title: The Churchill War Papers: At the Admirality (Vol. 1)
author: Martin Gilbert
description: Gilbert, Churchill's offical biographer, has selected more than 700 documents pertaining to the statesman's second tenure as First Lord of the Admiralty between the outbreak of WW II and his appointment as Prime Minister. As a member of Neville Chamberlain's war cabinet and later chairman of the military coordinating committee, Churchill was at the center of British war policy from the start. Included in the volume are memos to cabinet colleagues, correspondence with Chamberlain, the full texts of parliamentary speeches and radio addresses, letters from admirers, diary entries and recollections by men and women who worked with him. The documents trace the hour-by-hour progress of the May 10, 1940, crisis following the German invasion of France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and conclude with King George's formal request that Churchill, as the new Prime Minister, form a new government. A major addition to the vast Churchill literature. Illustrations. <BR>Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  Zeebrugge
  
  
  Barrie Pitt
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  To the memory of Roger Keyes
  
  
  and the men he led into battle
  
  
  on St George’s Day, 1918
  
  
  ‘His was the voice of England’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  © Barrie Pitt 1958
  
  
  Barrie Pitt has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents
  Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
  
  
  First published in 1958 by Cassell
  
  
  This edition published in 2019 by Sharpe Books.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Author’s Note
  
  
  I should like to record my gratitude to the many people who have given so
  unstintedly of their co-operation during the writing of this book. To the
  officials of the Record Office, the Historical Section and the Foreign
  Documents Section of the Admiralty I am particularly indebted, as also to
  those of the Department of the Chief of Naval Information who dealt so
  expeditiously with a somewhat hastily-presented manuscript.
  
  
  From the long list of the private members of the public whose memories,
  letters and newspaper 