Churchill's speeches

[Dan]

Did you guys know that Churchill's "finest hour" speech wasn't delivered by him? It was a hired actor who also played Winnie the Pooh.

http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/Irving/RadDi/2002/210302.html

:evil:

Dan

[Gwynn Compton]

Churchill was famous for using various actors to help prevent his assassination by the Germans. Hence the interesting story behind "The Eagle has landed"

From what I've heard it was a true story, and they did manage to kill a Winston Churchill -> The actor, but not really Winston Churchill.

[Scott Smith]

:!: :!:

The April, 2002 Atlantic Monthly article on Churchill is now online and it is quite interesting. Have a look:


CLICK!

[walterkaschner]

Scott, thanks for the tip on the Atlantic Monthly critique of Churchill, which I just came across. I caught a couple of assertions of fact which I thought questionable, but all in all an interesting and stimulating piece of work. Regards, Kaschner

[Pumpkin]

Amazing! What a huge PR-risk to take, faking such a speech.

[Hop]

Many of Churchill's speeches were delivered to the House of Commons, which didn't allow recording at the time. The "finest hour" speech was one of them.

Churchill's parliamentary speeches were recorded afterwards by an actor for broadcast, imitating the speech Churchill had delivered in the Commons. Apparently, they were so well done many people couldn't tell the difference.

The story of Churchill's double and the Eagle has landed is false.

[Hop]

The Atlantic monthly is full of wrong assertions of fact, never mind questionable ones:

Against which nation was the first British naval attack directed? (Against a non-mobilized French fleet, moored in the ports of North Africa, with the loss of hundreds of French lives.)

They haven't heard of the Norway campaign?

Which air force was the first to bomb civilians, and in whose capital city? (The RAF, striking the suburbs of Berlin.)

Warsaw springs to mind. The question is imprecise, do they mean who bombed civilians first, or who bombed civilians in an enemy capital?

Either would be the Germans in Poland, but German bombers were carrying out night raids against British cities long before they first attacked London, which Britain reponded to with a raid that destroyed a summerhouse in someone's garden.

Which belligerent nation was the first to violate the neutrality of Europe's noncombatant nations? (The British, by a military occupation of Norway.)

Germany, by sailing a warship with British prisoners on board into Norwegian waters (The Altmark)