Winston Churchill
1 portrait of Winston Churchill
© estate of Robert Elliot / National Portrait Gallery, London
Winston Churchill
by Robert Elliot
bromide print, 26 July 1943
9 7/8 in. x 8 in. (252 mm x 202 mm)
Photographs Collection
NPG x17071
Sitterback to top
- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965), Prime Minister. Sitter in 224 portraits.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Faces of the Century, 1999 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 22 October 1999 to 30 January 2000), p. 202
- Cooper, John, Great Britons: The Great Debate, 2002, p. 128 Read entry
Churchill's simple gesture inspired hope, signalled defiance, and celebrated eventual victory. Its similarity to a well-used digital insult rendered it doubly effective as a morale booster. After fifty years in politics, Churchill was a skilful popular communicator: gestures, expressions, hats, various uniforms and other sartorial eccentricities supplemented verbal mastery.
Events of 1943back to top
Current affairs
The War effort continues with women recruited to the Home Guard and Ernie Bevin introducing conscription of miners as coal output continues to flag.There is panic when a new anti aircraft weapon is heard for the first time in London and 173 people die in the crush to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station.
Art and science
Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb is used during Operation Chastise - the Dam busters Raid - to destroy three dams in the Ruhr area of Germany. The raid was considered a success, knocking out hydroelectric power, cutting off the water supply to industry and causing devastation through flooding. The operation also, however, cost the allies many lives, and the bouncing bomb was not used again.International
The invasion of Sicily is successful thanks to Operation Mincemeat, in which false documents were planted on the body of a dead airman to mislead Germany into thinking that the Allied target was Sardinia. The invasion led to the fall of Mussolini and Italy joining the Allies.42,000 German civilians are killed in a firestorm in Hamburg caused by the Allied bombing in Operation Gomorrah.
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