Was Churchill a good guy or a bad guy?

Question

If the 1940-41 London Blitz is any indication, the recent terror bombings are contrived.

The first air raid on London by the Nazis took place Sept. 7, 1940 and killed 306 people.

After touring the ruins, Winston Churchill remarked, "They cheered me as if I'd given them victory, instead of getting their houses bombed to bits."

Churchill is telling the truth.

Unknown to Londoners, he had rejected Hitler's proposal to spare civilian targets. Quite the opposite, he goaded Hitler into bombing London by hitting Berlin and other civilian targets first.

Churchill told his Air Marshall: "Never mistreat an enemy by halves" and instructed his cabinet, "bombing of military objectives, increasingly widely interpreted, seems our best road home at present." He blocked the Red Cross from monitoring civilian casualties.

Before the end of Sept. 1940, 7,000 Londoners including 700 children lay dead.

http://www.rense.com/general67/curch.htm

Answer 1

Good guys and bad guys do not exist except in Disney movies.
People take risks to prevent a greater evil is all.
No person in the world wakes up in the morning and schemes how to be evil.
Even psycho-killers don't do that, because they are sick people and have no social values.
Yes, Churchill sacrificed Coventry, and did some devious deals; but he was acting for what he thought was the Greater Good.
Lucky for him, he was partly right.
In my opinion, he was 75% good and 15% bad and a sway in the balance going either way.
He was human. That's the way humans behave.

Answer 2

Yes, well it's all too easy with hindsight. Fact is that the Luftwaffe with it's massive force of 2000 aeroplanes was getting on top of the RAF with it's 600 planes and destroying the radar installations and airfields.

By diverting the Luftwaffe to massive targets such as London, this allowed the RAF to built up strength and get back into the battle at full strength.

Most Londoners, myself included, did not have any real first-hand experience of bombing. The nearest targets to where I live are about 2 or 3 miles away. The bombing which did take place was seen as away off in the distance somewhere, annoying but not very dangerous.

Of course the East End and the Docks took it very hard and a lot of people died.

But like my late Great Aunt Jone once said, planting herself firmly in her deck-chair on Hampstead Heath during a particularly bad night of raids; "from up here, you can see it all".

My personal hero of WW2 was Admiral Lord Cunningham Royal Navy, who once said, "when the Germans are down, kick them in the guts." Good thinking admiral.

Answer 3

Didn't he say "Great men are oft times Evil Men?" England was on the defensive against the Nazis who had shallowed up all of Western Europe in the summer of 1940. Half measures and humane considers would have most probably caused England to fall directly into the grips of the Germans. Ultimately, the far limit of the German War Machine proved to be the English Channel....

Answer 4

Oh my god! Winston Churchill was a genius, get a grip! He was the right person at the right time. He was a classic military leader. There are no winners in war, people die, there is misery on both sides, everybody suffers. Be thankful you are not speaking german today, and can I suggest you go and do more research.

Answer 5

_I'D_ argue that Churchill had a better handle on events throughout his career than many of his contemporaries, such as Chamberlain. :-{

Certainly many of Churchill's decisions look bad now, but at the time were made with good intentions to reduce deaths later. Example: Churchill knew, through decoded German messages, that Coventry was about to be bombed. No defense of the city was put up against the attack, to prevent the Germans suspecting that their codes had been broken. The argument has been made that knowledge from decoded German messages help shorten the war and saved many lives as a result.

Churchill's hands in the Middle and Far East, particularly with the oil squabbles and former colony India, have shaped world events to the present day for good and for ill. I'm sure that Churchill's crystal ball was as cloudy as mine... :-(

My analysis: Churchill made decisions as best he could, but was only a mortal human (with finite knowledge and fore sight) and made mistakes and misjudgments as a result. History, overall, seem to judge him well...

Answer 6

I am pretty sure we bombed Berlin first, not much damage done but it so infuriated Hitler that he ordered the bombing of London, thereby deflecting attacks away from RAF bases, which gave them breathing space and enabled the British to win the "Battle of Britain" in the skies, so whilst I am not happy to see anything bad happen to London, being a Londoner (of Irish descent) my father and his 3 brothers and sisters were evacuated from London during the war and went to stay in Devon and Waterford, Ireland where gran was from. As already mentioned this was the minor of two evils and it had to be done.

Answer 7

if you were living in London and other cities beyond that at the time. you would think he was a good guy, i do not dispute your facts that are mentioned [ selectively ] but their are so many more than the soundbite you have put forward, even the most imbecilic observer can look clever after the event whether that's about a war or a question. who ever saves the day has their flaws overlooked because they saved lives on the day, that's the big picture...................an edit... i would kindly request what your motivation is for such a question?

Answer 8

Another Hitler Nazi revisionist.

There was an agreement not to bomb each others capital cities, this agreement was broken by the Nazi Luftwaffe first.

So the Blitz leads you to conclude the London terrorist attacks against the Tube and a bus were organised by the British?What a load of cobblers kid!

You seriously need to read up on your WW2 military history more.

Answer 9

Although Winston Churchill was a manic depressive, he lead Britain through the second WW and to Victory.
Without his strength backed by his wife Winnie and a cast of hundreds of thousands, this country would have fallen to Germany in the 1940's, at least we would have gone down fighting, instead we let a non elected puppet sign over all our rights,open our borders to one and all, ask the British to pay for it , Then to add insult to injury he gives himself and his fellow MP's a 10% pay rise, I digress,

Was Churchill a good or bad man,
he was the best war time leader Britain has or is
ever likerly to have.
he was a very good man for Britain,
he was a very bad man for Britains enemy's,
I for one am greatful he was on our side,

Answer 10

Churchill did what he had to in order to fight a ruthless and powerful enemy of freedom. How many more Londoners would have died if the Nazis had invaded England?