On a recent flight from Australia to the US I watched the movie Churchill which the logline describes thus:
96 hours before the World War II invasion of Normandy, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill struggles with his severe reservations with Operation Overlord and his increasingly marginalized role in the war effort.
An excellent performance from Brian Cox as Churchill but definitely not an action-packed blockbuster. Mostly I suspect it will appeal to history buffs like me as a worthwhile examination of a key period in history.
My recent novel Harry Seven deals (in more depth – a key advantage of novels over movies) with many of the same issues around disagreements between the American and British leaders on the best strategy for defeating Germany and British doubts about the prospects for success of an amphibious landing in northern France. On the latter note, because mine is a time travel story, I had the luxury of exploring multiple possible outcomes for D-Day and other elements of the Allied campaign.
But I made a deliberate decision not to have Churchill appear as a character in my story (other than by reference – the protagonist spends a considerable part of the story salivating at the prospect of meeting the British PM, but alas…). Churchill has been covered so extensively in film and print that I felt there was nothing original I could add. Nevertheless, several well-known historical figures are central to the story including Eisenhower, Montgomery, and Brooke. I did a great deal of research on each of them and tried to always depict their actions, words, and personalities in a way that is consistent with the historical record.
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