Original subtitles

Narrator: May, 1940.

Darkness had descended upon the world.

Germany and her allies

controlled large swathes of Europe.

Japan had invaded China

and was looking to expand her empire further.

Britain and empire were under threat.

But if anybody likes to play rough,

we can play rough, too.

Narrator: In this fractured world,

Winston Churchill became prime minister

of the United Kingdom.

He did so with a clear goal,

victory.

Now we are at war.

And we are going to make war.

Until the other side have had enough of it.

Narrator: This is the story

of the man who led britain and her empire

through one of the darkest moments

in its history.

This is Winston Churchill's war.

In 1944 and 45,

Churchill continued to embrace his role

as a wartime leader.

He travelled to meet British and commonwealth troops

on the ground,

as well as commanders and allied leaders.

He presented and pursued his views on strategy.

But destiny was shifting.

Britain, the empire and the world was changing.

Britain was no longer the centre of the European war effort.

And Churchill had to submit to the influence

of more powerful allies.

By war's end,

the people of britain were no longer looking

for a wartime prime minister.

But rather a leader

to guide them into a prosperous peace.

[Gentle piano music]

In January 1944,

even as the allies began to prepare

for an amphibious landing in France...

..Churchill remained committed to his soft underbelly strategy

and its focus on the mediterranean.

Churchill had hoped to take complete control of Italy

and deliver other strategic gains,

including drawing enemy troops

away from the Soviet union and France.

[Intense string music]

But the campaign in Italy was proving difficult

and costly.

Churchill: We now hold one third of the mainland of Italy.

Our progress has not been as rapid or decisive

as we had hoped.

I do not doubt that we shall be Victor

and that Rome will be rescued.

Narrator: The allies were struggling

to crack the German defences at the Gustav line...

..And make the all-important breakthrough to Rome.

The Gustav line stretched to 160km across Italy,

from the mouth of the garigliano river,

through cassino,

to the mouth of the sangro river.

Cassino and the liri valley

provided potential openings

in the defences.

But the Germans knew this

and had heavily fortified this section of the line.

- Between September 1943 when the allies invade Italy

and the start of 1944,

the Germans build a line of defences

across the lower part of Italy, north of Naples, south of Rome,

and one of their key points on that line

is the fortified hill of monte cassino.

Narrator: In late January 1944,

the allies attempted to make a breakthrough,

launching an amphibious landing at anzio.

The landing began with promise,

but soon, the allied troops found themselves

precariously defending the beach head,

against significant German reinforcements.

- Churchill said that he'd hope to land a wildcat

on the shores of Italy,

but instead there was a large whale

flopping about with its tail in the water.

Churchill later made an aside

and said that the campaign had certainly not gone

according to how he had envisaged.

And that in his lifetime,

he couldn't afford two suvla bays,

which was a reference to his failed gallipoli adventure

of the first world war.

Narrator: Allied incursions on land

didn't fare much better.

Four major attacks were launched at monte cassino

between January and may,

meeting stubborn resistance.

- Churchill had talked about the soft underbelly of Europe.

Well, it turned out not to be so soft.

And one of its hardest points was monte cassino

and the valleys and hills that the allies had to break through

if they were to advance on Rome.

Atop monte cassino

stood a historic benedictine monastery.

British intelligence mistakenly reported

that it was occupied by the Germans,

and on 15 February,

allied air forces were ordered to bomb the monastery,

leaving it in ruins.

The irony of the battle of monte cassino

and the continued fighting in Italy

was that it delivered the one thing

Churchill was trying to avoid in France.

A stalemate.

Over a period of five months,

the allies struggled to make any headway.

The allies won through at cassino

by sheer bloody determination,

by making one attack after another,

and eventually getting a strategy

to break through that blockage,

partly because of the landing at anzio.

Narrator: After fierce fighting,

the allied troops eventually broke through the Gustav line

and on June 4, 1944, took Rome.

But the campaign in Italy dragged on,

even as the final, frantic preparations were being made

for d-day.

[Gentle music]

In may 1944, back in england,

Churchill met with leaders

of the British commonwealth dominions.

