World War II On Topic is made possible by The Herzstein Foundation.

Jeremy Collins

Hello. I'm Jeremy Collins, the Director of Conferences in Symposia at the National World War II Museum, in New Orleans. Thank you for tuning into World War II: On Topic. This episode is brought to you by the museum's Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. Today, we are going to listen to Dr. Rob Citino, the Samuel ZeMurray Stone Senior Historian here at the museum, and Author/Historian, Anthony Tucker-Jones. Anthony joined us on December 1st, 2021 for the Annual Orlin Russell Corey Memorial Lecture, a partnered program with the Churchill Society of New Orleans, in conversation with Citino, he discussed his latest work Churchill, Master in Commander: Winston Churchill at War 1895-1945.

J Gregg Collins

It is so wonderful to be here, in person, tonight before this crowd, to share the experience of learning about what great leadership is all about. Orlin Russell Corey was a great contributor to this museum and tonight we are here for the Orlin Russell Corey Lecture, which was named in his honor. We brought tonight, Anthony Tucker-Jones and his lovely wife, Amelia and I assure you, you're going to enjoy his presentation that he and Rob will make tonight. The great Rob Citino of course, the Samuel Zemurray, will be his interviewer and moderator of the panel discussion.

The book Churchill, Master in Commander, is just a wonderful read. Now, full disclosure. I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing. Because it's only been put out this year, and released worldwide this week, in New Orleans, even ahead of the UK. That's pretty good. He's been involved, Anthony has, in a series of events this week, culminating in this last, but not least Orlin Russell Corey Lecture, here at the museum. I think you had a chance to tour the museum today for the first time and it is their first trip to New Orleans. But I know it won't be your last. So having said that, I'll only tell you about the book, that there may be events that you know of. But there are nuanced details in this book that will give you a different perspective and an insight into things that will make you think about things just a little bit differently. Last night, I introduced Anthony and I sang one of the things that was in his book. But I'm not going to do that to you tonight. So with that, I welcome Anthony Tucker-Jones and Rob Citino.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Anthony, it's wonderful to be with you here tonight. Thanks for coming to New Orleans.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Thank you very much, Rob.

Dr. Rob Citino 

I heard Mike pronounce New Orleans pretty well. It took me a while. I have my story, which I'll be very brief with. My first trip here, I had to get in a cab and asked to be taken to Tchoupitoulas Avenue. I don't remember how I pronounced it. But the cabbie turned to me and said, "That's not even close, man." So ever since, I've been really, really working at that. The more you come here you'll realize that the place names can be daunting. So thanks for coming and I have this say this: I've told everyone I was very taken with this book. Matter of fact, I've been telling everyone I ran into today about that. I think there must be a thousand Churchill biographies out there.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

There are.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Andrew Roberts, in your intro says, "It's a avalanche." Your book looks at Sir Winston from a different point of view and I think took a different tack. Tell us about the Genesis of this book. Why this book?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Well, I've been a military historian for quite a while now and Churchill was always featured in a lot of my books. I've written quite extensively on the 44, 45 campaigns and he's always been a player with all the other great leaders in the Second World War: Roosevelt, Marshall, Eisenhower, Bradley, all those people. Obviously the British generals, Wavell, the list goes on. But he was never my focus and I had a series of events that thought maybe it was about time to tackle the great man, if you like. But what I wanted to do was do it explicitly from a military point of view. Fair bits have been written off obviously, on his wartime leadership during the Second World War. But I really wanted to delve down into the weeds, if you like, about what it was in his early life that had informed him to be the right man, in the right place, at the right time, come May 1940s. That was the driving idea behind it all.

Dr. Rob Citino 

I think it's that interplay between the early Churchill, about which I think people know relatively little. Then the later Churchill, we know the events of his life. But I think you were able to bring insight into them, because we now had a better sense of the formative years of the man.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yes. The thing I drew out of the research I was doing, that he took inordinate risks throughout his life, both as a young and an old man. I think that stuck with him throughout his life, which I think really prepared him for being prime minister. He clearly learned that nothing was gained from life without taking a risk and he did it all his life. It's the impetuousness of youth. He carried that right up until he was 90, really.

Dr. Rob Citino

Always good to begin at the beginning. In line one of your book ... We're going to work our way through the entire book line by line. So settle in.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Really?

Dr. Rob Citino

In the opening line of your book you write, "Winston Churchill was one of the greatest military and political chancers of all time." Now for us colonials, who might not understand the nuances of transatlantic English, what specifically do you mean? What is a chancer?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Well, in English, it can refer to criminality. Sometimes it's someone operating on the wrong side of the law. They're a bit dodgy, we like say in English. But in Churchill's context, obviously I didn't really mean that. It's that he's a gambler. He was a chancer because he was prepared to chance his hand at many, many things. Throughout his life, I think as most of us, as we know, he gambled an awful lot and he got it wrong sometimes. But a lot of the time he got it right as well.

Dr. Rob Citino

I found the book nicely balanced. This is not a hagiography. You praise Sir Winston when he deserves it. I think there were times you're quite critical as well. I found the book nicely balanced.

