ain fought alone. Churchill's task was to inspire resistance at all costs, to organize the defense of the island, and to make it the elevation for a final return to the continent of Europe, whose liberation from Nazi tyranny he never doubted. He breathed a new spirit into the government and a new purpose into the nation. Upon becoming prime minister he told the Commons: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat: You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory." Meanwhile he made himself the spokesman for these purposes among all free people, as he made Britain a home for all the faithful remains of the continental governments. These included the Free French, for Churchill had himself picked out Charles De Gaulle as "the man of destiny." But Churchill's personal relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt was Britain's lifeline. Britain had lost most of its army equipment in the fall of France and during the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in June. Roosevelt rushed across the Atlantic with a supply of weapons that made a beginning. On Oct. 26, 1951, at the age of 77, he again became prime minister, as well as minister of defense. As the Conservatives held a very small majority and Britain faced very difficult economic circumstances, only the old man's willpower enabled his government to survive. He held on to see the young Queen Elizabeth II crowned at Westminster in June 1953, attending as a Knight of the Garter, an honor he had received a few weeks earlier. In 1953, also, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. On April 5, 1955, in his 80th year, he resigned as prime minister, but he continued to sit in Commons until July 1964. Churchill's later years were relatively calm. In 1958 the Royal Academy devoted its galleries to a retrospective one-man show of his work. On Apr...
