Officer eavesdropped on leaders before D-Day
Jonathan Asbury, author
A letter languishing in a filing cabinet has shed light on the ‘‘cheery, cordial friendship’’ that developed between World War II leaders Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt, with the American president referring to his counterpart as ‘‘Winnie’’ in private conversations.
An American signals officer who helped to set up a top-secret transAtlantic telephone link between the two leaders during the war – and listened in to their conversations on the eve of D-Day – also revealed that Churchill referred to Roosevelt as ‘‘Old Pal’’.
The letter by the officer, Raymond Edghill, was discovered by author Jonathan Asbury in Churchill’s wartime headquarters in London while he was researching his book Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms, published this month.
The book also says that the Sigsaly, or X-Ray, telephone link, which had been checked for security and effectiveness by British codebreaking pioneer Alan Turing, had ‘‘peculiar effects’’ on Churchill’s voice.
‘‘On one occasion, it was said that President Roosevelt couldn’t help but laugh on hearing Churchill speak down the line,’’ Asbury
Apparently, [on the telephone] the bulldog prime minister sounded remarkably like the cartoon character Donald Duck.
writes. ‘‘Apparently, the bulldog prime minister sounded remarkably like the cartoon character Donald Duck.’’
Asbury said the friendship between the two in 1944 seemed to have developed as the tide of the war turned further against Nazi Germany.
The ‘‘Winnie and Old Pal’’ conversation overheard by Edghill took place a few days D-Day.
‘‘Churchill was always happier when there was excitement afoot,’’ said Asbury, who also writes the guidebooks for the Churchill War Rooms.
He added that Edghill wrote the letter to the museum before its opening in 1984. He also returned a ‘‘Mrs Churchill’’ sign that he had before taken from the underground headquarters as a memento.
Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms contains more than 150 photographs taken behind the glass partitions that separate visitors from the preserved rooms, including the map and Cabinet rooms from where Britain conducted its war.
One close-up image captures the gouge and scratch marks in the arms of the chair from which Churchill addressed the heads of the army, navy and air force.
Asbury writes that the marks on the chair ‘‘speak volumes for the nervous energy of its occupant’’.