‘But we have won all our wars. In this most terrible war of all, we not only saved ourselves but kept the flag of freedom flying in the world alone for more than a year. We gave all we had to the common cause. We gave it freely: we coveted no territory; we had no racial hatreds to gratify; we had no vengeance to slake. We were always, being a peaceful nation, backward in preparation. But we always won. In all the long wars I have seen in my life we have always won; and in the last of them our glory and our virtue have been admired by friend and foe.’
‘The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’
‘Ask what you please, look where you will, you cannot get to the bottom of the resources of Britain. No demand is too novel or too sudden to be met. No need is too unexpected to be supplied. No strain is too prolonged for the patience of our people.