A bell, a simple instrument used across the ages to sound forth peals of rejoicing or alarm.
Manufactured in various sizes, some hang from bell towers while others are held in the hand by the town crier.
THE PEALING BELL OF WORLD WAR II
One such bell rung forth from the halls of Parliament in England during the dark days of Hitler’s terrifying advance through Europe.
The British people looked to their leader, Winston Churchill, as the world listened and ultimately engaged.
MAY 13, 1940 – VICTORY AT ALL COSTS
You ask, What is our policy? I will say; It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival. -Winston Churchill, May 13, 1940
JUNE 4, 1940 – WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. -Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940
JUNE 18, 1940 – THEIR FINEST HOUR
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say: This was their finest hour! -Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940
IRON CURTAIN
As new trouble brewed after WWII ended, Winston Churchill coined the word picture we will forever link to Communism.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. – Winston Churchill, The Sinews of Peace” speech, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. -Winston Churchill
Colonial Williamsburg’s benefactor John D Rockefeller, coined a similar phrase in the 1930’s: That the future may learn from the past.
From these two like-minded phrases came the harmonic ringing of another bell, cast in Colonial Williamsburg to be presented to Winston Churchill in 1955, called the Williamsburg Award: for his unexampled contribution in our time to the historic struggle of men to live, free and self-respecting, in a just society.
The award presentation can be seen here.
In memory of that reward, Colonial Williamsburg now honors, on rare occasions, individuals who represent the commitments of our founding fathers.
This is the highest reward given by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which continues to be tangibly remembered in the form of a bell, now fittingly called the Winston Churchill Bell.
A few years ago my kids and I observed the casting of these bells at the James Geddy Foundry, telling us it was for a commission of three needed bells…
Well, later news brought all the details of the Winston Churchill Bell being awarded to three distinguished individuals.
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. -Winston Churchill
