Pod Insights Dan Snow's History Hit Churchill & FDR: The Origins of the 'Special Relationship' About this episode Today we explore one of history's most consequential relationships - that of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, a pivotal alliance that shaped the world we live in today.
Alongside Lindsay Graham from the chart-topping American History Tellers podcast, Dan digs into the story of Britain and America's alliance in the Second World War and the diplomatic and personal relationship of these two world leaders, their famous meeting at the White House in December 1941 and the impact it had on the war and beyond.
You can discover more about Churchill's time at the White House and other stories in the American History Tellers book 'The Hidden History of the White House'.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript 10,107 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:06 Dan Snow? It wasn't, on the surface, the greatest foundation on which to build a close relationship. One of the parties involved was pretty needy. It was 1940, and Britain and its empire were bearing the full brunt of Hitler and his Axis allies onslaught. German armies had triumphed, Britain was under terrible pressure. And there was one very clear source of support, of money, of manpower, of guns, one place that seemed to offer a glimmer of hope, and that was the United States of America.
2:49 Dan Snow? No one understood the importance of getting America into the war on the British side than Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. And he made it almost his number one priority to woo the USA, to bring them into a close embrace, an embrace that has since been described as the special relationship. And although that phrase has been terribly misused over the decades since, I think it's certainly true that in 1940 and 41 Winston Churchill forged a relationship with the US President Franklin D Roosevelt that was special indeed.
3:31 Dan Snow? This is Dan Snow's History Hit, and this is the story of how that special relationship came to be. As you'll hear, first of all Churchill engaged in constant communication. In one letter, he wrote, "I trust you realize, Mr. President, that the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long. You may have a completely subjugated Nazified Europe established with astonishing swiftness."
3:58 Dan Snow? Less subtle than Churchill's personal appeals were those of Lord Lothian, the new UK ambassador to the USA who arrived in New York in November 1940. Now, the story goes he gave an impromptu press conference. Soon as he got off the boat, he said, "Well, boys, Britain's broke. It's your money we want." But accounts from the time suggest he was a little bit more subtle. He said, "England needs planes, munitions, ships, and perhaps a little financial help", which to all my listeners in the rest of the world is English for "we are completely broke". Another tool that Churchill in particular used to get the Americans into the war was rhetorical. I'm so struck by the fact that Churchill, he meshed the USA in World War II.
4:40 Dan Snow? He spun them into the story of the war before they had any interest in joining the fighting. In one of his most famous speeches in the summer of 1940, Winston Churchill said, "Even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it was subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old." Those were bold words to say in the summer of 1940. There was no guarantee the new world would do anything of the sort. But here was Churchill convincing the British, and indeed everyone on the planet,
5:26 Dan Snow? that America, in its own time, would join the fray. And Churchill had a lot of persuading to do because the Americans were reluctant, and many key American decision-makers were reluctant. A member of FDR's cabinet, Harold Ikes, said that Churchill was unreliable and under the influence of drink and too old. He was, well, he was half-right. The US ambassador to the UK, Joseph Kennedy, did not like Churchill and also reports on his drinking, and predicted that the RAF would quickly be crushed in the Battle of Britain.
5:59 Dan Snow? And Churchill, despite his definite weakness for alcohol and occasional changes of mood and course, backed up by the RAF, the navy and the British people more generally, well, he convinced Roosevelt. He convinced the Americans. When Harry Hopkins came over, he was Roosevelt's personal envoy. Churchill whined and dined him. He took him to stay at Chequers, which is the Prime Minister's country residence. He took him to see bombed out cities. He took him to the mighty naval base in Orkney. He gave Hopkins an access all areas tour of Britain's war effort. And sure enough, America did slowly increase its level of support. One of the key moments is March 1941, when Congress approved Lend
6:42 Dan Snow? Lease, the policy which would ensure that huge amounts of war supplies headed to the UK. Churchill dubbed it the most unsordid act in any nation's history. Over the next few years, $30 billion worth of American-produced material would arrive in Britain and her empire. Churchill said to his private secretary when it was announced, "This is tantamount to a declaration of war by the United States." This podcast tells the story of the start of that relationship and how it deepened into one of the most remarkable and successful relationships in military history. To do that, I've forged a special relationship of my own. Dan Snow's History here have teamed
7:23 Dan Snow? up with the American History Tellers podcast, two leaders on either side of the Atlantic teaming up to bring you one mega episode. I was inspired to tell this story by a chapter in their spin-off book, The Hidden History of the White House: Power Struggles, Scandals, and Defining Moments. And that's all about Churchill's very remarkable visit to the White House in 1941, a visit that has defined Britain's foreign policy, I think, right up to the present day. So I'm thrilled to say that I am joined by Lindsay Graham, host of Wondery's podcast, American History Tellers. It's a special relationship on the special relationship. Enjoy.
