The third book in Michael Dobbs' series on Winston Churchill and World War II, "Churchill's Hour" spans the period from Christmas, 1940, six months after the evacuation from Dunkirk to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a year later. In the interim Churchill has to hold his country together during the German blitz that destroyed significant sections of London and other major British cities causing thousands of civilian deaths. Knowing that Britain cannot survive on its own Churchill determines to do whatever he can to bring isolationist America into the war against Hitler. Franklin Roosevelt is naturally the object of Churchill's courtship, but Roosevelt is not inclined to enter the war given the overwhelming popular opposition to getting the U.S. entangled in another European quarrel. Moreover, Roosevelt has no particular enthusiasm for shedding American blood to preserve the British Empire and he disliked Churchill personally dating from an encounter two decades earlier.

In June 1941 Hitler invades Russia and Churchill has a de facto, albeit unlikely ally in Stalin. But Stalin wants Britain to provide planes, tanks and other armaments that the British are in no position to offer. In fact, Britain has just negotiated the Lend-Lease agreement designed to replenish Britain's war making inventory with weapons made in supposedly neutral America. But despite the moral argument that defeating Hitler is necessary for the preservation of democracy and civilization, despite the argument that should the British and the Russians be defeated Hitler will inevitably wage war against the United States, and despite the many provocations in the form of German sinking of American naval and merchant marine ships, Roosevelt will not go to Congress and request a declaration of war.

Finally, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brings America into the war, but only against Japan. Britain declares war on Japan, but will America declare war on Germany. In Dobbs' story Churchill engages in some serious realpolitik that maneuvers America into the war first against Japan and then against Germany. Churchill gets wind of a huge Japanese task force that his intelligence and military advisers believe is headed south to Singapore, or Malaya or perhaps even Australia. But Churchill guesses that Pearl Harbor is the target, and he has to decide whether or not to pass a warning to the Americans. He believes that any warning from him will be discounted given his objective of getting the U.S. into the war. He also knows that if the Americans do heed his warning that they will raise hell with the Japanese with the result that the task force will be recalled once the advantage of surprise is lost. (That said, given the preparations Dobbs describes that the Japanese made to preserve the absolute secrecy of the mission, it's not clear how the task force could have been recalled.) So Churchill decides to hold his counsel. Churchill then crafts a disinformation plan to get the Americans into the war against Germany by provoking Hitler to preempt Roosevelt by declaring war against America.

As part of his campaign to get America into the fight, Churchill cultivates a close relationship with the new American ambassador, John Winant, and Averill Harriman, who has been assigned by Roosevelt to direct the entire Lend-Lease operation. It transpires that Winant and Churchill's married daughter Sarah enter into an affair and Harriman and Churchill's daughter-in-law Pamela also become romantically involved. Churchill eventually gets wise and as a measure of his desperation tries to leverage Pamela's relationship with Harriman to advance his own "seduction" of the Americans.

If I haven't given away too much of the plot, I recommend unreservedly Dobbs' account of the fateful year of 1941. He is a terrific storyteller and does not shrink from portraying his hero with all of his foibles, self-doubts and morally questionable actions based on raisons d'état.

As a postscript I should like to note that this review is being written on June 22, 2022, the 81st anniversary of Hitler's ill fated decision to launch Operation Barbarossa against his partner in crime Joe Stalin. ( )

An interesting story of how the events leading up to the entry of the United Sates into World War II might have occurred. ( )

This book covers 1941, a few months after Dunkirk (Book 2 of the series) and the events that led up to eventual involvement of America in the Second World War. I found it a fascinating and enjoyable read, which kept my interest and seemed to be one interpretation of events that feels consistent with what we know of Winston Churchill. It must be remembered it is a work of historical fiction and to quote one other author 'that means I make things up', and as Michael Dobbs says at the end 'this series of books should be read as fiction. And not as history' but the story is based on historical events.

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The 3rd in the four-part series on Winston Churchill. Faction. It's more about the character and nature of Churchill than about the war. Dobbs knows how to keep our attention, weaving a few plotlines together so that, although it's a reasonably large volume, the reader rarely tires. You don't need to have read books 1 and 2, but it helps a bit. ( )

A very readable novel set during WW2, it shows the war from Churchill's viewpoint, and gives some interesting insights into the complexities and privations at that time. ( )

2IYAA