Skip to main content

Literary: "The Second World War", Volume 2 "Their Finest Hour": Miscellanea., 18 Sep 1939 - 22 Mar 1950

 File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHUR 4/201A-C

Scope and Contents

Includes various typescript and galley proofs from: the title pages, preface and contents table for Volume 2; Chapter 1 "The National Coalition"; Chapter 3 "The Battle of France. The Second Week. [General Maxime] Weygand"; Chapter 5 "The Deliverance of Dunkirk"; Chapter 6 "The Rush for the Spoils" (provisionally entitled "The Italian Campaign Against France"); Chapter 8 "Home Defence. June"; Chapter 9 "The French Agony"; Chapter 12 "The Apparatus of Counter- Attack. 1940"; Chapter 13 "At Bay"; Chapter 26 "Relations with Vichy and Spain" (provisionally entitled "Note on Spain. 1940" and "The Attitude of Spain to Intervention" and "Montoire"); Chapter 28 "Lend-Lease"; Chapter 30 "Ocean Peril"; Chapter 31 "Desert Victory"; Appendix A "Minutes and Telegrams, May - December 1940"; galley proofs from Chapters 1, 6, 7 "Back to France" and 20 "United States Destroyers and West Indian Bases", provisionally entitled "The Personal Correspondence"; Volume 1, Chapter 26 "The Front in France". The proofs are annotated with comments and suggestions by various individuals including WSC, William Deakin, Christopher Soames, Denis Kelly, Sir Edward Marsh, Charles Wood, George [Gordon] Allen and Jo Sturdee [later Lady Onslow], Lettice Marston [later Lettice Shillingford], Elizabeth Gilliatt and Chips Gemmell, WSC's secretaries.Also includes notes and correspondence from: Sir Edward Marsh; Sir Alan Lascelles [Private Secretary to King George VI] on the bombing of Buckingham Palace [London]; George [Gordon] Allen; Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall on subjects including Allied fatality figures, defence plans against invasion, German invasion forces in 1941, auxiliary units of the Home Guard and conditions under which the war would be continued by Britain alone (10); Brigadier Henry Latham, Cabinet Office Historical Section, on equipment losses at Dunkirk (2); "Pug", 1st Lord Ismay, on subjects including the limits of air assistance for France (2); Emery Reves [earlier Imre Revesz] (2).Also includes: notes on the appointment of principal British and United States commanders; checklists by WSC for his literary assistants on Volume 2 and notes on the direction for Volume 2 as a whole; copy of a telegram from WSC to Marshal Henri Petain and General Maxime Weygand on not handing the French fleet over to Germany; index of material for Chapter 19 "The Wizard War"; draft tables of forces in fighting contact with the enemy, 1942 - 1945; copy of minute by Marshal of the RAF Sir Cyril Newall, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound and Field Marshal Sir [William] Edmund Ironside on the likely future course of the war (September 1939); issue of the Times Review of the Year (January 1941).

Dates

  • Creation: 18 Sep 1939 - 22 Mar 1950

Conditions Governing Access

Open

Extent

3 file(s) (3 files (638 loose folios))

Language of Materials

English