8:03 Speaker 04 T minus 10. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king.
8:08 Speaker 05 No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again.
8:15 Speaker 04 And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower.
8:22 Speaker 06 Dan Snow, welcome to American History Tellers.
8:24 Dan Snow? Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a great honour.
8:28 Speaker 06 The honour is all mine, because you are well-known in the history media world. Your show, History Hit, covers a wide range of topics, but there's a special focus on the rich history of the UK, as one might imagine. But one figure who looms large in the 20th century is Winston Churchill. So I'd love for you to take us back to the early days of World War II, to May 1940, when Winston Churchill had just become Prime Minister. What position was Churchill in, and the country, I suppose, at the time?
9:03 Dan Snow? You know what, Lindsay, you're totally right. I'm lucky enough to do study and talk about and make shows about history stretching from the Bronze Age all the way to the present day, really. 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 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.
9:44 Dan Snow? 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, 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. 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 and the rest of the world. So he's got to go and build that up from scratch.
10:28 Dan Snow? And he has a very simple strategy. He projects absolutely unwavering strength and determination. 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. So he's going to project that resistance to Nazi domination. And then he's going to get the Americans in. He says to his son in May 1940, he says to his son, my plan is to drag the Americans in. That was it. The first order of business is shore up the British front, shore up British politicians, shore up the British people to fight the Germans.
11:13 Dan Snow? The second order of business is to get the USA involved.
11:17 Speaker 06 Yeah, this projection of confidence does seem to be at odds with reality on the ground. Britain's only allies are occupied nations and America is reluctant to enter the war. What do you know about this reluctance, this isolationism?
11:32 Dan Snow? 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 travelled thousands of miles away, they've crossed this mighty ocean to die in a muddy field outside Paris, France. It's completely understandable that 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 to 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, but soon we're going to run out
12:15 Dan Snow? 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. This is a war of the old world. Here we are, we've just recovered from the Great Depression. We've recovered from the wounds of the First World War. The American economy is advancing, industrialization is sweeping. 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. 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.
12:59 Dan Snow? And he even says to Roosevelt, by the way, you're going to end up fighting Germany eventually. You'd be a lot better off fighting Germany when you've still got a free and independent Britain on your side.
13:09 Speaker 06 So this period of early and mid 1940 is certainly a fraught one. Churchill comes into office in May, but by July and through October of 1940, the Battle of Britain was raging. Now, this was an attempt by Hitler to control the skies over the UK before an eventual ground invasion. Today, it's kind of remembered, I suppose, as a bit of a David versus Goliath story. But I think it's understood that it's more complicated than that. How so?
13:39 Dan Snow? Lindsay, this is one of my favorite stories because actually, 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. Now, that's a story, as you can hear, it's a story that Brits quite like. It makes us sound kind of cool. It makes us sound plucky and exciting and tenacious. But actually, you know, the reality is completely the other way around. First of all, look at the aircraft. 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 resting air superiority, air supremacy over southern England off the British.
14:23 Dan Snow? So actually, in terms of frontline fighters, in terms of the planes that were actually doing the fighting, fast interceptor fighter aircraft, single seater, armed with cannon and machine guns, actually, the Brits and the Germans had kind of equal numbers. People may have heard of the Spitfire and the Hurricane aircraft. Those are the two British frontline fighters. And the Messerschmitt, 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, I'd say was slightly better, but really, the 109 and the Spitfire in particular were very, very evenly matched. 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,
15:08 Dan Snow? 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. 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, the Germans are doing their fighting over southern England, say. When their pilots bail out, they're going straight into prisoner of war camps. 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, absolute top secret.
15:46 Dan Snow? In fact, it was so secret that initially all those German Jewish refugee scientists that arrived escaping Hitler's Third Reich. They were put to work on the atomic programme 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. 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 that 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. Which is a terrible strain on pilots and engine hours and fuel.
