Read Online The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History by Boris Johnson - Free Book Online
Authors: Boris Johnson
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Randolph.) But that gambler’s temperament he passed on to his son—and it is vital that he did.
By the time Winston Churchill came to power in May 1940, there were many people who were amazed, and many who were appalled—but also many who thought it was inevitable. In 1936—even as he was denying him a place in the cabinet—Stanley Baldwin remarked that they would need to keep Churchill in reserve to serve as a war prime minister.
By 1939 there were poster campaigns in London, with the slogan ‘What Price Churchill?’ Candidates began to stand in by-elections on a ‘Bring Back Churchill’ ticket. In May 1940, shortly before the Norway debate, his acolyte Harold Macmillan approached Churchill in the lobby and said, ‘We must have a new Prime Minister and it must be you.’
As Churchill said about the moment when he finally took over, ‘I felt as though I was walking with destiny. All my life was a preparation for this hour and this trial.’ He did indeed seem somehow predestined for the job, and not just in his own eyes.
No one else had such long experience of fighting—both as a politician and a soldier. No one else seemed built on the same scale as Churchill, or equal to the level of events—and there was a further reason why so many people looked at him in this way, as the natural man for the moment.
They knew that throughout the amazing snakes-and-ladders of his life he had followed the pattern of Randolph not just in his ducal disdain for party or his Homeric desire for glory but in his willingness to back himself and his ideas—to take risks that no one else would take.
In peacetime, such behaviour can be disastrous. But you can’t win a war without taking risks, and you won’t take risks unless you arebrave. That, finally, was the quality that people sensed in Churchill; that was why some people yearned for him in 1940, in spite of all the sneering of the Tory establishment and the appeasers.
His whole career so far had been a testament to that primordial virtue—the virtue, as he pointed out himself, that makes possible all the others. Of the immense physical and moral courage of Churchill there can be no doubt.
CHAPTER 5
NO ACT TOO DARING OR TOO NOBLE
I t was a glorious evening in Croydon, on 18 July 1919. The war was over, and Churchill was back in government—long since restored after the disgrace of Gallipoli. He had put in a hard day as Secretary of State for War and Air, and now he hankered for excitement. It was time for one of his flying lessons.
With several hours of daylight left, he had driven down to the aerodrome south of London. Together with his instructor, Captain Jack Scott, he clambered into the biplane—a De Havilland Airco DH4, with its brass fittings and fine wooden propeller. Scott sat in the front seat of the dual-control machine, Churchill behind him. Though he had no formal pilot’s licence, Churchill was experienced enough to perform the take-off himself.
For a while, things seemed to go according to the book. They chuntered down the field; the engine pulled well; they ascended to 70 or 80 feet above the upturned faces of the ground crew. They must have made a fine sight—one of Britain’s most famous statesmen, his big head sheathed in leather flying cap and goggles, soaring heavenward in what was then a cutting-edge piece of Britishtechnology—one of the very first people since Icarus to master the skies, to defy gravity in a machine that was heavier than air.
Just as they reached a fatal distance from the ground, things started to go wrong.
In those days Croydon Aerodrome was bordered by clumps of tall elm trees. In order to avoid these trees the ascending pilot was obliged to make two banked turns, first to the right and then to the left. Churchill made his first turn—no problems. The wind sang through the struts. The speedometer registered 60 knots, healthy enough to avoid a stall.
He turned left, and the delicate fins and ailerons obeyed his
By the time Winston Churchill came to power in May 1940, there were many people who were amazed, and many who were appalled—but also many who thought it was inevitable. In 1936—even as he was denying him a place in the cabinet—Stanley Baldwin remarked that they would need to keep Churchill in reserve to serve as a war prime minister.
By 1939 there were poster campaigns in London, with the slogan ‘What Price Churchill?’ Candidates began to stand in by-elections on a ‘Bring Back Churchill’ ticket. In May 1940, shortly before the Norway debate, his acolyte Harold Macmillan approached Churchill in the lobby and said, ‘We must have a new Prime Minister and it must be you.’
As Churchill said about the moment when he finally took over, ‘I felt as though I was walking with destiny. All my life was a preparation for this hour and this trial.’ He did indeed seem somehow predestined for the job, and not just in his own eyes.
No one else had such long experience of fighting—both as a politician and a soldier. No one else seemed built on the same scale as Churchill, or equal to the level of events—and there was a further reason why so many people looked at him in this way, as the natural man for the moment.
They knew that throughout the amazing snakes-and-ladders of his life he had followed the pattern of Randolph not just in his ducal disdain for party or his Homeric desire for glory but in his willingness to back himself and his ideas—to take risks that no one else would take.
In peacetime, such behaviour can be disastrous. But you can’t win a war without taking risks, and you won’t take risks unless you arebrave. That, finally, was the quality that people sensed in Churchill; that was why some people yearned for him in 1940, in spite of all the sneering of the Tory establishment and the appeasers.
His whole career so far had been a testament to that primordial virtue—the virtue, as he pointed out himself, that makes possible all the others. Of the immense physical and moral courage of Churchill there can be no doubt.
CHAPTER 5
NO ACT TOO DARING OR TOO NOBLE
I t was a glorious evening in Croydon, on 18 July 1919. The war was over, and Churchill was back in government—long since restored after the disgrace of Gallipoli. He had put in a hard day as Secretary of State for War and Air, and now he hankered for excitement. It was time for one of his flying lessons.
With several hours of daylight left, he had driven down to the aerodrome south of London. Together with his instructor, Captain Jack Scott, he clambered into the biplane—a De Havilland Airco DH4, with its brass fittings and fine wooden propeller. Scott sat in the front seat of the dual-control machine, Churchill behind him. Though he had no formal pilot’s licence, Churchill was experienced enough to perform the take-off himself.
For a while, things seemed to go according to the book. They chuntered down the field; the engine pulled well; they ascended to 70 or 80 feet above the upturned faces of the ground crew. They must have made a fine sight—one of Britain’s most famous statesmen, his big head sheathed in leather flying cap and goggles, soaring heavenward in what was then a cutting-edge piece of Britishtechnology—one of the very first people since Icarus to master the skies, to defy gravity in a machine that was heavier than air.
Just as they reached a fatal distance from the ground, things started to go wrong.
In those days Croydon Aerodrome was bordered by clumps of tall elm trees. In order to avoid these trees the ascending pilot was obliged to make two banked turns, first to the right and then to the left. Churchill made his first turn—no problems. The wind sang through the struts. The speedometer registered 60 knots, healthy enough to avoid a stall.
He turned left, and the delicate fins and ailerons obeyed his
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