The Churchill Series - Dec 8, 2005

(Readers Note: I missed yesterday's daily post because of Blogger and travel problems. Sorry. - John)

Although we're a day past the Pearl Harbor anniversary, I want to tell some of Churchill's actions and thoughts that Dec 7, 1941.

At noon London time, Churchill asked America's Ambassador to Britain, John Winant: Would the United States declare war on Japan if it attacked British forces in Asia?

Winant said an American declaration of war was a matter for Congress to decide. He could give no assurance President Roosevelt would ask for a declaration if Japan attack only the British.

Like many others who'd studied the matter, Churchill thought it would be in Japan's best interests to launch a first strike at British, and only British, forces.

By delaying a strike against American forces, Japan could first defeat the British and their Commonwealth allies, and then attack the Americans.

The hours of December 7 passed into the afternoon and then early evening.

Churchill dined with Winant and Roosevelt's aide, Averell Harriman. At 9 PM they listened to the news, and heard a report of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Winant at once phoned Roosevelt, who confirmed the news of Japan's attack. "We are all in the same boat now," he added.

Churchill immediately set in motion the steps necessary for Great Britain's declaration of war against Japan.

As the day ended, what were Churchill's thoughts?

Here's part of what Churchill later recalled:

No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not foretell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!

Yes, after Dunkirk; after the fall of France; after the horrible episode of Oran: after the threat of invasion, when, apart from the Air and the Navy, we were an almost unarmed people; after the deadly struggle of the U-boat was - the Battle of the Atlantic, gained by a hand's -breath; after seventeen months of lonely fighting and nineteen months of my responsibility in dire stress, we had won the war.

England would live; Britain would live: the Commonwealth of Nations and the Empire would live.
...
One again in our long Island history we should emerge, however mauled or mutilated, safe and victorious. We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end.

__________________________________________________ Martin Gilbert, Churchill and America. (pgs. 244-245)