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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Erik Larson
Lord Beaverbrook—a
became minister of aircraft production two days
Beaverbrook could be counted on for candor at all times, and to deliver advice
wildly entertaining,
dangerous little goblin.”
Some take drugs,”
said. “I take Max.”
collection of top business executives to be his senior lieutenants,
unrealistically demanding.
British aircraft plants began turning out fighters at a rate that no one, least of all German intelligence, could have foreseen, and
he embedded a capsule containing cyanide in the cap of his fountain pen.
barrage balloons—“silver
moon became a source of dread.
two decisions that would influence the duration and character of the coming war.
Hitler ordered his armored divisions to halt their advance
Kesselring was all the more surprised when suddenly
the task of destroying the fleeing British force was assigned to him
Göring was his favorite.
On the side, Göring ran a criminal empire of art dealers and thugs who provided him with a museum’s worth of art
Göring also had a passion for extravagant sartorial display. He designed his own uniforms, the flashier the better, with medals and epaulettes
eccentric costumes
Germans like him because they understand him. He has the faults and virtues of the average man, and the people admire him for both. He
But Göring’s worst error, according to Galland, was hiring a friend, Beppo Schmid, to head the Luftwaffe’s intelligence arm, responsible for determining the day-to-day strength of the British air force—an
this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”
Here, as in other speeches, Churchill demonstrated a striking trait: his knack for making people feel loftier, stronger, and, above all, more courageous.
HE EVACUATION FROM DUNKIRK proved successful beyond imagining, aided by Hitler’s pause order and by bad weather over the channel,
338,226 men got away, including 125,000 French soldiers. Another
“We shall go on to the end,” he said, in a crescendo of
ferocity and confidence. “We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender—” As the House roared its approval,
audience Churchill had mainly in mind when he’d crafted his speech was, once again, America, and
The speech also sent a signal to Hitler, reiterating Churchill’s resolve to fight on.
feared, in effect, a reverse Dunkirk.
Churchill’s sniping at times disheartened Thompson, and made him feel a failure. “I kept wishing somebody would attack him so I could shoot the attacker,” he wrote.
U.S. ambassador Joseph Kennedy
radar, a
British were becoming adept at intercepting and decrypting Luftwaffe communications, these processed at Bletchley Park,
What further complicated things was Lindemann
this was what Churchill wanted from Lindemann: to challenge the orthodox, the tried-and-true, and thereby spark greater efficiency.
telegram to President Roosevelt that contained his most ardent plea yet. The process of
matter of life or death.” After completing this telegram, and
Chequers, in Buckinghamshire,
terms of Lee’s gift specified that no work was to be done at the house—that it was to be a place of rest and renewal.
entire house embodied the grand sweep of British history,
mellowed by champagne and good food he became a different man, and a delightful and amusing companion.”
Always remember, Clemmie, that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”
German beam navigation system.
ONDAY, JUNE 17, “a certain eventuality” came to pass. France fell.
delivering over to the enemy the fine French Fleet. Such an act would scarify”—scarify, a six-hundred-year-old word that only Churchill would use in crucial diplomatic correspondence—“would scarify their names for a thousand years of history.
the king wrote, in a letter to his mother, Queen Mary, “I feel happier now that we have no allies to be polite to & to pamper.”
Cunard liner, the Lancastria, which was serving as a troopship and loaded with more than 6,700 British soldiers, air crews, and civilians, had been attacked by German aircraft.
No mention of Churchill,s involvement in sinking of lusitania