Anthony Tucker-Jones 

Thank you. Yes. I wouldn't have spent two and a half years with the man on and off, if I loathed him. The more you learn about him, the more you respect him. His achievements are enormous, when you realize all the things that he did, as a war correspondent, as a soldier, as an author, as a politician, as a brick layer. All those things he did playing polo, painting, he had this passion for life and that's what you respect in him I think.

Dr. Rob Citino 

So while we're on the subject of words, early on in the book, you attribute much of Churchill's rise to fame to, and I'm quoting "Brazen door-stepping of senior military commanders." I think I may know what this means. But I'm not quite sure. Please explain it to us.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

What I meant by that was that, Churchill was more than prepared to use his contacts. Because he was a great believer ... I'm sure you have this saying as well. "It's not what you know, it's who you know," and Churchill a great believer in that. Later in life, of course, he called in favors from politicians and business people and generals that he knew, as he rose up through the political ranks. But in his early life, that simply consisted of him constantly pestering his mother, Lady Randolph, to use her connections, to get him postings when he was in the military.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Her connections are considerable.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yeah. They are considerable. It was through his father's connections in Madrid, that he managed to get himself packed off to Cuba. He had no business being there. But they pulled a few strings and his presence, for example, in Cuba, just after he'd been commissioned, some embarrassment to the British government. Because he was there whilst he was on leave, in uniform, as a journalist, assigned to the Spanish general's staff, which only lead the Spanish government to believe he was part of an official British mission, which was completely untrue. What it made it look like to the international community was that Britain was supporting Spain's activities in Cuba, which it was not. But that's how the media read it. So he constantly did that. People don't realize, he made himself quite unpopular with his behavior and also he had a terrible habit, short cutting the chain of command, as well.

Dr. Rob Citino 

So you point out many times in this book, Churchill not only participated in war as a young man, you've already mentioned Cuba. He did so often at the risk of his own safety and life. But he also made a living writing about it. So this book is a fascinating, I thought, interplay between war and journalism. Because you have this figure in whom they intersect. So he's in the Sudan, the Boer War, fighting on the Northwest Frontier of the Raj. How would you rate him? I mean that in two ways: as a soldier, but maybe more important for our purposes, as a writer.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

To answer the first part of your question, it's difficult to rate him as a soldier. Because of course, he wasn't really a soldier for very long. He resigned his commission fairly quickly, particularly after the British War Office gave him an ultimatum, which was, "You either be a soldier and stop being a journalist or you be journalist and resign," because of his behavior, famously with the Sudan Campaign. Of course, he wrote the book on The River War, where he'd criticized the British commander. Of course these days, military generals are not really supposed to talk out of turn about government policy, which is what he did and of course he was still in uniform at the time

Dr. Rob Citino 

So tell us more about Churchill then as a writer. Is there a style that you would attribute to him?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Well initially, it was very journalistic and he became more scholarly as time went on. But the interesting thing with Church's writing was he he didn't perform very well at school and once he was an army officer, he self-educated himself. He got lots of books and he read history and all sorts of things. So he educated himself. But the truth of the matter with his writing, it was simply driven by the fact he had no money. So although he was an aristocrat and the son of a Lord and was descended from John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, he had no money. Once his father had died, his mother, Jennie Jerome, she spent the family money quite quickly. So he had to find a way of earning money. As an army officer, you didn't earn a great deal.

The thing that amazed me when I looked into his writing, was the absolutely enormous advances that he commanded for his books. By today's standards, they would be in millions. He'd be up there with John Grisham, Anne Rice perhaps, those sorts of people, high earners. Churchill managed to get out of his publishers, partly because the power of his family name, but partly because he was a good salesman and they gave him a lot of money. In terms of the accuracy of his books. Well, today we would accuse him of being responsible for, shall we say, artistic license.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Where would our careers be without it?

Anthony Tucker-Jones 

Well, yeah. Someone used to say to me, "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." Churchill indulged in that, just a little bit. I'm trying to think which it was. It's probably actually the Malakand Field Force book that he wrote. One of the generals that was actually there when he saw the book, he accused Churchill of inaccuracies in places. He was quite critical. But these days we have the joys of the internet and fact checker and as soon as you put something wrong on paper, everybody knows. Also, to be fair to Churchill, he was often going by by memory. Quite often what he did was he multi-tasked. So whenever he went off on campaign, he'd get an assignment with a newspaper and he'd write columns for them, from the wars that he went on. Then when he got home, he turned those newspaper columns into books. They formed the basis of the book. So for you and I, that would be our basic research. It laid the groundwork for creating something much bigger. So that's how he worked.

Dr. Rob Citino 

So you mentioned several of his early works. You mentioned Malakand Field Force. He wrote a couple books about the South African war, The Boer War, as our British friends call it. He's actually captured there, by enemy forces and he escapes. I remember Anthony, reading this for the first time. It's thrilling. There's a armored train, there's a roadblock, there's a Boer ambush. He describes a bullet, came over one shoulder and then over another shoulder and two words went through my mind, "Boer marksmanship." Then he escapes and then he wrote a book about it or actually wrote two. Can you share some of the details of Winston Churchill's career in South Africa?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Surely. Winston went to South Africa as a war correspondent. So by that point, he'd resigned his commission. So he turned up in South Africa, looking for adventure in a good story and he met an officer that he'd he'd served with in India, who was going on patrol on a train. Churchill really had no business in going. In fact, he'd done the same route several times on horse. But I think it was Captain Haldane ... I'm going from memory here ... Asked him if he'd accompany them on this train reconnaissance. Because Churchill had already done the route. So he knew the lie of the land. But wouldn't you think, going on a reconnaissance and a train is not a good idea. The thing can only go forwards or backwards.

