By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was UK Prime Minister twice, between 1940 and 1945 and then again between 1951 and 1955. During his first term as Prime Minister, in the Second World War, he wrote and delivered some of the most rousing and powerful speeches ever given by a national leader, with ‘we shall fight them on the beaches’ being perhaps the finest of them all.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Let’s begin our exploration of Churchill’s famous ‘fight them on the beaches’ speech with a few problematic statements:
In June 1940, Winston Churchill gave a speech which roused and inspired the whole of Britain. He pledged to ‘fight on the beaches’ and never surrender. When he read the words out on the radio, his wartime audience were greatly impressed by them.
Only the middle sentence of the above paragraph is 100% correct, but we’ll come to the myths and misconceptions surrounding the speech in due course.