With: Winston Churchill, Prime Minister

During his years as Prime Minster of England, Winston Churchill’s mornings were devoted to work that accumulated while he slept. He tended to this military and political business still attired in his dressing gown while reclining comfortably in bed. All papers and documents dealing with government and war matters were placed into special “boxes” by his assistants and were taken to his bed for opening, reading and decision making.

Churchill later wrote that such was the scene when on December 10, 1941, the bedside telephone rang. Churchill answered to discover that the caller was the First Sea Lord.  Churchill heard the man cough, then gulp, before saying, “Prime Minister, I have to report to you that the Prince of Wales and the Repulse have both been sunk by the Japanese–we think by aircraft.” Tom Phillips is drowned.”

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