Nevil Shute Quotes
When I was first sent from H.M.S. King Alfred to be interviewed by Goodeve in the Admiralty, I was furious. The War seemed to me, in June of 1940, to be desperately serious, and England in imminent peril of invasion.
Shute, Nevil. Foreword. The Secret War, 1939-1945, by Gerald Pawle, George G. Harrap, 1956.
The first Bishop in Britain, sent by Pope Gregory in 597. This was in large part fulfilled in 607 when Ethelfrith led Saxon troops to Wales killing many including 200 priests who had been sent to pray for the Welsh.
One of the predictions of the oncoming war with Germany.
See {613496} for the origin of the “thrashing a cannibal” phrase.
There were some British politicians who had considered the possibility of supporting the South in the Civil War to assure their supply of cheap cotton. Entering the war by allying with the Confederacy was also a possibility. Lincoln used this phrase and instructed Adams to use that with the British politicians as the result if England get involved with the American Civil war. It is the closest phrase to “World War” until WWI.
The Falkland Islands were very close to Argentina and far from England. The Argentineans had offered the few Islanders large sums of money to become part of Argentina, but this was rejected. Argentina was a military dictatorship with a terrible record of human rights abuses. The Falklanders preferred their traditional British style of government and affiliation. The Argentinean generals assumed that if they invaded, once they controlled the Falkland Islands, they could negotiate with the British over issues of sovereignty. They misinterpreted the American UN Delegate and concluded that America would not support Britain in a military response; they also assumed that while the British would complain in the UN, they would never go halfway around the world to invade the islands, now occupied and reinforced by Argentina. Thatcher would not negotiate unless the invaders left the islands. They did not do so voluntarily. The Argentinian military had been abusing their own citizens for so long that they had an inflated concept of their fighting ability. Britain freed the islands militarily, and Argentina was humiliated. The military government fell bringing democracy to Argentina—the only good that came out of the Faulklands War.
Some scholars look back at the allied bombing of German Cities in WWII with criticism that it was morally improper to bomb populated cities, and that the use of the adjective “exterminating” indicated that Churchill was more interested in killing Germans than strategic victory. This revisionist history has two failings. First, the Germans had already bombed Coventry, London and other civilian targets in England as well as cities in Holland, Poland and other countries killing many civilians. As a result, under the rules of war, Germany was no longer entitled to protection for their cities. Further, Hamburg and other targets were manufacturing sites of war material and as such lost the protection anyway. Even Dresden, which had very little war manufacturing was the main location for R&R of German Officers and by their military presence in the city converted it into a legitimate target. FDR agreed with Churchill, that the bombing was a good strategy to cause Hitler to fall as they thought the public would rebel. They were wrong however and his grip on the population through the Gestapo and the military was so strong that, it took a land invasion and occupation to put an end to Hitler. However, the devastating bombing all but crippled the German weapons development and deployment. For example. The Germans had developed the Jet Airplane Engine and actually put a few in the fight at the end if the war. Without the bombing, they would have had many more and countered the allied air supremacy. However, it is also true that Churchill and many Englishmen and some Americans believed that the English were morally entitled to retaliation for the innocent civilians killed with the German bombing of civilian targets.
Hopkins was a social worker with no military of political experience. But the President trusted him implicitly. Most American military officers and Ambassador to England Joseph P. Kennedy, a Nazi sympathizer & father of JFK, believed that England could not stand up to Hitler. Any military aid we gave England would fall into the hands of the Germans. Everyone was shocked when Roosevelt sent Hopkins to England to make a military recommendation. To impress Hopkins with something he thought Hopkins would be interested in, Churchill led a tour of workers cottages built by the government. Hopkins surprised Churchill and his aids who would never forget this statement & then asked to see the military facilities. Hopkins distressed the American military by recommending that Britain could hold out against invasion if they received military aid. Despite the contrary military advice, FDR accepted Hopkins’ recommendations, and the rest is history. He had been right and much of the military wrong.
Nevil Shute Norway was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name to protect his engineering career from inferences by his employers (Vickers) or fellow engineers that he was not a serious person or from potential negative publicity in connection with his novels, which included On the Beach and A Town Like Alice.