Their broad support and enthusiasm

further reinforced Churchill's view

of the strong bonds of empire.

But the commonwealth leaders also recognised the value

of other rising powers,

particularly the United States.

- At the beginning of the war,

Churchill stood at the head of a nation

as powerful as any other.

Now, of course, British power grew

between 1940 to 1945,

but Soviet power, and, above all, us power,

grew very much faster.

So, United Kingdom goes from head of an empire

to being a power that is essentially subservient

in critical ways.

The key parts of the empire,

Australia, New Zealand and Canada,

in many ways now have stronger relations

with the United States

than they do with the United Kingdom.

Narrator: The increasing number of us troops

and equipment in britain

also made Churchill acutely aware

of britain's dwindling influence in the European theatre.

- The American arrival was fairly protracted.

But it was gradual, and Churchill's consciousness

that britain's role in the war

was increasingly that of

playing second fiddle to the Americans

grew and grew.

Churchill began to feel humiliated

by his dependence on the Americans

and the fact that he was ultimately

going to have to dance to their tune.

Narrator: Throughout the war,

Churchill's focus had been firmly fixed on Europe

and the mediterranean.

But over in the Asia-pacific region,

Churchill had a vested personal interest

in both Burma and India.

In 1885, when Winston was still a boy,

his father, lord Randolph Churchill,

a secretary of state for India,

had annexed Burma for the British empire.

Burma was significant for two key reasons.

For the Burma road,

which had been used as a supply route to China,

and Burma's proximity to India.

The threat of a Japanese invasion,

sparking an insurrection against the British raj,

would have been deeply concerning to Churchill,

who had argued strongly against Indian independence

in the years before the war.

He did not want to cede control of India to Japan

or to the Indian people.

Churchill: The more we can fight and engage the Japanese,

and especially wear down their airpower,

the greater the diversion we make

from the pacific theatre.

And the more help we give

to the operation of the United States.

Admiral mountbatten had infused the spirits

of energy and confidence

into the heavy forces gathered to recover Burma.

And by that means,

to defend the frontiers of India and reopen the road to China.

Narrator: In may 1944,

the Burma campaign reached a climax,

with 60,000 British and commonwealth troops

surrounded on the imphal plane

by a force of over 70,000 Japanese.

The commonwealth troops held out,

eventually pushing the Japanese back and into retreat,

turning the tide of the Burma campaign.

As the allied troops fought their way toward rangoon,

Churchill's attention again turned to the war in Europe.

In June 1944,

the time for operation overlord had finally arrived.

After years of debate,

and Churchill's numerous objections

and peripheral campaigns,

the allies were about to launch the second front in France,

which Stalin had long called for.

On its outcome depended the fate of the entire war.

Churchill: The hour of our greatest effort

and action is approaching.

We march with Valiant allies

who count on us as we count on them.

The flashing eyes of all our soldiers,

sailors and airmen

must be fixed upon the enemy on their front.

And when the signal is given,

the whole circle of avenging nations

will hurl themselves upon the foe,

and batter out life of the cruellest tyranny

which has ever sought to bar the progress of mankind.

Narrator: If successful,

overlord and the campaign that followed

would mean the liberation of France

and the chance to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.

- Overlord offered Hitler

his last just credible opportunity of the war

to turn the tide against the allies.

He had a scenario,

not a very convincing one, but just possible,

whereby if he could throw the allies back into the sea

when they invaded,

then he could shift all these important forces,

above all, the panzer divisions, back to the eastern front,

smash the Russians,

and then come and deal with the Americans,

the British, at leisure.

Narrator: As d-day approached,

Churchill remained concerned

about the potential for disaster.

And he was not alone.

Field marshal sir Alan Brooke,

chief of the imperial general staff,

confided in his diary that he thought it might be,

"the most ghastly disaster of the whole war."

- Although all logic said that the allies,

with an overwhelming superiority of armour, ships, aircraft,

were overwhelmingly likely to get ashore

and be able to stay there,

if they failed,

the consequences would be disastrous.

I mean, the blow to the credibility

of president Roosevelt and Churchill as prime minister

would have been overwhelming.

