Royal Military

By Tim Riley

Timothy Riley is Sandra L. and Monroe E. Trout Director and Chief Curator of the National Churchill Museum

On Tuesday, 10 April 1945, the Allied Forces and Winston Churchill had every reason to be confident that the end of the war was near. It was the beginning of the end of the war in Europe. It marked the day the American Ninth Army captured Hanover, the day Soviet forces entered central Vienna, and it was the day the 8th Air Force set a new single-day record by destroying 245 Luftwaffe aircraft. The road to Berlin was open and ultimate victory at hand.

Churchill’s spirits were high. The day before, the confident Prime Minister told the War Cabinet he hoped the victory celebration, when it ultimately arrived, should be called “VE Day.”¹

10 April was also the day the London Gazette, the venerable journal of record of the British Government, published the news that “Junior Commander Mary Spencer Churchill of the Auxiliary Territorial Service” was awarded the MBE. Churchill’s youngest daughter would become a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in recognition of her military service.²

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By Capt. B. F. J. Spink

B. F. J. Spink is a captain in The Queen’s Royal Hussars. He represented the regiment at the 2016 International Churchill Conference in Washington, D.C.

Many men have spent their formative years in the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars, but very few have gone on to be as interlinked with the Regiment as Winston Churchill. Since his appointment in 1941 as the Colonel of the Regiment, he has dominated Regimental identity. This influence continued in The Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars, as Churchill was asked to continue as the Colonel of the Regiment following the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars’ amalgamation with the 8th Kings Royal Irish Hussars. Even today, fifty-three years after Churchill’s death and twenty-five years after the amalgamation of The Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars with The Queen’s Own Hussars to form The Queen’s Royal Hussars, Churchill’s ethos is still fundamental to what it means to be a soldier in The Queen’s Royal Hussars. He is such an intrinsic part of the fabric of the Regiment that we call ourselves “Churchill’s Own.”

Today The Queen’s Royal Hussars are one of three tank regiments in the British Army, equipped with the Challenger 2 main battle tank. As part of the 3rd (UK) Division, the United Kingdom’s war fighting division, the Regiment’s focus is developing readiness and inter-operability with our NATO allies.

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By Fred Glueckstein

In 1915, Kermit Roosevelt, the son of President Theodore Roosevelt, was appointed an honorary captain in the British Army. Roosevelt served under General Allenby in Palestine, saw active service in Mesopotamia with the Royal Field Artillery, and was awarded the Military Cross. In 1916, Roosevelt transferred to the US Army’s First Division and commanded an artillery battery from 1917 to 1918. When the Second World War began, Roosevelt once again sought to serve in the British military.

Fred Glueckstein is author of Churchill and Colonist II (2015) and a regular contributor to Finest Hour

When Kermit Roosevelt first arrived in London in the fall of 1939, it was believed that he would accept a position in the ministry of shipping, since he had been vice president until 1938 of the United States Lines and a friend of Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Like his celebrated father, however, Roosevelt, expressed a preference for action. In October, Roosevelt saw Churchill at the Admiralty and asked for his assistance in obtaining a regular commission in the British Army. With Churchill’s help, Roosevelt was commissioned as a major in the Middlesex Regiment, where he trained as a machine gun expert.

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