South Carolina, 1942: Churchill’s View of American Troops

The Hillsdale College Churchill Project is privileged to receive photos and memorabilia that add to our Churchill collection. Laura Crosby of Summerville, South Carolina, sent us the historic photos shown here, from the collection of her parents, Eugene and Kathleen Sloan. They round out our picture of Churchill’s June 1942 visit to America, and his first encounter with U.S. troops at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

I’ve been slogging through the William Manchester Churchill trilogy, The Last Lion. How is Hillsdale’s eight-volume Winston S. Churchill by Randolph Churchill and Martin Gilbert different?

In 1960 General Lord Ismay said that an objective Churchill biography could not be written for fifty years. Andrew Roberts weighs in at year fifty-eight. The delay paid off. Roberts’ book will be “unique even to jaded Churchillians.”

Like Thucydides, Churchill wrote to teach. To convey what should be done, how it should be done, and why it should be done is the essence of political leadership. War is a violent teacher. Churchill strove always to be a good student and to pass on what he learned.

David Lough sheds bright light on the youthful Churchill's hopes and dreams, under the worldly, solicitous, loving influence of his American mother.

"The medical world and Churchill’s entourage agreed that Sir Winston’s recovery after this fateful episode was spectacular. On 18 August, he presided over a cabinet meeting lasting for nearly three hours. Apparently, none of his close colleagues who knew what had happened could believe he had suffered any new medical problem."

Issues of peace and war: Dewey protested Herbert Hoover’s “peripheral” defense strategy in 1950, only to fall back on it, to Churchill’s displeasure, two years later.

Brough Scott, who is highly qualified, explores Churchill’s long and sometimes significant equestrian life, complete with penetrating observations.

Piecing history together from her mother’s letters, Jill Rose shines welcome light on an obscure episode in Churchill’s wartime premiership.

In a previously unpublished article, Winston S. Churchill contrasts the tenets of Socialism with the values of free societies.

“Politics are absolutely engrossing to you…and now you have painting for leisure and polo for excitement and danger.” —Clementine Churchill to WSC, 1921

Churchill’s refusal to indulge in criticism of America was more than prescient tactics; it embodied a deep understanding of, and belief in, “The Great Republic.”