International Churchill Society

Space is LIMITED! The International Churchill Society's forty-third conference will be held from October 15 to 17, 2026. Get your ticket today! https://winstonchurchill.org/2026-international-churchill-conference/

This year, we recognize the 250th Anniversary of America and commemorate the strong ties and connections of Sir Winston Churchill to the United States. The birthplace of liberty, Philadelphia, is an ideal venue for discussing Winston Churchill's American roots, inspiration he drew from the founding fathers, and the lessons of leadership that our nation’s birth and Sir Winston’s example serve for today

In response to the recent attention to a 2025 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London—which alleges that Winston Churchill willfully starved the population of India during the Bengal famine—we refer you to an excerpt by Professor Nigel Biggar in Issue 208 (Winter 2025 ) of the International Churchill Society’s journal, Finest Hour:

In early October, 1943, Churchill told the war cabinet that one of the new viceroy’s first duties was to see to it “that famine and food difficulties were dealt with.” He wrote to Wavell the next day: “Every effort must be made, even by the diversion of shipping urgently needed for war purposes, to deal with local shortages.” Churchill refused a Canadian offer of 100,000 tons of food aid for Bengal because it would have taken two months to arrive, but the same war cabinet meeting resolved to seek Australian supplies instead.

Read and learn more by subscribing to the Finest Hour through ICS membership: https://winstonchurchill.org/join/join-the-society See less

Everyone is talking about the Wallace Collection exhibit, Winston Churchill: The Painter! ICS Board member, Catherine Grace Katz noted in the New York Times coverage: “I think many of his best pieces really capture the sense of a fleeting moment,” said Catherine Katz, a historian who has studied Churchill, “as if he’s trying to command the moment to remain through his art.”

Was Churchill a Serious Artist? This Exhibition Says, ‘Yes.’ In the first major British retrospective for over 60 years, a London museum seeks to recast the wartime leader as a painter with emotional depth.

D-Day was not a single day of victory, but the beginning of a fierce campaign. By 8 June 1944, Allied forces were fighting to link and strengthen their positions in Normandy, while supplies, vehicles, and reinforcements poured across the Channel.

Churchill had described the landings as “the first of the series of landings in force upon the European Continent....” The words were careful. The invasion had begun, but the Battle of Normandy was only just underway.

Read more: https://winstonchurchill.org/churchill-central/storyelement/winston-churchill-and-d-day/

Photo: Churchill AVREs of 5th Assault Regiment, Royal Engineers, carriers and a jeep on Sword Beach. Wounded are being treated by the side of the vehicles.

On 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day, the Allied foothold in Normandy began to take shape. Bayeux became the first town in mainland France liberated by the Allies, while British, Canadian, American, and other Allied forces worked to expand the beachheads won at such terrible cost.

For Churchill, the invasion marked the opening of the long-awaited western front in Europe. The road ahead would be hard, but the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe had begun.

Read more: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/memorial-museum-battle-of-normandy/your-visit/niveau-3/bayeux-liberated-7-june-1944/

On 6 June 1944, Allied forces launched Operation Overlord, the long-awaited invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. British, American, Canadian, Free French, and other Allied troops came ashore in Normandy by sea and air in one of the most complex military operations in history.

Speaking to the House of Commons that day, Winston Churchill reported that “So far the Commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan. And what a plan!” It was not a declaration of easy victory. It was a sober recognition that the liberation of Europe had begun, and that the cost would be immense.

Today we remember the courage of those who landed, those who flew, those who sailed, and those who never came home.

https://winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/war-leader/d-day-6-june-1944/

Operation Bodyguard was the effort to deceive the Germans of the location of the awaited Allied invasion of mainland Europe. This operation successfully convinced the German command that the invasion would not be at Normandy but instead at Pas de Calais. Operation Bodyguard involved spreading false information through the MI5 double agent Juan Pujol García feeding information to Hi**er that the invasion would be at Pas de Calais.

The most famous part of Operation Bodyguard was the creation of the fake landing force, the 1st U.S. Army Group (FUSAG), led by General Patton. This fake army stationed in the south-east of England featured rubber tanks, fake airstrips, and large amounts of radio traffic that convinced German Intelligence that FUSAG was the main landing force. This effort successfully delayed reinforcements during D-Day, as Hi**er was still convinced Normandy was the diversion for Pas de Calais. Operation Bodyguard was named after Winston Churchill's quote to Stalin at the Tehran Conference:

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

On June 2nd, 1944, Winston Churchill boarded his private train headed for the south coast of England. Over the next few days, he would sleep and work in a railway car close to where thousands of soldiers would embark to invade France.

However, Churchill wanted to go even further. At his request, Admiral Ramsay drew up plans for him to board HMS Belfast on D minus 1, before transferring to a destroyer for a short tour of the beaches on D-Day itself.

General Eisenhower and other military leaders did not want the added issue of the Prime Minister near the action. King George VI had previously sent a letter to Churchill urging him not to go to sea on D-day since he would see very little for the risks involved. The King was so worried that he ordered his private secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, to follow up with a late-night telephone call to Churchill’s train carriage. Churchill eventually agreed with the King's wishes, admitting to Lascelles that “if that poor ship should go to the bottom, you will all say, ‘I told you so.’”

One June 5th, 1944, Winston Churchill reluctantly took a backseat as millions of men, hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies, and an armada of ships and aircraft were assembled to cross the channel the next day. The outcome of years of planning would all be decided in the next 48 hours.

On that day, Churchill telegraphed Stalin, "Tonight we go. We are using 5,000 ships and have available 11,000 aircraft." As the initial stages of the invasion made their way towards Normandy, Churchill worried about the casualties, perhaps recalling the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in World War I.

He told his wife the night of June 5th, "Do you realise that by the time you wake up in the morning, 20,000 men may have been killed." All Churchill could do was wait for news from the beaches.

Learn about Churchill and D-day more here: https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-122/cover-story-churchill-and-d-day/