HMS Prince of Wales, Placenta Bay, Newfoundland.
Photographer: Lieutenant L.C. Priest.
In the August of 1941, as Britain had found herself staring at a grim future with her power and prestige challenged by the armies of the Third Reich and the empire of Japan threatening her eastern dominions, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had sailed aboard the battleship HMS Prince of Wales for his first-ever face to face meet with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Placenta Bay in Newfoundland. A conference that has now come to be known as the Atlantic Superpower Summit.
Held over four constitutive days, aboard the HMS Prince of Wales and the U.S. heavy cruiser, Augusta. The top-secret conference had witnessed the making of one of the most famous alliances of World War II, and the creation of the Atlantic Charter – a joint declaration issued by Britain and the U.S. on a scrap of paper, that outlined the reasons for countering the Axis powers, and one that was later signed by twenty-four other nations including France, China and the Soviet Union.
Captured by Royal Navy photographer Lieutenant L.C. Priest, this photo of Roosevelt and Churchill was taken on the second day of the summit, on the deck of the HMS Prince of Wales, on the 10th of August, 1941.
On this day, Churchill had organised a Sunday service to bond the U.S. and British seamen spiritually, if not politically. He had personally directed the grand event, and nicknamed it as the ‘Church Parade’. He had also picked the verse for the sermon which was that of Joshua 1:5-9.
Why Churchill had picked the sermon, Joshua 1:5-9.
Explains Elizebeth Borgwardt, professor of history and law, and author of the book, ‘The New Deal for the World’. Churchill had deliberately picked this verse for its emphasis on duty, loyalty and unflinching support for those in peril.
Likewise, on that Sunday in 1941, the verse had worked its magic in bringing about solidarity between the two powers – with U.S. and British naval personnel jointly singing the verse next to the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes fluttering side by side.
Churchill had later stated that with the U.S. and British sailors sharing the same language, the same Hymns and to a point the same ideals. Every word in the verse had stirred the hearts and made the event an unforgettable one. Roosevelt had been so moved by the service that he at the time had commented, that even if the meeting at Placenta Bay eventually failed to produce much, the Sunday service had cemented the two nations.
Churchill Greetings Cards by Farbound.Net.
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A diplomatic and strategic marriage.
To Churchill’s secretary Elizabeth Neil, the proceedings of the day had appeared like a wedding service, especially after she had witnessed Roosevelt walking down the aisle to take his place at the right of Churchill, aided by a walking cane and supported by his son. Furthermore, writes Elizebeth Borgwardt, ‘It was indeed the diplomatic and strategic marriage that Churchill had hoped to achieve’.
For Rosevelt, however, it was also the longest public walk he had taken since contracting polio in 1921. Churchill’s famous quote, ‘No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt’. Emerges from Churchill’s endeavour of winning over Roosevelt and forging an alliance between Imperial Britain and the U.S.
The photo is now archived with the Imperial War Museum, U.K.
