The Words of Winston Churchill

  After Dunkirk

    We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and 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 beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World, with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.
                        (From the Speech of June 4, 1940)

 

This Was Their Finest Hour

    What General Weygand called the battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. On this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.
    Upon it depends our own British life and the continuity of our institutions and our empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned upon us. Hitler knows he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
    If we stand up to him all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands; but if we fail, the whole world, including the United States and all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister and perhaps more prolonged by the lights of a perverted science.
    Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was our finest hour."
                            (From the speech of June 18, 1940)
  
 

"Let us move forward ... into the storm and through the storm"

    Tonight I speak to you at home, I speak to you in Australia and New Zealand, for whose safety we will strain every nerve; to our loyal friends in India and Burma; to our gallant allies, the Dutch and Chinese; and to our kith and kin in the United States. I speak to you all under the shadow of a heavy and far-reaching military defeat.
    It is a British and Imperial defeat. Singapore has fallen. All the Malay Peninsula has been overrun. Other dangers gather about out there and none of the dangers which we have hitherto successfully withstood at home and in the East are in any way diminished.
    This, therefore, is one of those moments when the British race and nation can show their quality and their genius. This is one of those moments when they can draw from the heart of misfortune the vital impulses of victory.
    Here is the moment to display that calm and poise combined with grim determination which not so long ago brought us out of the very jaws of death. Here is another occasion to show, as so often in our long story, that we can meet reverses with dignity and with renewed accessions of strength.
    We must remember that we are no longer alone. We are in the midst of a great company. Three quarters of the human race are now moving with us. The whole future of mankind may depend upon our conduct. So far we have not failed. We shall not fail now. Let us move forward steadfastly together into the storm and through the storm.
                                                    (February 1942)
     

 

Author's comment:
Even Churchill couldn't have dreamt of the 1000+ plane daylight raids of 'The Mighty Eighth" in the coming years.