Posted on 01/30/2020 8:20:32 AM PST by Governor Dinwiddie
55 years ago today was Sir Winston's funeral. He was the greatest leader of the 20th Century. He stood alone against Hitlerism. He saved the free world alone, holding out for months until other allies joined the struggle.
Note the honor guard keeping watch over his casket, their chins tucked deep into their chests, their eyes sorrowful and downcast.
Sir Winston was a commoner. He was half American. Note the marching sailors escorting his casket from Westminster to Saint Paul's That was never allowed for the funeral of a commoner. This was the first state funeral for a commoner in over 100 years.
Amen
Second state funeral I remember ....
Churchill was arguably last centuries most important figure for our side
He’d be sad to see today
Note.....haters will come out
I was in the Air Force stationed at RAF Chicksands about 40 miles north of London 55 years ago. I took the train into the city and watched the procession. It was an experience of a life time.
He was a proud white, male, imperialist, colonialist and I love him for it.
Really? Wow - that must have been incredible.
I recall National Geographic magazine had a plastic record insert as part of their coverage. Gave a feel for the sounds and ambiance of the funeral, and a bit of his life and speeches.
Sharp contrast to today, where that rag would do no such thing.
I still have a vague memory of watch Churchill’s funeral on TV. I watched on a black and white television that resembled a large bank safe. I still recall the splendor and pomp of that ceremony. You would have sworn that a King had just passed away.
The British were far more into the regal grandeur of events back then. I’m thinking this is even bigger than the other funeral I watched two years before, when JFK died. For both ceremonies, all (3) stations stopped all other programming for a while.
The cranes along the Thames being lowered as the barge with his casket goes by is something I always remember.
Plus one to that
And yet they voted him out. How betrayed he must have felt.
The BRITs were very brave- but they would not have stood a snowballs chance in hell without the great United States of America and our Air Force Marines army navy and commanders
Let us not forget that not only do we need to defeat Hitler but we had to fight 10,000 miles away and defeat Tojo and the evil it was going on in that part of the world as well
All that being said Winston Churchill stood alone there in the 1930s warning about Hitler while idiots like Chamberlin produce pieces of paper “peace in our time”
World War II was the final battle of good and evil
From there on out we have merely skirmishes and economic battles
Islamism and communism are the two foes and evils of the modern era and they will collapse upon themselves eventually!
Witness what gods hand is doing to the evil Chinese commie bastards right now
Wow! What an experience that must have been! I envy you, brother!
I remember his funeral as well, I was nine. I remember my mom watching it on network TV. The funeral was as big a deal as that pop culture royal wedding was. I just finished listening to the audible version of Churchill’s history of WWII. They found a guy to read it who sounds like Churchill and mimicked his mannerisms. Highly recommend reading or listening to all six volumes.
“I was in the Air Force stationed at RAF Chicksands about 40 miles north of London 55 years ago.”
USAFSS?
I was a Churchill fan. Then I studied him more completely. I highly recommend the official biography, The Last Lion, by William Manchester and Paul Reid, which covers from 1940 to 1965.
There is no question as to Churchill’s significance as a leader and politician, particularly in WWII.
The allies would probably not have won the war without him. Very likely, the British would have come to terms with a German victory in Europe early on.
Was that for the best or the worst? It is impossible to know. We cannot change history to find out. I tend to think it was for the best, even though one can argue Stalinism was at least as bad as Hitlerism.
What struck me was what a conceited, amoral, Machiavellian, politician and leader Churchill was.
Perhaps all great leaders are such.
Churchill made a great many serious mistakes. The saving grace was the Axis powers made more.
This is a good place to add a link to one of the greatest essays about Churchill ever written.
In the Atlantic (when it was worthy) Isaiah Berlin wrote asn essay defending earlier criticism of Churchill’s grandiloquent style of prose — the essay became so much more.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1949/09/mr-churchill/303546/
He was half American.
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But not a natural born citizen, in fact not a citizen at all until Congress bestowed “honorary” citizenship upon him in the 1950’s.
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