Finest Hour

First British edition (William Heinemann Ltd.) of Volume 6 in Martin Gilbert's magisterial biography of Winston Churchill. In this, the most important volume, Martin Gilbert probes beneath the surface of each of the crucial decisions in which Churchill was involved from the outbreak of war in September 1939 to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He reveals not only how each decision was reached but precisely what influences lay behind it, pieced together from an even more diverse documentary history than earlier volumes: documents Churchill sent and received, the diaries and letters of his private secretaries, the recollections of those who worked with him, as well as the records from the War Cabinet and other Government agencies. Events covered include the fall of France, the Dunkirk evacuation, the Battle of Britain, the crushing ordeal of the Blitz, the German conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece, the battle of the Atlantic, the hazardous struggle in Africa's desert, and Hitler's invasion of Russia. In public, Churchill's confidence was a tonic; but we see here how in private, realizing just how perilous the situation was in the summer of 1940, he came near to despair, waking up, as he later confided, "with dread in my heart." 1304 pages with index.