I think you can guess what happened once the Boers realized that a train full of British soldiers was happily chuffing up the South African valleys and they were ambushed.

Churchill didn't help himself. Because the way he dressed made him look like a soldier. Today, we would call him a paramilitary. He looked like a paramilitary, the khaki fatigues that he had on, looked like he was a soldier. The train was ambushed and it was derailed and it was shelled by the Boers and they were all shot at. Churchill, although he had resigned his commission, couldn't help himself, but get involved in the rescue operation. I found this incident bizarre, because I think there was a captain there and two lieutenants. So they should have been in charge. So you got Churchill there, as a civilian, who pretty much takes over the operation to clear the line, get the train running and the captain there basically let him get on with it. He thought church was a good egg, knew what he was doing.

So he let him get on with this rescue operation. But he had no business doing that. The lieutenants, they should have been responsible for that. So there's Churchill, under fire with all the Boers, waving his arms around giving directions while they got boulders off the line and shifted the derailed carriages, ready to get on their way, which they did. Church was inordinately brave and was under fire all the time and he helped get the wounded on the train and the train left with Churchill on board. But some of the soldiers covering the train. They couldn't all get on it. So he got off to go back and help them and in the process was captured by the Boers. When they captured him, I'll say he'd been carrying a weapon, which as a war correspondent, you shouldn't do. These days press have blue helmets on, with press all over.

So everyone knows that they are they're non-combatant. Churchill had been carrying his trusty Mauser pistol, which he'd used in [inaudible 00:16:38]. But by good fortune, he'd left it on the train. But when the Boers captured him and searched him, they found a clip of ammunition in his pocket, which he claimed he'd picked up. But that's a fairly spurious excuse. Plus, they'd seen him from the hilltops down on the railway line, directing British soldiers. So as far as they were concerned, he was a prisoner of war, which is how they treated him and he tried to persuade them that he wasn't and they just wouldn't believe him.

But he eventually escaped. He and some officers put together this plan to get away. He managed to slip away. But they didn't and he manage to reach Portuguese Mozambique and you think, at that point he's probably had enough fun and adventure. You could understand it, if he'd gone home. Honor had been served. But no. Winston, being Winston got on a boat and he sailed back down to Durban where he volunteered for a local regiment and went back to war as a soldier and as a correspondent, again.

Dr. Rob Citino 

If I didn't know it was real, I'd say, "This is improbable."

Anthony Tucker-Jones

His, I think, chutzpah, would you say?

Dr. Rob Citino 

Chutzpah. Chutzpah.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yeah. Chutzpah. For Winston, it knew no limits. Again, it's a reflection of the man he became later in life.

Dr. Rob Citino 

This is the National World War II Museum and I want to get to World War II. But we'll deal with World War I in a single question, if you don't mind. If Sir Winston were walking into the room right now, and I said one word to him, "Gallipoli" what would be his reaction? Certainly, it was a catastrophe. It cast a long shadow over his military and political career. How responsible was he for the mess there?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Rob, I think he would be subject to one of the Winston famous scowls, quite frankly I think he would sigh, and then I think he'd look really chestful on yeah and then puff furiously on his cigar, before coming out with a very witty re-joiner.

Dr. Rob Citino 

What have you done in your life?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yes.

Dr. Rob Citino 

So to World War II. As you note, when Winston became prime minister in may of 1940, the British fortunes are looking bad, the Germans are rampaging already in the French campaign. He also created a new position for himself, Minister of Defense. Now that means he placed himself directly above the Chiefs of Staff. So from the British perspective, can we say that the spring of 1940, this becomes Churchill's War, in a very real sense?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yes, very much so, you're right. That's pretty much the thesis of the book, hence the subtitle Master in Commander. Churchill very cleverly made himself the country's political master and its military commander. By appointing himself, the country's very first defense minister, he took over directly, the strategic conduct of Britain's war efforts. He did that because it meant the Chiefs of Staff had to answer to him directly and not the Secretary of State, for war. Because he knew that bureaucracy was not a good way to conduct a war, coupled to which I think he sincerely thought he knew best.

Dr. Rob Citino 

We always talk about Dunkirk and that campaign and many of us have seen the recent movie. For good reason, of course, we'll be talking about Dunkirk forever. There are many analysts that will tell you that Dunkirk would not have been impossible without a determined stand of British forces, at the town of Calais. Tell us about Churchill's role there. He made a decision he said, "And when I was making that decision, I had a feeling I was going to be sick." Why is that?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Because he had to consign British troops at Calais and were brigadier basically to death or capture. He took that decision to evacuate Dunkirk in late May. But he knew, one of the ways to take pressure off the Dunkirk pocket, was to divert the Germans. So he basically told the Brigadier that the garrison, the Anglo-French garrison, at Calais would not to be evacuated. So he took the decision to leave them there. Because all the time that they were there, the Germans obviously couldn't ignore them and they had to divert forces to reduce Calais. So that's what he did. He basically sent them a message saying there will be no evacuation and you're expected to fight to the last, which, for the British army is not really a tradition. It does do it. It has a fine track record of courage and heroism and fighting to the last. But generals and British officers do not explicitly say to their men, "You ought to fight to the death."

