![]() ![]() Only one person was able and willing to provide that “protection” whatever the challenge, as she showed on that critical June night in 1944. ![]() Violet Asquith, who adored him all her life, noted that he was “armed to the teeth for life’s encounter” but “also strangely vulnerable” and in want of “protection.” In fact, Winston’s upbringing and temperament made him almost vampiric in his hunger for the love and energy of others. He was not an emotional island devoid of need, as so many historians have depicted him. Looking up now as she approached, Winston turned to his wife and said, “Do you realize that by the time you wake up in the morning twenty thousand men may have been killed?Ĭhurchill’s conviction, his doctor Lord Moran observed while tending him through the war, began “in his own bedroom.” This national savior and global legend was in some ways a man like any other. In the end, the command to proceed had been given. No doubt he had poured out his fears and she had sought, as so many times before, to stiffen his resolve. Earlier that evening, Winston and Clementine had discussed the prospects of the gambit’s success, at length and alone, over a candlelit dinner. Huge convoys were already moving through the darkness toward their battle stations off the coast of Normandy. She alone had sustained him through that disaster and the horrors of his time serving in the trenches on the Western Front.Ĭhurchill had delayed the D-day operation for as long as he could to ensure the greatest chance of success, but now British, American and Canadian troops would in a few hours attempt to take a heavily fortified coastline defended by men who were widely regarded as the world’s best soldiers. She also knew the ghosts that haunted Winston that night, the thousands of men he had sent to their deaths in the Dardanelles campaign of the First World War. ![]() Fully apprised of the risks involved in what would be the largest seaborne invasion in history, she knew the unthinkable price of failure: millions of people and a vast swath of Europe would remain under Nazi tyranny, their hopes of salvation dashed. She went to him as she knew she must, for no one else-no aide, no general, no friend, however loyal-could help him now.Ĭlementine Churchill was one of a tiny group privy to the months of top secret preparations for the next morning’s monumental endeavor. Then she cast her eyes over the long central table, whose phones never stopped ringing, to the far corner, where, as expected, she spotted her husband, shoulders hunched, face cast in agonized brooding. She glanced at the team of grave-faced “plotters” busily tracking troops, trucks and ships on their charts. Around her the atmosphere was palpably tense, even frayed. Still fully made up, she looked immaculate and, as always, serene. Late in the evening of Monday, June 5, 1944, Clementine Churchill walked past the Royal Marine guards into the Downing Street Map Room wearing an elegant silk housecoat over her nightdress. Any real consideration of Winston Churchill is incomplete without an understanding of their relationship, and Clementine is both the first real biography of this remarkable woman and a fascinating look inside their private world. Beautiful and intelligent, but driven by her own insecurities, she made his career her mission. Many wondered why Winston married her, but their marriage proved to be an exceptional partnership. Winston to Clementine, on their fortieth wedding anniversary, September 12, 1948, Cap d’Antibesīorn into impecunious aristocracy, the young Clementine was the target of cruel snobbery. "I send this token, but how little can it express my gratitude to you for making my life & any work I have done possible, and for giving me so much happiness in a world of accident & storm." It also provides a surprising account of her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt and their differing approaches to the war effort. Sonia Purnell finally gives Clementine her due with a deeply researched account that tells her life story, revealing how she was instrumental in softening FDR's initial dislike of her husband and paving the way for Britain's close relationship with America. ![]() A long-overdue tribute to the extraordinary woman behind Winston Churchill.īy Winston Churchill's own admission, victory in the Second World War would have been "impossible without her." Until now, however, the only existing biography of Churchill's wife, Clementine, was written by her daughter. ![]()
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