm fascinated by coalition warfare.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Those coalitions are capable of delivering such enormous resources, which in modern industrial total war is the key to success. And when you can harness a coalition, when you can bring together the intelligence gathering, the manpower, the industrial output, it's very, very hard to defeat those big coalitions. But they take a very particular kind of leader to make them work.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And Roosevelt and Churchill were prepared to compromise. They were prepared to give and take. And they were also prepared to accept that each of their nations, each of their publics had different agendas, and that was okay. And their job was to try and triangulate that. And that, I think, is the great lesson of leadership in a coalition.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
You don't get every single thing that you want, but my goodness, you're a lot more powerful when you fight with allies. I've heard about you, Lindsay. What are the lessons that you draw?
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Yeah, you're totally right. And keep your eye on the big prize. And you may have to swallow one or two things you don't like on the way there, but the prize is there.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Thanks so much. I feel I've learned a lot. Thank you, Lindsay, for that.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
You know what, Lindsay, you're totally right. I'm lucky enough to talk about and make shows about history stretching from the Bronze Age all the way to the present day, really.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
But I do genuinely believe that there has never been a more dramatic week or fortnight in history than in May 1940, where Winston Churchill takes over the reins as Prime Minister of Britain on exactly the same day that Hitler launches what is probably the most successful military offensive in history, the Blitzkrieg,
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
through France and the Low Countries, which will see the complete destruction of French, British, Belgian Allied armies in that theatre of war in a matter of days. And so Churchill becomes Prime Minister at this nadir of the British historical story. He's staring disaster in the face. And Churchill has got a big, big problem. He's got to win a war against Germany on the continent of Europe.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
But there are other threats. Italy is lurking in the Mediterranean, seemingly about to jump into the war against Britain. Japan is threatening the British Empire in the Pacific and in the Indian Ocean. And so Churchill is juggling this crisis.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And the biggest problem he's got is he hasn't even really got the confidence of his own political party, let alone the nation, let alone the empire in the rest of the world. So he's got to go and build that up from scratch. And he has a very simple strategy. He projects absolutely unwavering strength and determination.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
He's going to fight the Germans, no matter what the cost, because he identifies that Nazism isn't like Napoleon Bonaparte, Kaiser Wilhelm, Louis XIV. Nazism is something that, as he sees it, is pretty much unique in a thousand years of history. Twisted science, the true dark heart of humanity.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So he's going to project that resistance to Nazi domination, and then he's going to get the Americans involved. He says to his son in May 1940, he says to his son, my plan is to drag the Americans in. That was it. So the first order of business is shore up the British front, shore up British politicians, shore up the British people to fight the Germans.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
The second order of business is to get the USA involved.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
It makes total sense. The Americans didn't want to get dragged into another horrific war on the European continent. When I go and visit cemeteries, as you've done, of young American men from Nebraska, from Washington State, And they've traveled thousands of miles away. They've crossed this mighty ocean to die in a muddy field outside Paris, France.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
It's completely understandable the Americans didn't want to get involved. But Churchill needs them involved. He tells them, first of all, I need destroyers. I need ships. Secondly, I need aircraft. And then he goes through a few other things he needs. And then, by the way, he says to Roosevelt very early on in his premiership, he goes, by the way, we'll go on paying for as long as we can.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
But soon we're going to run out of money, and I hope you won't make us pay at that point as well. So he lays it bare before the Americans. But the Americans, quite rightly, are thinking, we don't want to get involved in this war. This is Europe's war. This is a war of empires. It's a war of the old world. Here we are. We've just recovered from the Great Depression.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
We've recovered from the wounds of the First World War. America is on its way to building the greatest, most powerful economy the world's ever seen. They don't want to get dragged into the past in some squabble in the European continent.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So Churchill has to make them believe, with his rhetoric, with his speeches, he has to make the Americans understand this is their fight because it's the fight of a free world against the horrors of Nazism. And he even says to Roosevelt, by the way, you're going to end up fighting Germany eventually.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
You'd be a lot better off fighting Germany when you've still got a free and independent Britain on your side.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Lindsay, this is one of my favourite stories because it's really one of the areas of history where there is a powerful myth and that myth just is not true. The idea was that the German Air Force was so massive and powerful and terrifying, it dwarfed the RAF, the British Air Force, and the British fought this plucky underdog battle to win and protect their skies from German domination.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Now, that's a story that Brits quite like. It makes us sound kind of cool. It makes us sound plucky and exciting and tenacious. Actually, you know, the reality is completely the other way around. First of all, look at the aircraft.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Sure, the German air force was a bit bigger, but lots of those aircraft were obsolete or they weren't fit for the purpose of wresting air supremacy over southern England off the British.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So actually, in terms of frontline fighters, in terms of the planes that are actually doing the fighting, fast interceptor fighter aircraft, single-seater, armed with cannon and machine guns, state-of-the-art, tight-turning aircraft. Actually, the Brits and the Germans had kind of equal numbers. People may have heard of the Spitfire and the Hurricane aircraft.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Those are the two British frontline fighters. And the Messerschmitt, the famous Messerschmitt 109, a fantastic German fighter. they were pretty equally matched. In fact, in terms of the aircraft, the Spitfire, I'm obviously a bit biased here, I'd say it was slightly better, but really the 109 and the Spitfire in particular were very, very evenly matched.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
