President Roosevelt referred to Sir Winston Churchill as ‘Winnie’ saying: ‘Hello Winnie, how are you?’ Churchill referred to President Roosevelt as ‘Old Pal’… Then they talked for a long time about ‘a surprise attack’ to be made at night by moonlight about the 5th or 6th of June. “Ray then set up the conference call and listened for the first few minutes to their conversation which was very friendly and cordial. Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War? You debate.Your guide to D-Day: what happened, how many casualties were there, and what did it accomplish?.Churchill then continued to drink his brandy that was on a table beside his chair. Ray was offered a drink of brandy, but refused because he was on duty. Ray said he’d smoke it later, so Churchill gave him another one to smoke later. Ray mentioned he collected and Churchill was very interested. This is Ray’s recollection of that afternoon – as related in the letter by his wife Dorothy: “Churchill greeted Ray cordially, calling him by his first name… They talked about the similarity in their last names… about the United States… and particularly about old British coins and stamps. It is not known when this mocking piece of graffiti was added. The large map on the left-hand wall of the chiefs of staff conference room sports a curious addition: a hand-drawn caricature of German leader Adolf Hitler. And it was here that the daily intelligence bulletin would be prepared – the bare facts of the war situation circulated every morning to the prime minister, the chiefs of staff and the king. It was here that a team of officers would sift through intelligence from every theatre of the war and arrange for it to be plotted on the maps that Davy provided. After all, these weren’t just any old maps they were the maps to be used in the Map Room – the single most important room in the whole underground complex. There it is again – that need to improvise, to make decisions on the spot, and to do so with authority, efficiency and dependability.
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