'1942' by Taylor Downing
Winston Churchill’s bulldog determination to guard Great Britain against Hitler is usually recalled through one phase of the war, 1940-41—Dunkirk followed by the Battle of Britain with the RAF winning a war of attrition against the Luftwaffe. British writer Taylor Downing looks instead at the year that followed. Although morale held up during the nightly air raids of 1941, public sentiment began to sink in 1942 after “a series of military disasters created a crisis” in Parliament with debates over his leadership. Despite America’s entry into the war, hope slumped as the Afrika Korps seemed poised to take Egypt, cut the Suez Canal and swing through the Near East to meet German forces in Russia. “The principal difficulty facing any opposition movement was who to propose as a replacement for Churchill.” The old man’s gift for language won over many doubters and by year’s end, with U.S. aid and stubborn Soviet resistance to Germany, the tide of war had turned.