16:30 Dan Snow? Instead, now you stay on the ground till that bell rings, you climb up, you pounce on a German bomber force coming in, you land, you rearm, you get back up there. Incredibly efficient. So the Brits build the first ever 3D battle space for an aerial theatre of combat. And that is the deal breaker.
16:47 Speaker 06 Is it true that the adage that carrots are good for your eyesight comes from British misinformation to hide the fact that they had radar?
16:57 Dan Snow? Yes, it's a great story, isn't it? That particularly at night, there were all sorts of clever ways that the Brits were able to intercept German raids. There was a bit of code breaking going on. People have heard of the Bletchley Park work where these enigma codes, these German, I mean incredibly difficult to break. These codes were actually broken by the geniuses there in Bletchley Park. That was starting to happen in 1940. So you were starting to get some notice of where big nighttime raids were going. And the Brits could pounce on those raids and take a toll on those German bombers. And between that and radar, the Brits had to sort of explain why they were able to intercept these raids. Why they always happened to be in the right place. And so they said, well, it's because these guys eat lots of carrots, you know,
17:39 Dan Snow? they've got fantastic eyesight. I was told that as a kid. I often think it was a useful myth because it makes kids eat more carrots.
17:46 Speaker 06 I certainly had a few carrots shoved down my throat with that advice. Now, this was also a time in the UK known as the Blitz, because as along with military targets, increasingly civilian targets were bombed by the Germans. This is a relentless bombardment that went on for nine months, a terrible disruption of ordinary life. But I gather it wasn't all just huddling in shelters or bravely trying to ignore the risks and carry on. This is also a nuanced story.
18:18 Dan Snow? 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. And it was a story of social cohesion. Because as you may know, here in Britain, we have a bit of an issue around class. It's said that we're obsessed with different social strata of society, there's the upper class and the middle class. And typically, it was seen that America was a more classless place, for example, France was, Britain was ridden by class. And so the Blitz was an opportunity to tell ourselves, actually, we were all in it together. And you might be walking down the street, the sirens go, if you were a young man, you'd offer to to protect kids or a young lady, you'd put yourself in the way of any splinters of shrapnel, things like that, no matter
19:01 Dan Snow? who they were and what class you might be from. So this is part of an attempt to create a narrative about Britain and moving, moving beyond some of the traditional cliches. But actually, you dig underneath that, and it's clear that all the things that you might expect to happen in the event of massive aerial bombardment, well, they did happen. There was theft, there was looting. If your house was bombed, your neighbors would sort of rake through the wreckage if you weren't looking, and maybe they'd steal a few things that came to hand. There was a loosening of social morals. It was a time of cohesion. It was a time of people working together, of solidarity, but it was also a time of of violence, of criminality. There are some examples of clubs in the West End of London, these fancy nightclubs would have deeper basements and they would have sort of bomb
19:45 Dan Snow? And they'd be serving drinks and things. And there are examples of people from the industrial areas of London kind of bursting in demanding that they be let in there as well. So there are examples of social stress. But the Blitz was a response to the German failure to knock out the RAF. As I mentioned earlier, 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. 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 and
20:28 Dan Snow? then they could deal with a more pliant British Prime Minister. And so London was attacked for days and days, months in a row. There were fires that were worse in terms of their scale than the legendary Great Fire of London in 1666. People who have been to London today will not see any of medieval London, not even that much of Georgian London, as Stuart London has survived, Tudor London because that astonishing level of bombing and fires from the Second World War. And then other cities, some smaller cities, the damage was even worse. Coventry, Liverpool, these places were absolutely smashed. My local city today, where I'm recording this from now, Southampton, it was only really two or three days of raids, but the whole of old Southampton was burned out. It was one of the great European cities.
21:13 Dan Snow? People would visit it from the US and Canada and take guided tours around it. Well, tragically now, even though I love my city, not many people would do that because it's nearly all constructed after the Second World War.
21:24 Speaker 06 So having withstood the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, by December of 1940, Britain was fearing the worst. Churchill wrote to FDR personally and said, as you mentioned, "The moment approaches when we shall no longer be able to pay cash for shipping and other supplies." This was a moment when Churchill made a large appeal to Roosevelt. What was it?