That's the sort of behavior you would expect from Hitler with the Wehrmacht-

Dr. Rob Citino 

I was just about to say-

Anthony Tucker-Jones

... Or Stalin with the Red Army.

Dr. Rob Citino 

... There was another commander-

Anthony Tucker-Jones 

It almost smacks of totalitarianism, that order to die. It just wasn't in his nature. But he knew that they had to do it. Because it bought crucial hours to enable the organization of the evacuation, for the rear guard to protect the shrinking pocket. Because the German panzer, it's headed west and of course the minute they started to release, they were going to overrun the Dunkirk pocket very quickly. So by keeping Calais, it kept the Germans distracted. But it was a difficult decision for him to make. His generals supported it, they understood the strategic necessity to do it. But it wasn't a difficult decision. I think it haunted it him. But that was a measure of the man, because he rose to that difficult decision. Dunkirk itself was a difficult decision. Because he knew damn well, the minute he authorized the evacuation of the British army, British expeditionary force, from France and Dunkirk, it would signal to the French government that Britain was abandoning them.

You couldn't see it any other way. To be fair to Churchill, there were still other units in other parts of France. But by removing the bulk of them from Dunkirk, it basically said to the French government, our priority is to save our manpower and not France. That was a difficult decision for Churchill. Indeed for a while, they didn't tell the French what was going on. The French were essentially helping defend the pocket. I think for a while, French military thought they were going to be evacuated and that they would come back. But because the events unfolded so quickly, there was no way of doing that.

Dr. Rob Citino 

I thought that was a part of the book. I know that campaign very well. I've been writing about it my whole life. But I thought that was a part of the book where you really nailed a crucial moment, that I don't think has often been given its due. So I was very-

Anthony Tucker-Jones

I think, not to be belabor the Dunkirk campaign too much. But I think it's partly out of guilt. Because Churchill was not a heartless man, as we all know, he was quite emotional. He was subject to crying quite often. But I think that decision to abandon the French weighed on him quite heavily, and that's one of the reasons that he sent the Navy back, those last few nights, to evacuate as many Frenchmen as he could. You can probably remember better than I could. But the evacuation figures about, I think 320,000. But about a third of them were actually French and Belgian soldiers. So the RAF and the Navy, sacrificed ships and lives to rescue them and when they got back to England, they basically all sailed back to France to carry on the war. But in very short order, France surrendered and it would be much better, in light of the sacrifice, that the evacuation forces has done if they stayed in Britain, and had joined a goal. But that didn't happen.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Couple months fast forward, as we like to say in America. Let's talk about this real quickly, The Battle of Britain, if you will. When I think of Winston Churchill and the battle of Britain, I think of some of the most stirring speeches that anybody has ever made in history. "Their finest hour" and "Never in the field of human conflict," just beautiful words. What was Churchill's military contribution to the Battle of Britain? So apart from that stirring rhetoric, did he make a difference? Was this could we say Winston's finest hour?

Anthony Tucker-Jones 

Yes, I think so. Because obviously, Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain firmly signaled to Hitler and indeed Mussolini that Britain was not going to seek a negotiated settlement out of the war. By taking that decision, it consigned Britain to fight the Battle of Britain and also of course endure the Blitz. It meant our cities were subject to German bombers and again, Churchill pretty much knew that that was going to happen. But one of the fallacies at the Battle of Britain, which I quite like, is that image of a bunch of very brave, very young fighter pilots on their own, fending off the Luftwaffe, which is very, very true. But there's actually another element to it, Churchill took that decision because he was well informed. Because Bletchley Parker had cracked the "Enigma codes." So were able to read an awful lot of the Luftwaffe's [inaudible 00:25:20]. So they knew quite a bit about the Luftwaffe's intentions and where it was going.

So he was quite well informed and the other thing is, with the Battle of Britain, during the late 1930s, the British had been building up RAF fighter commands, under Hugh Dowding. By good fortune, as a lot of you all know, we had the Hurricane fighter and the Spitfire fighter just going into production. So they arrived in the nick of time and equally crucially Britain had spent money on something called radio direction finding, which you guys of course will know as radar and subsequently became known as radar.

So Britain had this RDF system called a low and high chain, two sets of radar and one of those could pick the Luftwaffe up, taking off in France and Norway ... So we had advanced warning ... And likewise could pick them up coming across the channel. I'm sure most of you have seen the 1960s film Battle of Britain, which I think even today stands the test of time. It's very, very good. But there's a sequence in it that sticks with me when you've got the Royal Observer Corps on the coast, watching the bombers, coming over head and frantically counting them, which credit to them, they did do. But the RAF already knew, courtesy of radar quite how many were coming. There's a particular story that I do in the book, when Churchill turned up unannounced at RAF Fighter Commands headquarters ... I think it's High Wycombe. I'm going from memory here ... To watch the battle.

The operation center commander was a bit worried that there wouldn't be much going on that day and that Churchill would be bored. Whereas actually the reason Churchill was there, was because he knew courtesy of Bletchley, that a big raid was on the way. So he'd come to watch how the RAF actually would conduct itself and thankfully, it conducted itself very well.

