May 26, 2013

Finest Hour 145, Winter 2009-10

Page 4

Despatch Box

Genealogy

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To Michael McMenamin:

Do you have new information about my grandfather’s children? (See FH 143: 12). Because as far as I know my mother was his first child.
HON. CELIA SANDYS, LONDON

Mr. McMenamin replies: Oops…. It’s difficult to find good editors nowadays isn’t it? Aren’t they supposed to catch things like that?

Jack Kemp

Thanks for including my snippet about FDR and Churchill deciding things over brandy in “Around and About” (FH 143: 9). I got a kick out of that. I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your tribute to Jack Kemp. It was one of the more interesting ones I read. I made sure that Jimmy and Joanne Kemp saw it, and they both were very appreciative.
ELLIOT S. BERKE, WASHINGTON

I enjoy your writing style and Jack Kemp was a hero of mine. A cute story: When his daughter was under ten, she was asked, “Aren’t you proud of your father? Not only is he an important government official but he was a famous football player.” She replied, “Daddy wasn’t a football player. He was a quarterback.”
ROBERT DISQUE, MILFORD, CONN

HMS Bulldog

More on Bulldog (FH 143: 6). She was escorting convoy OB-318 in May 1940 when they were attacked by the U-110, the German sub associated with the sinking of the liner Athenia. The screening ships caused the sub to submerge, when she was damaged by a depth charge. When her captain blew tubes and broached, a trained boarding party from HMS Bulldog set out to capture her. Charges set to sink U-110 before capture never went off, and the first German Enigma coding machine was captured intact, leading to breaking German Navy codes.

Bulldog‘s attempt to tow the u-boat to port failed and it sunk, but not until the prize was safely taken from it.
GENE LASSERS, LAKEWOOD, CALIF

FH 143 and 144

Congratulations to all the contributors on producing so many interesting articles. It has given me hours of pleasurable reading.
ALFRED JAMES, WAHROONGA, N.S.W., AUSTRALIA

FH 143 was splendid in every way. You set a high standard years ago and have kept to it. I thought back to the day when a copy of FH 50 arrived in the mail with a letter from you inviting me to join. I did and there has been much history between us since, some involving bicycles, biking Latvia and sailing the Maine coast!
HON. DOUGLAS S. RUSSELL, IOWA CITY, IOWA

Finest Hour is the only magazine I find solace from reading. To know people still promulgate and cherish the Churchillian values gives me hope, albeit waning. Justin Lyons’ “Winston Churchill’s Constitutionalism” is a piece I intend to share. Your remembrance of Jack Kemp and response in the letters column were balanced, and your review of “Into the Storm” caused me to order it. I sense your concern for the state of the great democracies. I too take refuge in Churchill’s writings more these days. I am grateful for your knowledge of the man and his times and your ability to communicate his humanity and statesmanship.
CHARLES W. CRIST, CULPEPER, VA.

Fred Glueckstein’s intriguing and intimate story of Ed Murrow and Churchill in FH 144 covers an obscure area. Beyond the basic knowledge that Churchill knew Murrow, I was astounded that they became friends. In further reading this excellent piece, it dawned on me that Winston Churchill had played the ultimate propagandist, indeed on more than equal footing with Josef Goebbels. He did this by letting Ed Murrow broadcast live to the United States, showing the brave front that Britain was putting up in those desperate times. Churchill in his own way was swaying America’s opinion and in effect isolating the isolationists. Kudos to Mr. Glueckstein for an excellent article.
RICHARD C. GESHKE, BRISTOL, CONN.