From Memoir to History, Part II

Abstract

As Sir Cuthbert Headlam wryly observed, what Churchill would ‘find to do when the war is over, goodness only knows’, but he ‘would be well advised to retire from public life and to sit down and write his reminiscences’.¹ Churchill refused to retire, but he did write his memoirs — memoirs which were perceived as history, memoirs that significantly influenced the way in which the narrative of the war in the Far East was presented for a long period of time.² It is true that we now accept that Churchill was not an historian, but as far as the war in the Far East was concerned, his neglectful version of events cast a long shadow over the history of the advent of war with Japan, the fall of Singapore, India’s war effort and the Indian Army — a shadow which only really started to dissipate in the early 1990s. Of course the blame for this state of affairs should not be directed solely at Churchill but, as this chapter will illustrate, he certainly protected his narrative.