Cowling Redux

Fearful Levity, review of Robert Crowcroft, The End is Nigh: British Politics, Power, and the Road to the Second World War, Finest Hour, Number 184, Spring 2019.

Unmoored from Reality

Obama’s Hiroshima Trip Just More of the Same, Newsday, May 22, 2016, "On Friday, President Barack Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. His spokesmen have promised that he won’t apologize for the U.S. use of atomic bombs to end the Second World War. But Hiroshima’s meaning is more powerful than any words he may utter."

On Flying In A B-17

The Lady Wants to Fly, Weekly Standard, November 9, 2015. "In the Second World War, flying in a Boeing B-17—the iconic Flying Fortress—was dangerous beyond belief. Of the 12,731 bombers produced between 1937 and 1945, 4,754 were lost or written off in the course of operations, a loss rate of 37 percent. Ten Americans, the B-17’s standard crew, risked death on every mission. To fly in the plane is to remember that, and them. But what was a horror in 1943 is an honor today, for only 10 flying B-17s remain—1 in Britain, the other 9 in the United States. Of these, the finest, the most nearly fully original, is Yankee Lady, restored and owned by the Yankee Air Museum in Willow Run, Michigan, 35 miles west of Detroit. In late September, I joined a crew of seven museum volunteers for a roundtrip flight to London, Ontario."

Willow Run Hums Again

Up From the Ashes, Weekly Standard, November 24, 2014. "There aren’t a lot of four-lane highways in rural Michigan. But the vast field a few miles east of Ypsilanti once needed a wide road. It was the site of Ford’s Willow Run plant, the heart of the Arsenal of Democracy. And now it’s becoming America’s first museum dedicated to the World War II production miracle that armed and saved the free world."

Hitchens, Churchill, and The Monarchy

Churchill, Edward VIII, and ‘Arms and the Covenant’, Contentions, January 26, 2011. "Christopher Hitchens doesn’t like The King’s Speech. Not because of its cinematic qualities, which he appreciates, but because of its political ones. According to him, the movie is a “a gross falsification of history” because it shows Churchill as “generally in favor of a statesmanlike solution to the crisis of the abdication” and because it neglects to portray Edward VIII as “a firm admirer of the Third Reich” and George VI as an appeaser and anti-Churchill."

Churchill At His Best

'I Am Ashamed of You for Writing Such a Letter', Contentions, June 3, 2010. "Time for a bit of encouraging news. Christie’s has just finished the first part of a sale of Churchill memorabilia collected by Malcolm S. Forbes Jr. Among the items sold was an exchange between Churchill and Eliot Crawshay-Williams, who had in the early 20th century been one of Churchill’s assistant private secretaries."

Lessons from Churchill to Cameron on May 10

In Britain, Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man?, FoxNews.com, May 10, 2010. "May is a momentous month in British political history. By virtue of the respite it offers from Britain’s legendarily gloomy weather, it has witnessed more than its fair share of elections. And by virtue of the fact that good campaigning weather is also good fighting weather, May marks the most historic handover of power in modern British political history. Today is the seventieth anniversary of the beginning of France’s defeat at the hands of the German Army, of Winston Churchill’s entry into Number 10 Downing Street, and of Britain’s salvation."

On May 10, From Churchill to Cameron

Churchill's Anniversary Offers Insights on Coalition Government in Britain, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 10, 2010. "No matter what happens, the result is likely to be a coalition government. But the British experience of coalition governments has not been a happy one. And this is a particularly appropriate day to reflect on that fact, because it was seventy years ago today – May 10, 1940 – that the last successful coalition government in Britain was formed."

After A Stab in the Back, A Slap in the Face

A Slap in the Face to Poland?,, Heritage Foundation Foundry, August 28, 2009. "As we reported yesterday morning, it now seems all but certain that the Obama Administration has abandoned our anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is a terrible decision that reduces NATO’s security, encourages Iran to proceed full speed ahead with its nuclear program, kowtows to Russian pressure, and stabs our Polish and Czech allies in the back, after they made the difficult decision to support us. And now the administration appears to have added insult to injury. World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. That was seventy years ago."

A Troubling Meme on the Special Relationship

Sir Michael Howard on the Special Relationship, Contentions, July 18, 2009. "In the latest Times Literary Supplement, Sir Michael Howard, in the course of a largely admiring review of two recent works on Winston Churchill, makes a claim that made me pause. According to Sir Michael, 'The myth of the “special relationship” that Churchill invented and that so many of his admirers on both sides of the Atlantic continue to propagate is briskly demolished. . . . Throughout the war the United States consulted her own interests, as any state is bound to do: and these did not extend to helping Britain either to remain solvent or to retain any part of her empire once the war was over.' I am, I suppose, one of those propagating admirers."

More on Obama and Dresden

When Obama Goes to Dresden, Contentions, May 29, 2009.

Visiting Dresden An Unwise Choice

President Obama’s Visit to Germany: Mythologies of Dresden Must Be Rejected, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #2460, May 28, 2009.

Obama and Chamberlain

Chamberlain, A Tragic Failure, June 23, 2008, Contentions.

Review of Peter Clarke, Last Thousand Days of the British Empire

The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire (Allen Lane, 2007), Volume 21, Issue 2 (2008), Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

"The British Empire, according to Peter Clarke, made Britain a great power. It was also a major cause of the Second World War, in that its magnificence tempted other powers to attack it, and Britain fought the resulting 'unsuccessful imperialist war' (xvii) for the Empire. The architect of this defeat, which left the British people feeling cheated by the fall, was Winston Churchill. Churchill, so the narrative goes, deluded both himself and his people into trusting the United States (US), which was in reality fighting the war to bring the Empire to an end and to enlist it as a 'yes-man' in a new American empire. This is an angry and unbalanced book. . . ."

The full review is not available on-line except to paid subscribers.