Eisenhower would had to have been sacked

as supreme commander,

and other supreme commanders chosen.

There would have had to have been other scapegoats.

Morale among the American people,

the British people,

would have taken the most terrible blow.

Narrator: Haunted by failed amphibious operations

of the past,

Churchill retired the evening before d-day,

burdened by fears.

He told Clementine that by the time she woke,

20,000 men may have been killed.

The German offensive strategy against the seaborne attack

lay in the Atlantic wall.

Fortified with mines and barbed wire,

the wall had taken years to construct.

Hitler was so invested in the details of the wall,

he even designed the bunker systems.

But as a defence, it proved to be fatally flawed.

It was not defence in depth, and it was static.

On the morning of 6 June 1944,

allied troops stormed the beaches of normandy.

Strong currents swept many landing craft off course,

and rough seas hampered the troops

as they struggled ashore.

On the exposed beaches,

soldiers faced heavy fire from the German defenders.

But by day's end,

the allies had broken through the German lines

and were moving inland from the precarious beachheads.

On 12 June,

eager to see the results of the landings,

Churchill arrived in normandy,

just six days after d-day.

He was there again in July,

visiting the troops and rallying morale.

Newscaster: The pm came not only to congratulate

and cheer the men of the allied armies,

but also to bring them the good wishes and thanks

of all of us at home.

Before his trip to the American sector,

he'd spent several days with the British troops.

He went right up into caen,

and with generals Montgomery and dempsey,

he drove across the river auge.

Two of the Bridges are already named after him.

One's called Winston, and the other, Churchill.

Narrator: In August,

Churchill reported the successes of operation overlord

to the house of commons.

He praised eisenhower and the American contribution,

but was also at pains to make clear his view

that British forces had contributed an equal effort.

That Churchill felt the need to mention this

suggests he recognised a critical shift

in the power relations.

In August 1944,

the allies broke out of the normandy bridgehead

and advanced east.

As us troops drew close to the city,

the French resistance in Paris Rose up against the Germans.

On 24 August,

French and us forces advanced into the city,

and Paris was liberated on the 25th.

American newsreader: Paris with all its legends of romance,

armoured equipment on the champs-eélysées

with its famous rows of Chestnut trees.

And then the place De la concorde,

and the arc De triomphe, symbol of the glory of Paris.

The angry crowds have to be held back,

and the insolent Nazis are not so insolent now.

They're scared.

By September 1944,

the allies had moved east across France and Belgium,

and reached Germany's western border.

But here, the allied advance slowed to a halt

as the Germans launched a counter attack

in the ardennes region.

As progress was being made on the western front,

the red army had been driving the wehrmacht

back on the eastern front since the end of 1943.

By late 1944,

Soviet troops had advanced

hundreds of kilometres across Eastern Europe,

and were on the verge of moving into German home territory.

In January 1945,

the red army captured the Polish city of Warsaw,

and by winter's end,

Soviet troops were edging ever closer to Berlin.

Churchill was beginning to worry about Soviet intentions

in eastern European nations, especially in Poland.

In February 1945,

the big three came together for the yalta conference.

With victory in Europe on the horizon,

the fate of liberated nations

and the conditions to be imposed upon a defeated Germany

became the key focus of the conference.

Yalta was a difficult and quarrelsome conference.

Churchill made it clear

that a free and independent Poland

was essential to britain.

It was, he said, why britain had gone to war.

And it was this issue

that Churchill felt had contributed

to the breakdown of the great alliance.

Stalin did make a commitment

to a free, independent and powerful Poland.

But as with many of Stalin's promises,

it proved a sham.

- By the time that the yalta conference took place,

Stalin's cloven hoof was beginning to show in Poland.

He had a long vendetta against the Poles,

but he was extending Russian influence

right into Western Europe.

And Churchill was getting extremely anxious

about the situation in Poland.

Don't forget, britain had entered the war

to preserve the integrity of Poland against the Nazis.

Well, this clearly was not going to happen.

So Churchill had no real cards to play,

except trying to say,

"let's keep the alliance together.

"Let's all be decent

2and preserve what we're trying to fight for,"

which is to crush the horror of Nazi Germany,

try and build a United Nations and a civilised Europe.

