Churchill's Finest Hour Speech - June 18, 1940

[Smithy]

I'd never known this Søren until you posted about this previously. Really fascinating fact and nice that the RAF roundel was used as a symbol of freedom and resistance.

I like what that bloke with the red hair did as well!

 

[the hairy bloke]

To be honest chas, I think you're just being deliberately provocative and if this was a topic about the (incredibly) few Americans in The Battle of Britain this would have been locked or cleaned up by now.


I don't appreciate your comments and if you have an opinion on our brave young men and women of the RAF I'd prefer it if you kept it to yourself.
Never had a cross word with anyone on this forum in many years of being on here, but you are teetering very close to the edge.

Raises eye-brow, ever-so-slightly.

As an addition there were a number of Americans who served in the Royal Navy. There is a memorial plaque in the Painted Hall, in Greenwich. A re-enactment group I belong to does an event there most years.

 

[Kitty_Sheridan]

Sorry, but it's true.. bloody appalled.

 

[Chas]

GroupThink.

 

[Spitfire]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

Can we move on now?

 

[Story]

Luftwaffe pilots dubbed the Firth of Forth ‘suicide corner’ after falling to Scots air aces – eight months ahead of ‘the big one’.

Across blue skies above fields awaiting the harvest, Spitfires and Hurricanes wheel in the air. Spiralling plumes of flame herald a shot-down enemy ‘bandit’. These are the familiar images of the Battle of Britain, which began 70 years ago this weekend, when around 3000 young RAF pilots took to the skies and fought throughout the summer of 1940 to gain ascendancy over Hitler’s Luftwaffe above the rolling landscape of Kent and Sussex.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...started-with-the-battle-of-scotland-1.1040497

 

[Spitfire]

Thank you for sharing this not-so-wellknown-part of history.

 

[Story]

London, Aug 26 (ANI): Newly released MI5 files have shown that had the Luftwaffe won the Battle of Britain, German shock troops would have landed at Dover, dressed in British uniforms.

The MI5 file, which was made public at the National Archives, showed details of the plan to invade Britain emerged from a post-war debrief of a German soldier.pl Werner Janowski was interrogated about his wartime work for the German Intelligence Service, the Abwehr, and he revealed that the plan was abandoned because invading troops would have faced RAF attack.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20100826/882/twl-mi5-file-reveals-german-wwii-plan-to_1.html

 

[Edward]

Wasn't the radio one given by an actor? or is that a legend....

That's what I heard too. No idea if it's been proven true or debunked, though. It wouldn't surprise me if it is true.

 

[dhermann1]

So what would have been the Luftwaffe's definition of winning the Battle of Britain? Total destruction of the RAF? The ability to fly unopposed over southern England? What would have been the consequences of that? That's the amazing thing about war, the endless "what ifs?".

 

[Richard Warren]

I don't know much about the battle of Britain. I seem to remember that radar had a lot to do with British success.

I did take the trouble to read the text of the finest hour speech recorded by Hansard (whoever that may be).

I do not know if Churchill was telling it as he saw it or painting a rosy scenario. In either case that speech is magnificent. Anyone who would call it "hooey" gives evidence of being both mentally and morally deficient.

 

[Edward]

I don't know much about the battle of Britain. I seem to remember that radar had a lot to do with British success.

I did take the trouble to read the text of the finest hour speech recorded by Hansard (whoever that may be).

I do not know if Churchill was telling it as he saw it or painting a rosy scenario. In either case that speech is magnificent. Anyone who would call it "hooey" gives evidence of being both mentally and morally deficient.

Churchill was a master politician; as such, he would certainly have known and practiced the art of spin. Hansard is the official written record of everything said (and by whom) during sessions in both Houses of Parliament.

 

[dhermann1]

Think of a coach in the locker room, after his team had fallen behind about 72 to 3 in the first ten minutes of the game. (Can you tell that US football season just started this week?)

 

[dhermann1]

The radio version

Churchill gave the first version of the speech in Parliament. That was not recorded. A few days later he recorded it for radio. He must have given an entirely different intonation to it from his delivery in the House.
The recorded version sounds downright morose, but I'm sure the same words were spoken with tremendous vigor and conviction originally.

 

[Smithy]

dhermann,

The speech was given twice on the same day. Even though it did not go down particularly well in the House of Commons (and that is a fact that surprises some), Duff Cooper prevailed upon Churchill to talk on the radio that same night.

During this wireless version Churchill smoked a cigar the whole duration of giving the speech. Newspaper owner Cecil King thought he sounded either ill or drunk but this could, in part at least, be perhaps given to Churchill's life-long difficulty in pronouncing the letter "s".

However it was a fairly well heard speech, BBC research at the time suggested that 61% of the population tuned into it.

 

[Smithy]

Hansard is the official written record of everything said (and by whom) during sessions in both Houses of Parliament.

Hansard maintain the recording in most of the Commonwealth parliaments as well.

 

[dhermann1]

So would that mean that the version spoken in Parliament might also be transcribed?

 

[Smithy]

So would that mean that the version spoken in Parliament might also be transcribed?

It would've been transcribed by Hansard and obviously Churchill already would have had the speech written out before addressing the Commons.