We Will Blog On The Beaches

This week the world looks to the beaches of Normandy to remember the courageous invasion undertaken by the Allies seventy-years ago. D-Day marked, for many, the beginning of the end. But just four years earlier the situation had been very different, and the average Briton was expecting a very different outcome from the war. When Churchill spoke to the House of Commons seventy-four years ago today, he likely had no idea just how important – and accurate – his now iconic speech would be.

June 1940 saw Britain at what could be described as its lowest point of the war. A humiliating retreat from Dunkirk in May preyed heavily on the public’s minds, America was still an essentially neutral force and Churchill found himself in the unenviable position of having to tell his fellow countrymen that a Nazi invasion was entirely possible.

Few speeches in history are as repeated and remembered as the one given by Churchill in response to this dire situation. The evocative words of Churchill have echoed down the halls of history departments ever since. “We will fight in France,” he said, “We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.”

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”

An island was invigorated by Churchill’s words, and as the war waged onwards his words became something of a checklist for British forces. But not in the way many had feared. Now we approach the anniversary of D-Day, and we can look back and see the Allied forces fighting, as we were told, on the beaches and landing grounds. Only they weren’t those of England. These were French beaches under Nazi rule, and Allied landing grounds reclaimed from those who had taken them. Churchill might have feared the worst that day, but he brought out the best.

You can read more about Churchill in Christopher Catherwood's book 'Churchill: the Treasures, available here.