21:46 Dan Snow? Churchill simply said to Roosevelt, listen, we are fighting extraordinary evil here. We are fighting a force of darkness that eventually the USA will be forced to confront. There's no doubt here. But in the meantime, we're taking them on ourselves. We would like you to join this struggle with us, but because of the isolationist feeling in your country, something like over 90% of Americans had told pollsters they did not wish to get involved in a European war. Churchill understood that. So he said, well, look, short of getting involved formally in the war, you have to supply us. You have to give us the outpourings of your mighty factories.
22:29 Dan Snow? We need the tanks, we need the aircraft, we need the ships, and we need the shells so that we can take this fight to Hitler.
22:35 Speaker 06 Now, going back to conditions on the ground, during this time of persistent bombardment, Churchill and his staff were forced to keep operations running in reinforced war rooms beneath the streets of London. And I know in one of your episodes, you visit these war rooms. What were they like?
22:52 Dan Snow? 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. And Churchill actually famously liked going up on the roof. He liked being near the action. 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. Churchill loved maps. There are maps all over the place.
23:37 Dan Snow? He needed to be able to visualize before he could do strategy, before he could make big decisions. He needed to visualize 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. 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 payphones. There's a little kind of booth where you would go and have very, very intimate, frank conversations with Roosevelt through a secure cable underneath the Atlantic.
24:14 Dan Snow? The air conditioning's been reconstructed, the typing pools where the various liaison officers were at, and 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.
24:27 Speaker 06 So today, we can just walk into them, visit, and they are as they were?
24:32 Dan Snow? Today, 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.
24:43 Speaker 06 But it wasn't actually just the British government and military command that was operating underground, because the American media was too. How did news from the UK reach the United States?
24:55 Dan Snow? 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. There was one of the most famous journalists in US history, Edward R. Murrow. Ed Murrow was here in London during that time. 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
25:40 Dan Snow? death, but also on the lies of Londoners, the people carrying on trying to make the most of it. So this is the modern war correspondent posting these accounts in a way that your listeners will be so familiar with from contemporary conflicts today. 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." And he did that because he borrowed that expression from Londoners. He heard that on the streets of London, because people would say, "Good night and good luck," meaning, "Hope you make it through the night." You're listening to Dan Snow's History. Don't go anywhere, there's more to come.
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28:47 Dan Snow? 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. 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?
29:23 Speaker 06 So with the Japanese attack and Germany declaring war on the US shortly after, America was finally a full participant in the war. But Churchill made this visit, 10 rough days at sea, apparently, because he worried that the US might focus its efforts on Japan rather than Germany. So he essentially invited himself to the White House to shore up this special relationship between the US and Britain and between himself and FDR. Because the two men had met before, but this was an opportunity to really, to really begin a relationship. The trip starts pretty much with a press conference, and this is Churchill's introduction to America.
30:05 Speaker 06 And I think he knows that he has an act to play. There's a good scene in the book of this first press conference. The room is filled with, with both cigar and cigarette smoke, as both leaders were inveterate smokers. But the reporters are clicking their cameras and anxious to get information from FDR and Churchill. And FDR knows that this is their opportunity, well, his opportunity, to sell the British predicament to the American public and wants to show off Churchill to Americans. In fact, he does show him off. He tells Churchill to show himself to the cameras, to the reporters, and Churchill... And typical bluster gets up on a chair and waves his cigar around as cameras click.
30:48 Speaker 06 Then one of the reporters I know asks Churchill in another humorous moment, "Mr. Minister, can you tell us when you think we may lick these boys?" And a slightly befuddled Churchill has to be told what the American colloquial lick means. And once he finally grasps it means to defeat, he retorts in a very Churchill way, "If we manage it well, then it will only take half as long as if we manage it badly." Right from the start Churchill is on a charm offensive. He needs to charm Roosevelt, he needs to charm Congress, he needs to charm the press and ultimately the American people.
31:24 Dan Snow? 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.
31:31 Speaker 06 Oh, a man of appetites for sure, but Eleanor, I'm glad you bring her up. She was not especially pleased with her husband because it was only upon Churchill's arrival that she discovered he was visiting. Franklin had told Eleanor that there was a guest coming and that they should prepare for copious amounts of food, cognac and champagne, but for national security reasons, he did not tell his own wife that it was the Prime Minister who was visiting. Their time together, which was rather long, many days and stretching into weeks, was very cordial, full of big dinners and long cocktail hours, not exactly wartime deprivation, but he was also very political.
