Churchill's thoughts

about America when Pearl Harbor was attacked [via Rick Brookhiser]

I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all....Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder....

Silly people — and there were many, not only in enemy countries — might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. They would just be a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before — that the United States is "a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate." Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.
— Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance

09/11 02:20 PM