Winston Churchill - Nearly Killed by the Germans in 1945

Winston Churchill became British Prime Minister in May 1940, the same day Germany began its invasion of Western Europe. From the beginning he was a very different prime minister from his predecessors, a man who understood propaganda images very well and who liked to be seen in the The front is sometimes too close to the action Churchill often appears in photographs and wartime movies with various military uniforms. The first prime minister to do this was an affectation. No Churchill had the right to wear those uniforms. In Great Britain there is a system of honorary officers. ranks usually colonels or regiments awarded as honors to retired senior officers or prominent figures Churchill had been a combat soldier for much of his life, joining the army in 1895 and seeing action in India, the Sudan and the Second War of War. the Boers in this last campaign. as a war correspondent captured by the Burs and escaped and later when he resigned his position in the First Lord of the Admiralty's cabinet in the First World War after the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in Turkey, when he spent six months in the trenches of the Western Front As a Battalion Commander, he remained an officer in the Army Reserve until 1924.

As Prime Minister, he also maintained his honorary military ranks as an honorary air commodore in the Royal Air Force and an honorary colonel in several British Army units, including Oxfordshire's own. the Queen. The Royal Artillery The Fourth Queen's Cheers The Royal Scots Fusiliers and The Royal Sussex Regiment It's no secret that Churchill, the flamboyant showman, liked uniforms and medals and had plenty of both, which is why Churchill wore his uniforms. during his many visits to military units. During the war he was the first Prime Minister, also since the Duke of Wellington, to have

killed

men in battle.

It is no surprise then that Churchill, much to the chagrin of his staff, often wanted to visit troops at the front since high up in the Battle of Britain he was seen in fighter control rooms watching aerial combat in North Africa. visited troops in Egypt during Rommel's advance towards the Suez Canal for D-Day Churchill demanded to be able to enter with the first wave of British troops, an unwise idea that was quickly vetoed by King George VI, who had also wanted to be present but was prevented for obvious reasons by general dwight d eisenhower the supreme allied commander had to crush

churchill

's d day dreams for being too risky and reckless, but winnie did manage to land in normandy on june 12, 1944, a week after the invasion began, when there was still very heavy fighting to expand the beachhead, so why did Churchill do such things?

According to his contemporaries and his biographers, it was because he wanted to. having information about events to help solve problems on the ground by speaking to military commanders in person These visits also fulfill Churchill's romantic conception of a war leader on the scene of action and it is fair to say that his visible presence inspired dressed in his variety of military uniforms he was genuinely liked by officers and men alike, but it was inevitable that one day Churchill's moth would fly too close to the flame. The British Prime Minister was almost assassinated by the Germans in March

1945

in one of the famous operations of the war, the crossing of the Rhine River.

The action began on March 24,

1945

, when Churchill visited Field Marshal Suburn at the headquarters of montgomery at Fenlow in the Netherlands to witness British and American forces of the 21st Army Group cross the Rhine in a massive operation codenamed Varsity This was the airborne component of the invasion to assist ground troops by taking footholds in the German side of the Rhine on the paratroop planes the men are waiting for the jump here also an innovation the men will come out on both sides of the the plane immediately and so it landed with tremendous force in only half the time it took to formally cross the river with code name looting had already begun the previous night in total 1.2 million allied troops crossed between 23 and 27 march, piercing hitler's last line of defense in the west with american forces also bouncing off the rhine more to the south, in the US 12th Army Group sector, where US troops had defeated Monte by crossing the river one day on 22 March 25 March Churchill visited the headquarters of the supreme ally Commander General Eisenhower with Monty in tow during their conversation Eisenhower told Churchill of a house 10 miles away on the west bank of the Rhine that had been surrounded by American troops and which offered an excellent vantage point for viewing the German side of the river in this area.

Even without having been completely occupied by the Allied forces, Eisenhower proposed a visit and Churchill took the opportunity, they got into the staff cars and headed to the big house, the city of Budoek, sitting on the balcony of the house, Churchill He scanned the opposite bank 400 yards away with his binoculars. He could see flat grasslands and the officers reported that there were no German troops, which seemed evidence in the distance. Churchill could see RAF planes attacking German positions. Eisenhower had to leave on other business and soon afterward Churchill noticed an American landing craft moored below the house. to Monty and told him why they didn't cross the river to have a look.

Monty agreed and Churchill's party descended and boarded the ship. Apart from the British Prime Minister and Field Marshal Montgomery, there was General William Simpson, the commander of the US Ninth Army, and General Sir. Alan Brook, chief of the imperial staff, with them were Churchill's aid commander, Tommy Thompson, and his orderly, and only six armed American soldiers. The boat soon reached the opposite shore and Churchill emerged dressed in one of his many honorary colonel uniforms with a cigar clutched in his hands. With his teeth, he followed a path along the gravel bank previously marked by the British infantry who had just landed there and then scaled a high dyke to get a good view.

The fighting was taking place about a mile away, but after discussion with the American generals the decision was made. to try to get closer to the action, however, the captain of the landing craft warned that half a mile away, towards Basil, where the fighting was taking place, German mines protected the river, it was too dangerous for the prime minister to cross. water back to the west. Churchill and his group decided to drive to Basil. Basil came across the large railway bridge previously blown up by the Germans. The carriages were hidden and then Churchill and some of his group climbed up the ruined west side of the bridge.

To observe the fighting on the other side, Churchill noted the advance of German artillery in four volleys of shells falling on British positions about a mile away, but it appears that the Germans detected the movement on the bridge because suddenly the guns They changed targets and began bombing. The bridge Churchill was standing on in the first salvo

nearly

caused four shells to fall into the river just a hundred yards from where Churchill and his group were standing on the bridge, detonating in the water sending up large clouds of water that Churchill was standing on. I enjoyed every second. and only with great difficulty were his staff able to convince him to get off the bridge.

A second salvo fell behind Churchill and landed near where the group's cars were hidden. The decision was made to leave immediately and between the Churchill bombardments of Mount Simpson and Brooke. They were ushered into cars which left the area at some speed, it was the closest Churchill managed to come to death or injury in World War II and he wrote about it gleefully in his memoirs, however, Churchill was not deterred by this. setback and is still determined to overcome it. Over the Rhine, on March 26, the commander of the British Second Army Group, Lieutenant General Simals Dempsey, drove the Prime Minister in a jeep over a new pontoon bridge that had been erected by British engineers at Zantan while the small convoy As Churchill left the bridge, they passed a large collection of rather disheveled German prisoners who had just been captured, looks of shock on their faces as they saw Churchill slowly pass by and we can well imagine that Churchill returned across the Rhine later that day. aboard a tracked water buffalo amphibious vehicle that marked Churchill's last foray. on an active battlefield in World War II thanks for watching, subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel War Stories with Mark Felton.

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