But on a number of visits when he went there, even the RAF said to him, regardless of the advantages we've got, they were almost overwhelmed on at least one occasion. He asked them, "What other squadrons have you got in reserve, ready to put up?" They basically said, "They're all up there. That's it." Then there was then a panic, because once they run out of fuel, you've got to get them back on the ground, poised to get in the air, the minute the Luftwaffe have done exactly the same thing and are on their way back.

Sorry. So that was a long-winded answer, Rob, to your question. Essentially, his contribution was quite significant. Because he was making decisions that were not off the cuff. He was well informed. There is that view, that the Battle of Britain was very much, they winged it.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Yes. Right.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

No pun intended. But in fact, the RAF and Churchill, they knew what was going on.

Dr. Rob Citino 

You describe in wonderful detail, a real rich portion of the book, this new expanded war after late 1941 into 1942, the new global war. You called it Juggling Act. This is a difficult period for Churchill. This new expanded war began pretty in auspiciously. Just a brief recap, the loss of Prince of Wales and [inaudible 00:28:41] the fall of Singapore, the loss of Burma, the fall of Tobruk, unrest in India, lest we forget. How does Churchill manage to juggle all that? How does he manage to stay in power, overseeing a war effort? That seems to be ... I don't think I'm exaggerating ... Careening into catastrophe.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yeah. It was a complete disaster. As we've just discussed, his stock went up very quickly, because of Dunkirk. It boosted the country's morale. The Battle of Britain, although horrible, boosted the country's morale and then it very quickly came off the rails. It all went wrong, largely through no fault of his own. Although, he did take certain decisions that made the situation worse and ultimately it led to a number of votes of no confidence in him. He could have been ousted, quite frankly.

As you rightly read out, it's a litany of woe, quite frankly. But he was in a difficult position. He only had so many resources to go around and until such point as America entered the war, was in a difficult position. One of the difficult things he had was once Russia entered the war, he gave Stalin a pledge to send him equipment. But that came at a cost of not sending it to the British army in the Middle East or the Far East. So that was my sense on the juggling act, is that he had finite resources and they could only be stretched so far.

Dr. Rob Citino 

So I think some of the best discussion in the book here as an American ... I'm always attuned to this particular angle ... It revolves around the question of Britain and the empire. Here Winston has a real problem. He knows he needs FDR and US support to win the war. They also knows something about his friend, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who is no empire man, quite the contrary. At times as in Burma, it seems like the US and the British are fighting two separate wars or they're there for different reasons. How does Churchill navigate these troubled waters?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Well, the trouble Churchill had, he had a really good strategic grasp on the war. But when it came to the Far East, his interests were pretty much diametrically opposed to Roosevelt's, in that his primary goal was to safeguard the future of the British empire. Roosevelt understandably, his position was, I'm not going to prop up the French or the British empires, come the end of the war. For America, its primary objective was to support the nationalists in China, to safeguard them from Japan and also, in the same stroke, support the war in the Pacific. So America's strategic interests were quite different to what Churchill wanted, which essentially was the liberation of Burma, a [inaudible 00:31:26] in order to retrieve Singapore.

That had been a key British naval base in that part of the world during the Second World War and he knew that the only way really to restore Britain's prestige in the Far East, was to liberate Singapore and that was his goal, whereas that was not America's. I was quite surprised, when I was researching the book, to find actually that both the British and Americans had run counter espionage operations against each other in India.

Dr. Rob Citino 

As friends will.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yes. As friends will. Yeah. Britain was equally as guilty of it as America. I mentioned the operations of the OSS there in India. Britain, I discovered, ran counter Indian nationalist operations in America. The British kept an eye on Indian nationalists because we were worried about their fundraising activities around the world, including America, what they were up to, swaying public opinion, all those sorts of things. So yes, there was a difference of interest. The other thing that was quite interesting was, Churchill fretted about the fate of China, more than Roosevelt. Churchill did not like the Bolsheviks or communism. So was aware that once the Civil War ended, the Chinese Civil War would be kick started and he worried about the future of China. But there was nothing he could do. He didn't have the resources.

He didn't have very large numbers of people in China. So he was aware, fairly early on that some sort of Cold War was going to emerge later on and indeed, Roosevelt and Stilwell were very cross that all that equipment that they supplied Chiang Kai-Shek, and the nationalist armies to fight the Japanese, large percentage of it disappeared into warehouses and wasn't issued to Chinese armies. Because the Chinese nationalists were saving it for a rainy day, when they war with Mao Zedong and the communists kicked off again. Chiang Kai-Shek was looking to the future. What would happen at the end of the war?

They had a gentleman's agreement with the communists, that they would fight the Japanese. Because they had a common enemy. But once the Japanese had gone, that war was going to start again. So I think Stilwell was hoping the Chinese would put something like 30 divisions into the field and nothing like that happened. Chiang Kai-Shek gave an awful lot of weapons to the war Lords that supported him. They were the ones that keeping him in empower. China's politics at that time was incredibly complicated. It was a complete mess.

