A Civillan
Lets take a look at some of your points, shell we?
"Completely disregarding his pre-ww2 history, his wartime failure's were massive. He led the British empire from one defeat to the next."
Perhaps you might not have considered that for the first few years of the war, the allies were losing the war, due to the combination of blitzkreig and the strength of the axis forces. This is the main reason the allies may have appeared to lurch from one disaster to another.
"Norway. The distarious failure of the royal navy created a minor scandel in it's day (Churchill was the 1st lord of the admiralty)"
Indeed he was First Lord of the Admiralty. The key mistake Britain made was not to act fast enough. Churchill realised the strategic importance of Norway, to deny bases for U boats, surface raiders and aircraft, and to cut of supplies of Scandinavian iron ore for the German war machine. The Germans realied its importance too - and acted first.
"Churchill was for attack Russia (which was then allied with germany) to help out the Fin's. Imagine what effect this would of had on the war."
At the time Russia was on Germany's side, remember? If Hitler had not attacked Russia then they would proably have still been allies. At the Red Army had suffered from Stalin's purges, and was ill equipped.
"Greece & Crete. A massive waste of both lives and equipment which had been synpthoned off from the western north africa front. The loss of this equipment effectivly lead to a nigh on 3 year battle in north africa. This was based on his "gung ho" style of leadership. The "we must attack them on all fronts" tactics led
to a rout by the massivly outnumbered british force."
I thought the Greek campaign was due to strategic reasons, principally access (maintaining it ourselves and denying it to the Germans) to oil from the Middle East. Crete was captured by German airborne troops after a seaborne invasion was thwarted by the RN. As for attacking them on all fronts, you might consider that fighting on several fronts simultaneously is what put an end to the third reich.
"Far East. The loss of the Prince of Wales (and the battleship i forget its name) which were the only capitial units of the RN then in the pacific. They were sent by Churchill as a "show of force". He though that this would stop Jap aggression (even though the Jap's outnumbered them 10 to 1) none of his advisor's agreed with this "thinking". (This resulted in the "the british empire has never suffered such a massive defeat". Showing his inability to judge the Japanese as being dangerous foe's on racist grounds."
The other capital ship you are thinking of was the Battlecruiser
Repulse. This was force Z. Force Z was destroyed by very heavy air attacks by Japanese aircraft. Force Z had sailed without a carrier. Whether a carrier, and her fighters, could have saved Force Z is something we will never know. Incidently a (fairly) reason programme on Channel 4 covered the loss of Singapore in some detail. The main culprit (according to the programme)? The commander in Singapore. It wasn't just Churchill who dismissed the potential of the Japanese, in fact there is little evidence to suggest he did. But many people of that time were dismissive of the Japs - for racial reasons. Certainly the Singapore commander was.
I canit be bothered to comment on your other comments but consider this......
When Churchill entered No10 we had almost lost the war. The speed and ferocity of Blitzkreig, the superiority of Axis forces and the state of our defences (neglected in the 20s and 30s) brought us close to defeat. The Battle of France was lost as the French Army collapsed. The BEF fell back to the French coast, centred around Dunkirk. Britain was defeated.
But when the BEF was evacuated, Churchill managed to turn this into a moral victory. And this, in my opinion, was what made him such a great leader. He INSPIRED people, to banish ideas of defeat or a shameful capitulation from their minds, and to fight on.
Could Britain have survived 1940 without his leadership? I don't think so. Later he was instrumental in gaining more and more insistance from the USA until they entered the war. When they did he played a major part in getting the Americans to concentrate on the European (and Atlantic) theatre before the Pacific.
He made some mistakes, yes, but could anyone else have taken his place in 1940?
Churchill had imense leadership, character, courage, determination, tenacity and vision. For these reasons he will always be a great hero, the greatest of horoes, to me, and to very many others, particularly those of us with true blue British blood to whom patriotism isn't just a concept but a real emotion.
Churchill was not only Britain's saviour in the war years, he was also, IMHO, the epitome of Britain and what to be British means.
Last edited by WE Branch Fanatic; 28th Aug 2002 at 23:51.