Narrator: As far as Stalin was concerned,

Poland was central to the security of the Soviet union.

It had proven to be a corridor for attack on Russia,

and Stalin wanted to ensure that it did not happen again.

It was becoming clear that Stalin had aspirations

for Soviet expansion

that would not be easily quashed.

The discussions regarding Poland at yalta

were an example of the fading influence

of the Democratic nations of britain and the United States

against the rising communist power

of the Soviet union.

- So, Stalin really

took the bull by the horns, so to speak.

And placed Churchill and Roosevelt

in a very difficult position,

and it's at this point, after yalta,

that you start to see Churchill in particular

getting more and more upset about Poland,

Roosevelt firstly says, "give it some time."

But eventually, Roosevelt himself

comes around to the view

that Stalin's behaviour is just beyond the pale.

And they start pressuring Stalin to make some changes.

It's a sad story. There's no question about it.

For the people of Poland,

the second world war is a disaster.

Narrator: Another concern for Churchill at yalta

was securing a zone of occupation

for the French in a post-war Germany.

This was something of which Stalin in particular

saw no need.

- Initially, both Stalin and Roosevelt

were kind of sceptical about this.

One thing Stalin was very concerned about

was he didn't want to see the east defeated,

and what he considered lesser powers

elevated to the point

where they could demand reparations of economic systems

that he felt Russia was entitled to.

Eventually, both Stalin and Roosevelt

acquiesced in that decision.

Narrator: There were toasts and dinners

and much talk of the alliance of the great powers.

At one dinner, Churchill declared that in Stalin,

britain had "a friend whom we can trust."

But beneath the displays of goodwill and friendship

was a much darker undercurrent.

The goals of the big three were no longer aligned.

Not even those of britain and america.

- By yalta,

the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt

had cooled considerably.

Churchill had more than a year of being on the wrong end

of the strategic decision-making process.

He had suffered criticism from the American state department

about the British expedition into Greece.

Roosevelt wasn't supporting Churchill on issues like Poland.

Narrator: As it turned out,

they did not have the opportunity

to rebuild the relationship.

On 13 April 1945,

Churchill reported news of Roosevelt's death

to the house of commons.

Newscaster: President Roosevelt,

who had guided the United States with so sure a touch,

who had symbolised to other nations of the world

their hopes for the future,

died before victory was achieved.

Narrator: Churchill called for business in the house

to be suspended for the day.

But it was a restrained statement

for someone so fond of literary and rhetorical flourish.

His reaction to the president's death

would puzzle historians for many years to come.

- The reaction of Churchill to the death of Roosevelt

was very muted.

Churchill declined to go to Roosevelt's funeral.

In his history of the second world war,

Churchill said that Roosevelt was

perhaps the greatest friend and the greatest ally

that britain had ever had.

So his decision to not attend Roosevelt's funeral

is remarkable in that context.

Narrator: He travelled far and wide

during the war,

even in britain's darkest hours.

Why, at this moment,

did he make the decision to remain in britain?

Was it a sign of a faltering relationship?

Perhaps he simply could not face the funeral of a friend

and give full expression to his grief in that moment.

Whatever the reason,

it meant a missed opportunity to meet and create a bond

with Roosevelt's successor, president Harry s Truman.

As the war continued,

and parts of Europe were liberated,

Churchill feared the rapid advance of the red army

would end in Soviet domination for years to come.

- Churchill fought very, very early on,

not just in terms of winning the war,

but what the winning of the war would mean

for post-war relationships,

post-war great power relationships.

And he was extremely apprehensive

about what Stalin might do,

particularly given his incredibly brutal way

in which he conducted himself during the war.

- It became clear that the red army and Russia

was going to become a dominant force

in Eastern Europe.

And what was particularly painful to Churchill

was that they had no observers, they had no diplomats,

not even free press in these countries at the time.

So Churchill in an early telegram to Truman

in may 1945

made a reference to an iron curtain

having descended upon Eastern Europe.

Narrator: As the red army advanced through Germany,

Churchill strongly believed American and British forces

should not concede ground to the Soviets.