32:15 Speaker 06 Their strategy talks went very late into the night and Churchill, who's always described as a bit of a bulldog of a man, seems to seems to go to great lengths to show deference to Roosevelt. One, one story I liked was that Churchill apparently took to chauffeuring FDR around in his wheelchair. I guess simultaneously staying very close and intimate while also kind of subordinating himself. Churchill was a man leading a country in need and he was smart enough to know how to develop a bond.
32:48 Dan Snow? And then I learn from your book. I mean, he drank a lot of booze and some of that was before breakfast.
32:55 Speaker 06 Yeah, Churchill's tastes were peculiar and copious. So he demanded, or I guess requested, that he have a glass of sherry before his breakfast. And for breakfast, he wanted something hot and something cold. And well, the Americans obliged. They gave him bacon and eggs, certainly more eggs than Churchill was probably accustomed to with rationing back home.
33:17 Dan Snow? And I like the fact he started each day with a great tumbler of brandy, I think it was from your book. He also had an unexpected encounter when Roosevelt stumbled across Churchill completely naked?
33:30 Speaker 06 Yeah, apparently, the president wanted to have a meeting right then, and he was told that Churchill was in the bath. And that didn't bother Franklin. And it didn't bother Churchill either. And I think that says a great deal about the two men, that maybe perhaps FDR was intent on catching Churchill at a fragile moment. But Churchill was intent on turning it to his advantage. He leapt out of the bath, showed his full naked body and said, See, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide.
34:01 Dan Snow? 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.
34:15 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think they had to. You know, the bathroom story is probably indicative of the relationship as a whole. It is one of shared needs and ideals, but one of testing each other's strengths and weaknesses. These are two very strong men, leading in dire times. And they need to be absolutely certain that each one of them is trustworthy. I mean, it's an allegory for their relationship, but I think this is a moment in which these men personify their nations.
34:47 Dan Snow? We dwelt on some of the fun stories. What do you think was achieved across those three weeks that Churchill spent at the White House?
34:54 Speaker 06 Well, I think, as we hinted at, it cemented the special bond between these two leaders. They came with an agenda. Thankfully, their agendas matched in large part. They agreed on a number of crucial strategies. One thing that Churchill did acquiesce to was Roosevelt's demand for a single command center in Washington and having these supreme Allied commanders in Europe and Asia, one source of direction for the military operations. And this might have been in response to America's position in World War I, in which her troops fought under British and French command and chafed a bit at it. But I think crucially, for Churchill, giving away these
35:34 Speaker 06 compromises or making these compromises, Churchill got from FDR what he wanted, a promise that the United States would fight Germany first. Because I think Roosevelt and his military advisers had already determined that Germany was the more dangerous foe with more resources and industrial capacity.
35:54 Dan Snow? 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.
36:11 Speaker 06 Yeah, they spent a lot of time together. Of course, they communicated hundreds, if not thousands of times by letter, telegram, and phone call. These were by necessity, probably the two closest people on the planet, separated by thousands of miles. I think it's a relationship that had to be close and thankfully was easily close. But I'm curious, though, how were these trips, Churchill's trips to America, viewed by the British?
36:38 Dan Snow? Well, actually, Lindsay, that's a really interesting question. There's a report by one of his subordinates that said Churchill was like a sort of whirring dynamo at the heart of everything. And when he was away from Whitehall, everything seemed to be boring and not much happening. And when he was there, it was like fireworks going off. And so I think his long absences from the seat of government were noticed by his subordinates. And it's also true that his political opponents noticed that he preferred being out on the road. He liked visiting battlefields. He liked going to summits in North Africa or Washington or Newfoundland and doing big strategy with other leaders because he found
37:19 Dan Snow? that preferable to the nitty gritty of politics back in your home country. So he did spend a huge amount of time during the Second World War traveling. And it did attract comment and attention as the war went on. Sometimes he was seen as a little bit too keen to get near the whiff of gunpowder. And he was straying away from the more mundane work of running the country. And you know, it's possibly no coincidence that in 1945, just as he had helped deliver victory for Britain and the Allies, he was swept from office in a general election. And I think that did play a part.
38:01 Dan Snow? He was seen as a man of soaring rhetoric, of big strategy, of being brilliant, obsessed with foreign affairs, rubbing shoulders with other leaders, looking Stalin in the eye, working with Roosevelt. But actually, when the British public sat down and wanted to vote for somebody who they thought would deliver real change in their lives, in their communities, in their towns and cities after the war, Churchill was not that guy.