Dr. Rob Citino 

So when there's a outstanding issue between friends, let's say the issue of empire, is there a discrete gentleman's agreement that they don't discuss it directly? Did Churchill ever sit Roosevelt down and tried to explain him why the British empire was a good thing for the world or for global stability? Did Roosevelt ever sit Churchill down and say, "Winston, it's up?"

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Certainly, Roosevelt made it known that he wasn't happy. But of course, Chiang Kai-shek wasn't happy, either having the British in India and supported Gandhi, felt that India should be granted home rule and that's perfectly understandable. Roosevelt supported that stance and I don't think Churchill liked it. Because it would've been like Churchill giving America advice on the future of the Philippines, which he wouldn't have dreamed of doing. But it was that sort of situation and indeed during the Quit India Movement rising in 1942, Roosevelt tried to help. But said to Churchill, "For God's sake, don't get me involved." He appreciated it was a bit of a mess and didn't want to get entangled in it, quite frankly.

Dr. Rob Citino 

I think you could write a book about this topic, maybe your next book.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

It is a fascinating topic. For most of us, we are fascinated by the British empire. Certainly in Britain in recent years, it's been line of thought, particularly with leftist historians, that it was a bad thing, that it was oppressive, that it was awful. It's been lumped in with lots them, of other empires and I'm not saying it didn't have its bad factors. I saw a marvelous lecture by Andrew Roberts a few years ago when he was doing a spoof on Monte Python. I'm not sure how many people are familiar with them. But they were a British comedy troupe.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Raise your hand.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

They did films and all the rest of it and they did this classic thing. I think it's in The Life of Brian, about what did the Romans ever do for us? I saw Andrew Roberts doing that over India and he's going, "What did Britain ever do for India?" He's going, "Roads, railways universities, a common language, a functioning judicial system. So you have to say there were some good things. The thing that struck me when I was researching the book, Churchill was right. The term India was a geographic term. It's like how we would describe Europe. That includes Spain and Germany and it's only in recent years, we started to think of European union. We started to about the possibility of a United States of Europe. But Europe, up until recent times was a geographic expression and that's what India was. Because of course the India that we know today didn't exist before the British turned up. That was a British creation and when I was writing the book, I found it fascinating that what Gandhi wanted do is actually preserve what the British had created.

You can argue the rights and wrongs of whether we should have been there or not. But what we've done is we created a unified state that functioned voluntarily amongst ... Some of them were British provinces some of them were princely states that paid lip service to British rule. But it functioned and it worked and Gandhi and Nero and the other nationalist leaders, they all understood that. But Churchill also understood that, without British rule, sectarian hatred between the Hindus and the Muslims and of course the minority population, would come to the surface. It's a bit like Ireland, actually. I realized that Ireland was the same, that that historic hatred between the Protestants and the Catholics, it was kept in check by a common enemy, which of course was the British. In a way that was the same in India, that it kept a lid on the situation. Because Churchill gets the blame for Indian partition. But I don't see any other way that India could have gone, the creation of Pakistan and what became Bangladesh.

Britain gets the blame for that. But you go, well, actually that was inevitable that you would end up with Muslim homelands, within India. As I say, India did not exist until we arrived. A continental Indian land mass is a British creation.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Let me get back to this pure military side for a moment. This museum was founded as a D-Day Museum, National D-Day Museum. Before it became the National World War II Museum. Churchill gets a lot of bad press, not necessarily here at the museum. I wouldn't say that. We love Sir Winston. But especially from, many US military historians about his lack of enthusiasm for the big D-Day landings in France, his lack of enthusiasm for Overlord. So I'd like to ask you just two questions and then we'll turn you over to the tender mercies of the audience for question and answer. What was he thinking at the time? What were his views of Overlord. That's first. Then second, what alternative was there? We say he's a peripheral strategy, would that really have brought down the Third Reich? I wonder if you'd just address yourself to both those questions?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Well, I think the problem that Roosevelt and Churchill had was that Stalin was constantly pressuring them to open a second front, to take pressure off the Red Army. It's no secret that the Red Army did the lion share of the fighting against the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. The bulk of their divisions are there. Stalin was never grateful really for the resources that were sent, because he didn't really want or need those. What he wanted was opening of the second front in France, because that would divert Hitler and the Germans.

That meant that Roosevelt and Churchill at some point, had to give Stalin a commitment to open a second front, which they did. But it kept slipping and Stalin was really annoyed and he got quite bitter and angry, particularly with Churchill. Because the date kept constantly slipping and the reason for that was, was that Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed that they would clear the Mediterranean first. So it was the Mediterranean First strategy. But also, we all understand the concept of amphibious warfare from the Pacific and Normandy. But up until those points, things like landing craft and combined operations didn't really exist.

Dr. Rob Citino 

I'll just direct your attention to the landing craft. Just thought I'd point out.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yes. The Higgins boat, indeed. Yes. We all take am amphibious assaults for granted, because that thing enables you to deliver troops onto a beach and quickly into the face of the enemy. But those had to be designed and built. They didn't exist before. For instance, people say, "Well, why didn't Hitler invade England in 1940?" One of the reasons was, he didn't have any landing craft. In fact, what the Germans did was they rounded up every single coal barge. They could find on the Rhineland, which were made of steel and are heavy and cut the fronts off and I think you can guess what would've happened if they tried to sail those across the English channel. We, the British, would've not had to do much to them, because of weather would've sunk them. So the concept, we look at things a sea line and the invasion of Britain, from the view of D-Day. We think, "Why didn't Hitler do it?" Simply because he did not have those resources. But it took time to build these things.

