CHURCHILL AND ROOSEVELT’S SECRET MISSION TO SINGAPORE
Finest Hour magazine,Winter-Spring 2007
The Churchill Centre WWW.WINSTONCHURCHILL.ORG
A FRIEND IN NEED
On 11 September 1939, eight days after Churchill returned to government as First Lord of the Admiralty, President Roosevelt began the first in a lengthy stream of correspondence between them. From his first hour as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940, Churchill had much to tell. On that day Germany invaded the Low Countries. A week later, General Heinz Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps was across the Meuse River, racing to occupy Calais, only 21 miles from Dover. On 28 May, with Dunkirk being evacuated and U-boats sinking British ships within sight of the coast, Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax floated the notion of learning Germany’s peace terms. His forces cascading into retreat and defeat, Churchill had been in office little more than a fortnight.