38:25 Speaker 06 So if Churchill's visit to the White House was perhaps the beginning of the special relationship, it was probably all leading to one shared and daring plan. And that was D-Day. History Hit has covered D-Day in vivid detail. And I can imagine that this was a plan that went through several iterations. What were Churchill's early thoughts about striking back against Germany?
38:50 Dan Snow? This is a great question, Lindsay, because Churchill was initially a bit reluctant to head back into the cockpit of violence that was North West Europe. Everyone who studies European military history realizes that North West 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 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. From the beginning of the war, he was always saying, the First World War, he was always saying, chewing barbed wire on the Western Front.
39:34 Dan Snow? There must be other alternatives to that. He was always looking for opportunities. Attacking the Baltic, attacking the Balkans, attack up through Italy. He thought there must be other ways of cracking this tough 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. 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.
40:18 Dan Snow? But it would happen in 1944. 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 armored divisions after they landed.
40:36 Dan Snow? You're listening to Dan Snow's history hit, The Best Is Yet To Come. Stick with us.
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42:03 Speaker 06 One of your history-hit episodes goes through the very first 90 minutes of D-Day as if it was in real time. And in preparing for it, you talk to people who were there as the Armada left the British shores as witnesses and combatants. If we think about the very first minutes, what was the departure scene like as troops headed out to Normandy?
42:27 Dan Snow? 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 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, Dan, 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, I was so pumped up that at that exact moment, if my own nan had walked past, my own grandma
43:12 Dan Snow? had walked past in a German uniform, I'd have slotted her on the spot. 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, for example, they did get ashore, and they got ashore reasonably safely. Not so many casualties. On the beach they landed, there had been very effective preparation. There had been airstrikes which had suppressed the Germans in their bunkers. There had been a massive naval bombardment. Huge gathering of battleships out to sea. We have a ship left called HMS Belfast now a museum ship. And that cracked some of the porcelain in the toilets, in the ship's heads.
43:57 Dan Snow? 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. And they would go in and provide armored support exactly as those troops, those commandos landed on the shore. So actually, on Sword Beach where this one commander 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. There was of course one exception to that, a particular exception, that was at Omaha Beach. Where the Americans fought a terrifically hard battle against German positions.
44:38 Dan Snow? If anyone's been to Omaha 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. The Germans, for various reasons, were at a greater state of readiness. And the Americans there took terrible casualties as they fought heroically into and through those German positions.
44:57 Speaker 06 I'm glad you bring up the German state of readiness because D-Day, the success of D-Day, pretty much hinged on the element of surprise. Why were the Germans not expecting the Allies to land in Normandy?
45:10 Dan Snow? It's a great point that you're right, there's tactical readiness and then the 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. 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 that Japanese official reported it back to Japan. And we know this because the code breakers at the time were able to decrypt and intercept this. 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.
45:55 Dan Snow? Double agents were feeding Hitler that information. There was a fake army, in fact, a fake US Army group. 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. So he was making as much noise he could in Kent while the real force left 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 something called Operation Fortitude, which was a massive deception campaign.
46:40 Dan Snow? There was another fake army in Scotland, in fact, to make the Germans believe that actually the second front would be Norway. 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.
47:05 Speaker 06 So as this operation goes on, minutes turn to hours. I assume it is a tense time with Churchill and Roosevelt in London and Washington. They were closely monitoring events but far away from the action. And then they have to report their success or failure to their publics.
47:24 Dan Snow? This is a great moment because, in fact, Churchill was furious. 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, the King, the King Emperor, King George VI, said, "You are absolutely not to go to D-Day." 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. And he made a remarkable speech. He updated, it's just a reminder that- In parliamentary democracies, the business of being accountable to Parliament didn't come to an end.
48:06 Dan Snow? Just as the American elections went ahead, even though it was a time of war, so Churchill had to pay attention. 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. And he had a lot to inform them about on the 6th of June because Allied troops had taken Rome, Italy, the day before, and on the 6th, the invasion of North West Europe had begun. And 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. So far, the commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan." And what a plan!
48:47 Dan Snow? 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, 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. As you've just pointed out, 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." 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 United States of America.