But his entreaties fell on deaf ears.

- Eisenhower had adopted a strange view

that Berlin was no longer a... A strategic objective.

The red army was steamrolling its way across Eastern Europe.

It entered Austria

and Churchill believed that the allies should occupy

as much of Germany as possible

to strengthen their negotiations with the Russians.

Churchill believed that Berlin,

obviously as the capital of Germany,

was a great political and strategic prize

that he wanted to capture.

Narrator: With major offensives underway

on both the eastern and western fronts in early 1945,

Hitler was compelled to split his remaining forces.

This movement of German troops

meant less resistance for us and British forces

as they attempted to cross the rhine river

and advance into the heart of Germany.

On 23 march 1945,

us general patton's third army

was the first to cross the rhine,

and shortly after,

British field marshal Montgomery launched his own attack

across a nearly 50km front.

- The real genius is that it happened so swiftly.

They managed to get across the river in one night.

It cost lives, but it was an enormous success,

an immediate success,

and it shows just how much the balance had shifted

in the last months of the war.

The allies could do anything they wanted,

and the Germans could do almost nothing to stop them.

Narrator: In late march 1945,

Churchill suggested to Montgomery

that together, they crossed the rhine,

only days after the allied crossing had taken place.

Finally, Churchill was where he had most wanted to be.

Standing on conquered German soil

at the head of the road to Berlin.

The allied armies raced eastwards.

Germany was all but beaten.

The aim now was to stop the red army gaining territory.

The cold war was beginning in earnest,

even before Berlin fell.

On April 11, 1945,

the American and British forces were at the elbe river,

less than 100km from Berlin.

They were waiting for the red army to meet them

to commence a final pincer movement on Berlin.

- Berlin was the great prize that both sides,

both the Soviet union and the anglo-American forces,

wanted to capture Berlin.

There's something... Something deeply psychological

in the idea of occupying the enemy's capital.

The thing was, was that of those two contending forces,

only the Soviet union was prepared to put the losses in

to capturing it as quickly as they did.

Narrator: By April 25,

Soviet forces had surrounded Berlin.

And on April 30,

Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker.

Finally, Churchill could deliver the speech

he must have longed to give for many years.

He announced victory in Europe to the British people.

Churchill: We may have ourself a brief period of rejoicing.

The day is victory in Europe day.

Newscaster: Britain took his words to heart.

Never was there such a day of genuine rejoicing.

[Cheering]

Narrator: Victory in Europe was secured.

But Churchill's premiership

and the fate of the British empire

was now hanging by a thread.

He had hoped that his government coalition

would continue until the war with Japan was won.

But by 1945,

the wartime parliament had been in power

for close to 10 years, twice the normal term.

The last election had been held in 1935,

and since 1940,

Churchill had led a wartime coalition.

In 1944, under pressure from clement attlee's labour party,

Churchill had committed to an election

when the war with Germany was won.

With victory over Germany secured,

Churchill began to think it would be better

to extend the coalition until Japan was beaten.

He put the proposition to clement attlee,

who declined the offer.

The election would go ahead as planned.

Churchill almost immediately undermined his campaign

with the infamous 'gestapo' speech.

In his first election broadcast in early June,

he targeted the socialist principles

of the Soviets,

and what he considered their socialist proxy in britain,

the labour party.

Churchill: No socialist government

conducting the entire life and industry of the country

could afford to allow

free, sharp or violently worded expressions

of public discontent.

They would have to fall back on some form of gestapo.

No doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.

The combative tone

directed at labour members

he had treated as colleagues during the war

was not well received.

By engaging the party politics,

he undermined his reputation

as a man who could unite the nation in peacetime,

as well as in war.

For perhaps the first time

since he had become prime minister,

Churchill had misjudged the public mood.

The British people were tired. They were weary of war.

And they were eager for... For social reform.

Churchill was campaigning on the basis of...

There were still international tensions.

The war with Japan hadn't ended,

and Russia was emerging as a threat in the future.

So Churchill basically was promising more of the same.

On 21 June 1945,

Churchill delivered his pitch to the nation.

