This was their finest hour

They were broadcast in radio, printed in newspapers, even copied verbatim by soldiers in their uniforms.

As a result, when historians later write about finest hour, they cannot separate his oratorical persona from the practical realities he faced.

1940 is inseparable from Churchill's enduring legacy as Britain's wartime savior.

Yet the narrative of heroic speech masks another dimension.

We're now back into the second volume of Winston Churchill's six-volume World War II memoir.

This one is their finest hour, and we are now in book two of volume two, which is simply titled Alone.

Sometimes we go fast, and we cover a lot of chapters.

Sometimes we go slow, and in fact, This week and next, we're on one chapter, which is the Battle of Britain, the introductory chapter.

Yeah, well, lead, toil, tears, and sweat.

Fight on the beaches.

If the British Empire should last a thousand years, men will still say this is their finest hour.

That's one of the gloomiest and noblest things Churchill ever said.

The second book of the second volume of Churchill's War Memoirs, that book is called Alone.

The volume is called Their Finest Hour.

I'll be back next week with Dr. Arnn.

Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network.

For the last 14 years, the last broadcast hour of the week that I have done is with Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, or one of his colleagues at Hillsdale, about something enduring, deep, and permanent, because that's the message of the college.

This past few weeks, we've been going through, uh, Winston Churchill's second volume of his World War II memoirs, the- Their Finest Hour, because Dr. Arnn was part of the Churchill biography team, official Churchill biography team, and because my audience loves it.

But I said to Dr. Arnn, "Let's take a break this week and tell people, not about current events, but about Hillsdale," because we've got C-SPAN watchers in with our regular audience.

So he joins me from Hillsdale at the end of the first week of college.

That's actually a good comparison, and I appreciate that.

This is, in my opinion, I feel like it echoes This Was Their Finest Hour more than it does We Shall Fight on the Beaches, but We Shall Fight on the Beaches is not that dissimilar.

Yeah.

and importantly we will fight on the beaches i believe is also the inspiration if not blood toiled tears and sweat um which these are all three speeches by winston churchill within like a six month span um inspired the helms deep speech and the return to the king yes so i mean