Also, there are only so many resources to go around and the US military had decided that they were going to clear the Pacific of all the islands, of the Japanese garrisons and that required landing craft. We also needed landing craft for the Mediterranean and there were not enough to do the second from when, Stalin wanted it. Initially it was 42. Well that was completely impossible. Then it was 43 while we were in the middle of the Med campaign by then. So we had to give Stalin a firm commitment that we definitely did it in 44, which Churchill and Roosevelt did. But I think Churchill was always haunted by Gallipoli. The closer and closer D-Day got, he began to fret about it. As I said earlier, he wasn't a calice man.

He began to worry about British and American lives. What would happen when they hit the beaches? The thing actually went, apart from Omaha, the thing went incredibly well. But the generals and the admirals did not know that at the time and the thought of dead bodies washing up on the beaches of Normandy began to pray on his mind. So he began to get cold feet and he started making suggestions that maybe they landed on the Britain ports in Bordeaux, or they looked at capturing channel ports. Because one of the reasons they did the Dieppe Raid in 1942, was to try and please Stalin. At least it was a gesture of diverting the Germans. It also tested German defenses. Also there's a very recent ... I don't know if you're familiar with it ... Good book, come out by David O'Keefe, a Canadian Historian, whereas actually says that Dieppe, in part, was a spoiler operation to steal Enigma equipment, to help the allies spy on the Germans.

So he'd what happened, with Dieppe and Dieppe soured relations with Canada, quite honestly. Because the bulk of the forces involved were Canadians and they lost an awful lot of guys. The bulk of assault force didn't actually get ashore. The whole thing was a shamble. So the nearer and nearer it got to 6th of June, the more Churchill began to worry. There's that famous meeting, isn't there, with Ike and all the generals and he may have said it, he may not have. But, ultimately it came down to Eisenhower making that decision and I like to think it's true. They met the night before and he said, "Okay, let's go." Because he was Allied Supreme commander and he had to make that difficult decision.

Did they postpone it? Because if they did, then the thing would slip for months, because the weather would get bad. But in between which Churchill had been waring Eisenhower, Montgomery, Cunningham and all the senior leaders, keep saying to them, "Are we going to the right place? Are these the right beaches to land?" But by the same token, he actually contributed a lot to D-Day. He famously came up with the idea of the Mulberry Harbors, the artificial harbors, they towed up. It was his idea for floating jetties. He was hugely supportive of the 79th Armor Division and the specialized armored vehicles.

Dr. Rob Citino 

The Funnies.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yeah. The Funnies that they produced, they built all these weird and wonderful engineering vehicles, to help the British Canadian armies get off the beach.

They had bridging equipment and flail tanks. One of the criticism leveled at the American army was that they rejected use of them other than the Funnies. But particularly, Omaha it wasn't really suitable for them anyway. Because of the bluffs, they wouldn't have helped a great deal. So he did all those things. So his contribution was positive. It's like building the Mulberries. That was a British engineering miracle that he got all the ship building companies to build them somehow in secret, these huge concrete blocks. But yes, he did get cold feet.

Dr. Rob Citino 

I thought your book really brought Winston to life there and I thought we often read a caricature of it. But I think you're explaining it right now that as the day got closer, just the feet got a little colder and colder and colder and you can really follow that as you, as you go through here.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

One of the things that really surprised me was, because he couldn't affect D-Day, Roosevelt and Churchill had given Stalin an undertaking that they're actually would be two landings in France. So there was a second one, Operation Dragoon, that not many people know about, on the French Riviera. That was supposed to have been conducted at the same time as D-Day. But there weren't sufficient resources. So they did it in August, by which [inaudible 00:45:42] a complete waste of time. So the German units in the south of France had been drawn north to Normandy.

Churchill didn't want it to take place because he'd set his heart on pushing up through Italy. So he didn't want any more allied divisions diverted from Italy. Because obviously a lot had been sent to Normandy, for the D-Day landings. So I was amazed to read that he'd gone to Eisenhower and he said, if these landings are not called off ... He wanted his own way with Italy ... I'm going to resign and I'll bring the British government down, which I was quite amazed by. Now Eisenhower, as we all know the man was a saint quite frankly, when it came to dealing with the commanders, on a number of occasions.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Someone's recording this in the audience. I just want to make sure we get that.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

As we know on a number of occasions, he had trouble, not just with American commanders. But with British ones, the likes of Montgomery. They made his life very, very, very difficult. But he responded to Churchill. He said, "Well look, you and Roosevelt gave this undertaking. It's too late to cancel the operation. All the ships are in place. All the men are ready and were going to go." I thought on reflection, that actually was a key moment in Churchill's career because it signaled that his strategic direction and indeed dominance of the conduct, of the Second World War had come to an end. America, by that point was the senior partner and indeed from Summer 44, round till eighth of May 1945, his ability to influence events in Europe had pretty much ended. By that point, he was a overexcited bystander, if you like.