- Five years ago,

I promised you blood, toil, tears and sweat.

And your untiring response

brought us, in the end,

victory over Germany.

We have a terrific task ahead of us.

We have a shattered world around us.

And we must help to rebuild it.

Narrator: It was a warning that more work lay ahead.

A call to action for still more blood and sweat.

It wasn't what the British people wanted.

- What the British population wanted

was a reward for the sacrifices they'd made,

no return to the frightful conditions of the depression,

and the kinds of social policies

that Churchill himself had championed

all those years ago as a liberal minister

in the edwardian period.

Much of it had taken place already,

but they wanted the full welfare state.

And this, the attlee and the socialist party promised.

Narrator: Attlee spoke in his address

of the common ground between the electorate

and the members of his party.

It is the glory of our movement

that men and women in every rank of society

place human rights and social justice

before their individual interests.

Labour's appeal is not to the lower,

but to the highest instincts of the human race.

Narrator: He listed their many different vocations

and varied class backgrounds.

He pitched them as a party of the people,

looking forward to a just peace.

On 5 July, the electorate voted.

But they had to wait until 26 July

for the results to be announced.

In the interim,

Churchill attended the potsdam conference in Germany.

At Churchill's invitation, clement attlee also attended.

Churchill wanted to ensure

that attlee was fully briefed on matters

if the election fell his way.

Churchill walked the streets of Berlin

and felt a sudden surge of sympathy

for the people of Germany.

He visited the chancellery

and stepped into the room in the air raid shelter

in which Hitler had committed suicide.

Victory, in Europe at least, had been achieved.

Now, the focus was firmly on securing victory

over imperial Japan, by any means necessary.

News of the successful test detonation

of the first atomic bomb in a desert in new Mexico

profoundly influenced the discussions

at the potsdam conference.

Churchill was unequivocal in his support

of the use of the atomic weapon against Japan.

He had, in fact, given his ascent

as British prime minister to use it against Japan

15 days before the Trinity test.

Churchill had expected the final effort against Japan

to be protracted and bitterly fought.

The atomic bombs, in his view, prevented further slaughter.

- The atomic bomb seemed to offer a way out

of this military conundrum.

You could defeat Japan in a stroke

without any need to actually land on their beaches

and fight their way inland.

But there was a second element

to the dropping of the atomic bomb,

and this was a political element.

The war was clearly coming to an end.

The situation between britain, or the British empire,

Soviet Russia and the United States was unclear.

By dropping the atomic bomb,

the United States sent a very clear message

to Stalin and the Soviet union

that the United States was in possession

of a new and terrible weapon,

and was prepared to use it against its enemies.

That, the United States felt,

would serve as a marker of any future conflict

between Russia and america.

Narrator: On the surface,

all appeared congenial at potsdam.

But tensions pulled beneath,

as the war's end signalled the decisive decline

of britain's influence

amid the rise of us Soviet hegemony.

- The Soviet union that emerges from the second world war

is not the same country that went into that war.

In four years, the country has been transformed.

Militarily, there's no question,

that at the beginning of the war,

the red army was in disarray.

And yet in 1945,

there are 12 million men in the red army.

It is without peer in the world operationally and strategically.

The west recognises that whatever disagreements

they may have with the Soviet union,

they simply cannot challenge the Soviet union,

at least initially, without atomic weapons,

in a conventional contest.

Narrator: Potsdam would be the last conference

in which the United States and britain

would meet with the Soviet union.

Victory in one war was near.

But a new cold war was about to begin.

Back in the United Kingdom, on 26 July 1945,

the results of the election were announced.

The victory went decisively to clement attlee

and the labour party.

Churchill tended his resignation as prime minister

to the king that evening.

- Churchill said that he won the race

but had then been warned off the turf.

He was very upset about it.

Not altogether surprised.

He thought he was going to win,

and then he had a terrible presentment

that he was going to lose immediately before.

And after it, his wife, Clementine,

said perhaps it was a blessing in disguise,

to which he replied

that it was certainly very effectively disguised.

It was a real slap in the face after his victory

against this monstrous tyranny of Hitler's.

