On 9 August 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met aboard the HMS Prince of Wales in Little Placentia Sound just off the south-east coast of Newfoundland. Britain had been at war for nearly two years, but the conflict had been transformed by the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June. So, even if the US was not yet in the war – the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was still five months away – both leaders saw the summit as a turning point in the unfolding conflict.
To maximise the impact of the meeting, the press in both countries were kept in the dark. Churchill crossed the Atlantic in secret, avoiding the Nazi U-boat menace, while on 3 August the White House informed the press that Roosevelt was leaving Washington for a fishing cruise. What followed were three days of intense discussions between the two leaders and their advisers: Harry Hopkins and Sumner Welles for the US, Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Cadogan and Randolph Churchill, the premier’s son, for Britain. All aspects of the conflict were considered, but the French Empire in North Africa – Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia – claimed a large share of attention. The discussion focused in particular upon the best way to handle the authoritarian Vichy regime led by Marshal Phillipe Pétain, which, although theoretically neutral since the fall of France in 1940, was believed to be pro-Nazi.
Roosevelt, his staff and several hundred US sailors boarded the Prince of Wales on Sunday 10 August to join their British counterparts for a special service. Although not a particularly devout Christian, Churchill choreographed every detail to underline the shared religious heritage of the two countries. By singing together the hymns ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’, ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ and ‘O God, Our Help in Ages Past’ Churchill wished to project an image of the US and Britain standing resolutely side by side: a sense of common endeavour further underlined by the manner in which he remained seated next to Roosevelt, whose legs were too weak to allow him to stand, even as the diplomats, soldiers and sailors rose to sing. It was an emotional moment, as Churchill explained in a radio broadcast:
When I looked upon that densely packed congregation of fighting men of the same language, of the same faith, of the same fundamental laws, of the same ideals … it swept across me that here was the only hope, but also the sure hope, of saving the world from measureless degradation.
In this way it was also a moment framed by unspoken assumptions about power. As they pieced together an ambitious blueprint for humanity, it was never questioned why they, as white American and British men, had the right to lead and speak on behalf of others.
Composed in English, the document drawn up as a result of this meeting consisted of eight points, each written in a succinct language of non-negotiable human rights. The final principle, therefore, looked towards a new world based upon ‘disarmament of aggressor nations and a common disarmament after the war’. The seventh principle called upon participants to work for ‘the freedom of the sea’, while the previous three reflected the spirit of Roosevelt’s 1930s New Deal, talking about the need to ‘work for a world free of want and fear’, for ‘global economic co-operation and advancement of social welfare, and the necessity of lowering trade barriers’.
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