But here's the true advantage the British had. They were fighting over home territory. So if... a hurricane or a spitfire got shot down, the pilot could bail out. He'd pull open his canopy. He'd jump out, parachute to ground. He could be back on his base the next day, that afternoon. We have examples of people that landed in the pub, had a few beers and got a taxi back to their base.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
They were flying the following day. One pilot was shot down three times in three days. Each day he managed to get back to base and flew again. So if a plane was shot out of the sky, it didn't mean you lost a pilot. Now, if the Germans are doing their fighting over southern England, say, when their pilots bail out, they're going straight into prisoner of war camps.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So they're losing far more pilots than they can replace. On top of that, the British have got the secret weapon, really one of the most important weapons of the Second World War, and that's radar, radio direction finding.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
absolute top secret in fact it was so secret that initially all those german jewish refugee scientists that arrive escaping hitler's third reich they were put to work on the atomic program because they were considered too dangerous to allow to work on the radar because radar was top top top secret so these physicists are like go away and see if you can split the atom
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And so, radar allowed the Brits to see German raids gathering over France and North France, coming across the channel, so the Brits could send up individual interceptors, individual squadrons, to shoot down those raids and take a terrible toll. Before that, aerial warfare was just, you go up with your mates in the morning, you fly around a bit, you hope you bump into the enemy, and then you land.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Instead, now, you stay on the ground until that bell rings, you climb up, you pounce on a German bomber force coming in, you land, you rearm, you get back up there. Incredible Incredibly efficient. So the Brits build the first ever 3D battle space for an aerial theater of combat. And that is the deal breaker.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Yeah, this is very like the Battle of Britain. There's a useful myth here for the Brits, is that we are people that could just carry on and take it no matter what was thrown at us. A story of social cohesion. So elements of that myth are correct. The German Luftwaffe had come across, they tried to destroy the RAF, they tried to wrest control of the air above southern England in particular.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
That's failed. So they turned to terror tactics. They turned to just smashing British cities in the hope that whilst they might not be able to knock the RAF out of the war, they can erode civilian morale. They can force the British people to their knees. They thought they could force Churchill out of office because he'd be so unpopular.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
and then they could deal with a more pliant British Prime Minister. And so London was attacked for months in a row. There were fires that were worse in terms of their scale than the legendary Great Fire of London in 1666. The British did tolerate unspeakable hardship. They had to go down to the subway stations every night. They had to take shelter in makeshift bomb shelters in the backyard.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
They witnessed their streets, their cities destroyed, fires sweeping through, and they pulled together. They... volunteered to go and fight fires. They volunteered to patrol important buildings like hospitals. My great-grandpa was on the roof of a hospital all night.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
He was one of the doctors in Hammersmith Hospital, and he'd be up there with buckets of water and sand, putting out injury bombs as they landed on the roof to protect his patients. But there's another story about the Blitz, and that is that things did get a bit loose. There was an uptick in violence and all the streetlights were put out. There was no light pollution, so the streets were very dark.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
There was certainly crime when houses were hit. People scavenged through the remains of the houses and pillaged what personal items they might be able to find there, food, valuables. There was a loosening of sexual behaviour. The number of children born out of wedlock rocketed. It was a time both of people pulling together, but also of
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
individuals looking out for themselves, taking advantage of dislocation, of crisis.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
There are stories that were suppressed at the time of people from poorer areas of London, industrial areas of London, where they didn't have adequate bomb shelters, hardly any bomb shelters in fact, and they would make their way to the west side of town, to the richer parts of town, where they knew that affluent people would be in nightclubs, drinking, partying, listening to jazz in deep basements protected from the
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
So with the signs of the social compact fraying, but the government in those days, there's no social media, they controlled the narrative. And the dominant narrative that was put out was of everyone doing their bit, pulling together, obeying the law and keeping their heads down.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
The government air raid bunkers underneath Whitehall, which is the administrative heart of the British state, they're some of the most special places in the UK today. They are a network of tunnels, of bunkers that were dug out before the war and in the early months of the war, because it was clear that air power was going to play a critical part in the next war.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
And Churchill actually famously liked going up on the roof. He loved watching the bombs fall from the roof of Downing Street in the Foreign Office. He had to be persuaded to get down below for his own personal safety. So on the occasions when he was down there, there were bedrooms, you can still go and see his cot, his camp bed, there's a cigar in the ashtray next to it, his desk.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
Churchill loved maps. There are maps all over the place. He needed to be able to visualise where the fighting was and what strength Allied and Axis units were at. So there's wonderful graphics and illustrations down there on all the walls. There was a secure line to Roosevelt down there.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
You can still see the tiny little room, like a little phone booth, if any of your listeners are old enough like I am to remember the days of pay phones. It's a little booth where you would go and have very, very intimate conversations with Roosevelt through a secure cable underneath the Atlantic.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
The air conditioning's been reconstructed, the typing pools where the various liaison officers were at. Those were just locked up after the end of the Second World War, and only pretty recently, really, were they declassified and turned into a museum.
American History Tellers
FDR & Churchill: A Friendship For the Ages with History Hit's Dan Snow | 1
You can walk in and see them as they were at the height of the Blitz, at the height of the Second World War, and I think it's one of the most special experiences you can have in Britain. I thoroughly recommend it.