49:29 Dan Snow? He says, "Complete unity prevails through the Allied armies. There is a brotherhood in arms between us and our friends of the United States." 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. 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?
50:04 Speaker 06 Well, Roosevelt was. He was a leader of a nation who was actively involved in D-Day just as much as the British, and by this point, had committed much of the nation's treasure and their young men to the effort. So he too had to face the American public and tell them, apprise them of what's going on. He did so via radio, and he asked them to join him in prayer. Saying about the men fighting on the continent, that they will need thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard, for the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again. And we know that by thy grace and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
50:48 Speaker 06 So I think he took the same tack that success is assured. Confidence is something that he needed to show in this moment. And well, the history books proves that they were right.
51:00 Dan Snow? Just extraordinary. At that moment, two superb communicators, both giving their publics the kind of language they needed to understand what was happening and what the future might hold. And also why their respective peoples were shouldering this burden, why they were fighting. And actually, he wasn't, most of all, wasn't even the, arguably, not even the greatest wordsmith in his own family. Because Eleanor was busy communicating with the American people as well, wasn't she?
51:28 Speaker 06 Eleanor was a fantastic spokesperson for the nation and for various causes. She held regular press conferences. But I think, you know, in this moment, it is appropriate that the two leaders of these two nations in this one dire day, address their public. We have been talking about two leaders from 80 years ago, though. While both very smart and cunning men, they face great, great challenges. It makes me think to ask what lessons we can draw from their relationship that we might apply today in a very different world.
52:03 Dan Snow? I'm fascinated by coalition warfare. And it's difficult. And it's full of friction. And it can be quite inefficient. But it's also so, so powerful.
52:18 Dan Snow? And you see this throughout British history in particular. When Britain fights alone, Britain struggles. When Britain fights with allies, it's annoying. You have different war aims. There are different languages. There's cultural differences. You fall out. You probably waste a little more money. It perhaps takes a little bit longer to achieve the intended result. But you can tap into astonishing resource. 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 the coalition, when you can bring together the intelligence gathering, the manpower, the industrial output. It's very, very hard to defeat those big coalitions,
53:01 Dan Snow? but they take a very particular kind of leader to make them work. And Roosevelt and Churchill were prepared to compromise. They were prepared to give and take, take the rough with the smooth, and also 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. You don't get every single thing that you want, but my goodness, you're a lot more powerful when you fight with allies. What about you, Lindsay? What do you think? What are the lessons that you draw?
53:38 Speaker 06 The lessons of coalition, the strength of coalition is an obvious one, not just in warfare, but in all sorts of efforts and endeavors. Thankfully and hopefully, warfare becomes less and less frequent, and it's merely just economic cooperation that we're working towards. But I think one of the larger lessons from Churchill and Roosevelt in particular is the importance of relationships, is the human aspect of the decision-making, of the strategy, of the politics. We are never solely rational people. And Churchill and Roosevelt simultaneously understand and try to gain advantage through the humanity of their friends and adversaries,
54:23 Speaker 06 but also demonstrate the same fragility of being human. Building relationships, understanding what trust means, understanding that loyalty is a give and take, that there are compromises always to be made, that ego is always to be put aside. I think from Churchill and Roosevelt and many, many other great leaders, this is the lesson you will, you will always learn. To take is to give.
54:48 Dan Snow? You're totally right. And keep your eye on that 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. And also, just as you're speaking, I'm thinking, just two men that were as comfortable hammering out strategy around that map table as they were selling that strategy to the people that voted for them. And that is so important in leadership and democracies, isn't it? Well, Lindsay, I have enjoyed this so much. Longtime fan. Great to finally work with you. Thank you so much for coming on this Dan Snow's history hit, American History Tellers collaboration. I've really enjoyed representing the sort of British side of the story and learning from you about how these things are seen in America. Because although you think you
55:33 Dan Snow? know the history, there's always an interesting angle that perhaps I haven't been brought up with. So thank you for that. I would love to get together and do it again, maybe for the anniversary of the birth of America in 2026, when we might have very different points of view.
55:47 Speaker 06 Yeah, well, our special relationship was a bit different then.
55:51 Dan Snow? Certainly was. And thankfully, in the 20th century and the 21st, it's special in a much better way. Be sure to check out American History Tellers for more in-depth history just like this, wherever you get your podcasts, folks. Thanks for listening.
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