Churchill lamented privately to his son, Randolph,

that though the electorate were grateful

for his efforts in war,

the election result made clear they did not want him for peace.

On 6 August 1945,

the United States dropped the atom bomb

on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Three days later,

a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

On 15 August,

Japanese emperor hirohito announced Japan's surrender

to allied forces.

Just three weeks after Churchill's election defeat,

the war that had so defined his premiership

was also drawing to a close.

Churchill remained in parliament as leader of the opposition.

In line with his pre-war views,

he continued to oppose Indian independence in 1947.

He also took opportunities to accuse the government

of socialist mismanagement of the economy.

Outside parliament, he continued to pursue his goals

with the figure of a person half his age.

- He was remarkably resilient.

Picked himself up, he went off on a painting holiday,

he started writing his books, he had initiatives.

And he had the prospect of making millions

by writing his account of the second world war.

So he was not without a task or without a purpose in life.

Narrator: His series of books on world war ii

was so influential

that he shaped the narrative of that war

for decades to come.

It was not enough to have led the nation

during the war.

He sought to guide their understanding of it

into the future.

- He refused, as he said,

to be put out to pasture

like a bull whose greatest claim to fame was his past prowess.

He wasn't going to do that. He wanted to soldier on.

And he wanted, particularly,

to right what he took to be a great electoral wrong

that had been conducted in 1945.

He wanted to win at the polls again

and to become prime minister again.

Narrator: In 1951, he fulfilled his final ambition.

The conservatives won the general election.

And Churchill was again elected prime minister.

Until 1955, he led britain against the perils of communism,

committing her to the korean war

in a vain bid to prevent the rise of communism

in south east Asia.

To the end of his political life,

he stuck doggedly to his principles

and his belief in the importance of britain's role in the world.

Churchill was a man determined to continue living and leading,

with little regard for frailty of health or age.

War had given him a purpose,

and after it was over,

he remarked to his physician that he felt lonely without it.

On 24 January 1965,

at the age of 90,

sir Winston Churchill died.

His final journey,

which began with a state funeral procession

to st Paul's cathedral,

matched the grandeur and the status

he had achieved as a wartime leader.

Newscaster: Not since the last century

has the honour of a state funeral

been accorded to a commoner.

But who more worthy of it than this man,

who, more than any other,

helped to preserve this century of the common man?

He it was who provided us with an image of ourselves

as we would wish to be.

Winston Churchill served his country and the world

as a champion of democracy.

Now the world joins his countrymen

to pay homage at st Paul's.

Narrator: After the funeral,

the cortege continued on the river thames.

And Churchill was buried in a private ceremony

in the grounds of st Martin in bladon,

next to his mother.

Churchill was a man of many talents,

who lived up to his self-appointed destiny.

The war made his reputation,

but it was his complexity

that makes him an enduring figure of history.

- Churchill was a very complex person.

On the one hand, he was a great, ruthless military leader.

At the same time, he was very creative,

passionate about what he did.

A writer, he was a would-be artist.

He was also a very loving, caring family man.

Narrator: Throughout the war,

Churchill never wavered in pursuing his strategic visions.

His keen interest in military matters

meant that he saw his role as both military and political.

He worked and travelled incessantly,

at hours friendly a few.

He indulged in food, alcohol and cigars.

He frustrated advisers and allies

as much as he charmed them.

- There was something very endearing,

something charming, something delightful,

something absolutely impossible about Churchill's character.

I mean, it's very difficult to withhold admiration for him.

Narrator: He had a number of shortcomings.

But he was nonetheless a man with insight that others lacked.

He recognised the rising threat of Nazi Germany in the 1930s,

when so many others did not.

And he understood from the outset

that britain could not win the war alone.

In the dark days of 1940,

britain needed, perhaps above all else,

a strong and determined leader.

A leader with unshakeable confidence and self belief.

Who had resolutely refused to accept defeat,

no matter what the cost.

With his gift for rhetoric, and a forceful charisma,

matched by few others in history...

..He made the people of britain and empire

believe that victory was possible.

Churchill did much more in his life

than lead his nation in a time of war.

But it was that leadership and that war

which has ensured his place in the history books.

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