Dr. Rob Citino 

The book is Churchill, Master in Commander: Winston Churchill at War, Anthony Tucker-Jones. I recommend this book to everyone in the audience and it's Q and A time now. Are you ready for that?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yes. Thank you. Yes. Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

Jeremy Collins

Thank you gentlemen. If you have a question in the audience, please raise your hand and I'll bring the microphone to you. We'll start with-

Dr. Rob Citino 

The prime minister-

Jeremy Collins

Wishes to be recognized.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Greg's going to give us a hard time.

J Gregg Collins

One of the wonderful nuances that you brought out in the book was Dunkirk was so famous. But the evacuation at Cherboarg, shortly thereafter, I believe 143,000 some odd troops. Can you just talk to us about that? Didn't get the fame that Dunkirk did.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

No.

J Gregg Collins

But it was equally important.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Well, yes. As Rob and I touched on earlier, although the British army was evacuated from Dunkirk, there were still British forces there. Indeed, an attempt to convince the French that Britain was not abandoning them, we still had a number of divisions in other parts of France. Indeed, a division was still shipped across the channel. Even though we were evacuating the BEF and a Canadian one was supposed to be sent over. But the German advance of France was so swift, that they had to be rescued as well and people don't realize actually, there were a series of other mini Dunkirks from other French ports. Churchill got quite good at Dunkirks. Because we had to conduct those in Greece after the Germans unceremoniously booted us out of Greece.

Dr. Rob Citino 

And then In Crete.

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yeah another Dunkirk with Crete. We got really good at it.

Audience Member

I have a quick question for you and I hope I set this up properly. How was Churchill in using and dealing with his intelligence services, as compared to say someone like Hitler, who was famously not good and even Stalin who disregarded intelligence that he received?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yes. Your right. Ironically, Stalin had very good intelligence. But he despised spies. He just thought they were traitors. So in the run up to the German invasion of Russia, he had really good intelligence and he simply chose to ignore it. Churchill he did that classic thing as he made sure that they went to him direct. He insisted on having raw intelligence, direct from Bletchley Park, which, in modern times you would frown upon, because it means it's not filtered through experts or analysts. It just went straight to him. But it didn't seem to do him any harm. So yes, he ensured that organizations like mi5 and mi6, which in fact he'd nurtured, in its early days had direct access to him. In fact, he appointed a liaison officer who was his point man with them, which the intelligence services did not like a great deal.

In fact, they circumvented him. In fact, they didn't give the intelligence to the liaison officer. They just gave it direct to Churchill. Same with the Battle of Britain. He kept his finger very firmly on the pulse, by making sure he was informed all the time. That was one of the interesting things. Actually I learned, I digressed slightly about Patton. We always have this image of him being this guts and glory and seat of his pants general, that he did everything by instinct. But actually he had, again, quite often, courtesy of Bletchley Park and Enigma, really good intelligence. So quite often when it looked like, he was doing something rather risky and dangerous, he was doing it because the Bletchley Park liaison officers that were assigned to him, had given him really good intelligence. So actually, he's not as much as a gambler as everyone thought. Because actually he was being a clever general.

Dr. Rob Citino 

May I take the privilege from the podium here to ask you a question, Anthony? As I read through the book, I couldn't help but think that this is a man whose life began in a different era than it ended in. So you have a man who participated in quite possibly the last great cavalry charge in history, the famous 21st Lancers at Omdurman against the Dervishes. Then you had a man who was commanding armies and great fleets in the biggest industrialized war of all time that culminated in nuclear weapons. So from cavalry, with lances lowered, to nuclear weapons. That's Churchill's career as a commander. Is Churchill a modern man? Could you tell us something about that?

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Yes, I think so. He always understood, I think the impact of technology on the battlefield and was very much a forward thinker and a fine example of that is him taking the credit for inventing the tank, which popular mythology has that he did. Whereas in fact, he didn't. But he happily took the credit. Because of course, everyone's saying, "Winston came up with the tank, helped save lives during the First World War." But it was in fact a chap called Ernest Swinton who'd seen tractors on the Western Front, towing artillery and things. He'd thought, "Well, if we put armor plates on it and some guns that would make a good weapon of war." But what Churchill did was, at the time when he was first Lord of the Admiral Teacher in the First World War, the Royal Navy was in charge of British armored vehicles in France, because the Royal Navy had armored cars.

So Churchill, when Swinton's idea came across his desk, thought it was a really good idea and promoted it, said to the Royal Navy guys in the armor cars, we ought to look into this, which they did. Of course, in the meantime, the war office also had been prodded into action to look at it. But actually, the real person who was the driving force behind the tank was David Lloyd, George, who was the British Prime Minister. Because he said to both those committees, "You need to pull resources and wrap your heads around this fairly quickly," and so the tank was born. But of course, common legend is actually, it was Churchill's idea. But it wasn't. But he never really made much effort to dispel that myth.

Dr. Rob Citino 

Well, I want to thank you very much for having this conversation with us tonight. Anthony Tucker-Jones, Churchill, Master and Commander. Thanks man.

Jeremy Collins

Thank you for listening. If you liked what you heard, please consider visiting NationalWW2museum.org/podcasts for more episodes. Again, that is nationalWW2museum.org/podcasts. Don't forget to rate and subscribe. We truly appreciate it. This series is brought to you by the Albert and Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation, which supports content like this from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. I'm Jeremy Collins, signing off.