Their Finest Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

Congress, and the moment was not opportune. He would facilitate to the utmost the Allied Governments obtaining the latest types of United States aircraft, anti-aircraft equipment, ammunition, and steel. In all this the representations of our agent, the highly competent and devoted Mr. Purvis (presently to give his life in an air accident) would receive most favourable consideration. The President would consider carefully my suggestion that a United States Squadron might visit Irish ports. About the Japanese, he merely pointed to the concentration of the American Fleet at Pearl Harbour.
    * * * * *
    On Monday, May 13, I asked the House of Commons, which had been specially summoned, for a vote of confidence in the new Administration. After reporting the progress which had been made in filling the various offices, I said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” In all our long history no Prime Minister had ever been able to present to Parliament and the nation a programme at once so short and so popular. I ended:
In response to You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory — victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire; no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “Come, then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”
    Upon these simple issues the House voted unanimously, and adjourned till May 21.
    * * * * *
    Thus, then, we all started on our common task. Never did a British Prime Minister receive from Cabinet colleagues the loyal and true aid which I enjoyed during the next five years from these men of all Parties in the State. Parliament, while maintaining free and active criticism, gave continuous, overwhelming support to all measures proposed by the Government, and the nation was united and ardent as never before. It was well indeed that this should be so, because events were to come upon us of an order more terrible than anyone had foreseen.

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2
The Battle of France: Gamelin
The First Week, May 10 to May 16
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    Plan D
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The German Order of Battle
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German and French Armour
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French and British Advance Through Belgium
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Holland Overrun — The Belgian Problem
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Accepted Primacy of France in the Military Art
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The Gap in the Ardennes
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British Difficulties During the Twilight War Phase — Progress of Plan D
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Bad News of May
13
and
14
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Kleist’s Group of Armies Break the French Front
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Heavy British Air Losses
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Our Final Limit for Home Defence
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Reynaud Telephones Me Morning of May
15
— Destruction of the French Ninth Army Opposite the Ardennes Gap
— “
Cease Fire” in Holland — The Italian Menace
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I Fly to Paris
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Meeting at the Quai D’Orsay
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General Gamelin’s Statement
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No Strategic Reserve: “Aucune
” —
Proposed Attacks on the German “Bulge”
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French Demands for More British Fighter Squadrons
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My Telegram to the Cabinet on the Night of May
16
— Cabinet Agrees to Send Ten More Fighter Squadrons.
    A T THE MOMENT in the evening of May 10 when I became responsible, no fresh decision about meeting the German invasion of the Low Countries was required from me or from my colleagues in the new and still unformed Administration. We had long been assured that the French and British staffs were