We shall never surrender!
IN his last, loneliest battle, that defiant vow seemed graven on Sir Winston Churchill's soul. Hour after hour, day after day, the world stood vigil as the medical bulletins became ever more grave. But Churchill fought on with almost unbelievable tenacity. Finally, after days of drifting in and out of consciousness, the old warrior sank into peaceful sleep. The battle was over, the lion heart stilled forever.
His last illness began with a cold. Then, on Jan. 15, Lord Moran, Churchill's personal physician for 24 years, announced that he had "developed a circulatory weakness, and there has been a cerebral thrombosis." Though he had rallied with astonishing vitality from earlier illness, including two previous strokes, Churchill at 90 was feeble and weary; his illness, said Moran, was "very serious indeed." In a chilling wind and rain, sorrowing Britons gathered quietly in the cul-de-sac outside Churchill's red brick house at 28 Hyde Park Gate.
Telegrams and flowers arrived by the thousands, from the humble and the great. Relatives came and went. Moran, stooped and frail at 82, drove up two or three times daily to examine his patient, then read his simple, unemotional bulletins to the shivering newsmen outside. For 18 hours a day, bowler-hatted Detective Sergeant Edmund Murray, Sir Winston's longtime personal bodyguard, kept order in the crowded street. When Churchill's life appeared to be ebbing, Moran relayed Lady Churchill's request that reporters and TV crews disperse. Within minutes, the arc lights winked out, endless coils of wire were cleared away, and the street was empty, with one small glow showing through the fanlight at No. 28.
God-Commended. As the cur tain of grief descended over Britain, the nation's life slowed almost to a halt. "In view of the nation's concern about Sir Winston Churchill," Prime Minister Harold Wilson postponed a major House of Commons speech and an economic report to the nation on TV, also put off an important round of talks with West Germany's Chancellor Ludwig Erhard. Britain was to have commemorated the 700th anniversary of the first Parliament last week, but in deference to Parliament's greatest son. Lords and Commons agreed to put off the ceremonies until June.
At Holy Communion in St. Margaret's, the House of Commons' parish church, the Archbishop of Canterbury intoned, "We commend to God Winston Spencer Churchill as he approaches death." A private message from the Pope was delivered by Monsignor Cardinale, the apostolic delegate to Britain. There were special prayers at Harrow, his old school, and at Castle Rising, near Sandringham. where the Queen and members of the royal family attended church.
Shakespearean Epic. Queen Elizabeth, who was notified of Churchill's death before it was officially announced to the public, took the unprecedented step of requesting Parliament to accord her former Prime Minister a state fu neral, the first such tribute to a commoner since Gladstone's death in 1898. Churchill will be buried in a tranquil Oxfordshire graveyard beside his parents: Lord Randolph Churchill and his beautiful American wife, Jennie Jerome.