David Cameron faced a furious backlash yesterday for the astonishing claim that the UK was a 'junior partner' to America in 1940 - a year before the U.S. even entered the war.
The Prime Minister was accused of forgetting the sacrifices made in 1940 by those who fought in the Battle of Britain, the heroes of Dunkirk and the Londoners bombed out of their homes in the Blitz.
Downing Street hastily claimed that Mr Cameron had meant to refer to the 1940s in general. But by then the damage was done.
General Sir Patrick Cordingley, former commander of the Desert Rats, said: 'I am quite sure if Winston Churchill were alive today he would be dismayed.'
Mr Cameron, on his first visit to the U.S. as Prime Minister, made his gaffe in an interview with Sky News.
'I think it's important in life to speak as it is, and the fact is that we are a very effective partner of the U.S., but we are the junior partner,' he said. 'We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis.'
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In fact, Britain under the leadership of Churchill - one of Mr Cameron's heroes - stood alone in 1940 against Nazi Germany and had far more men under arms than the U.S. until 1944.
While Britain fought on, with some material assistance from the U.S., America did not actually enter the war until December 1941 after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.
And Britain lost a total of 449,800 war dead compared with 418,500 Americans.
Even as Downing Street was trying to repair the damage, the PM's error was compounded in a further interview, recorded earlier, with the American network ABC news.
He said: 'We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting against Hitler; we are the junior partner now. I think you shouldn't pretend to be something you're not.'
Historian Andrew Roberts, author of the recent Second World War history The Storm of War, said: 'The Prime Minister is wrong. He shouldn't wear a hair shirt.
'In the early years of the war Britain had an army of 2.4million men in the field when the Americans had 240,000 - one tenth of the fighting force.
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poll results 'It was not really until 1944 that the Americans had more men in the field than the UK, the British Empire and Commonwealth.
'In 1940 there was material help from America, but not belligerency against the Nazis. Britain was the dominant partner in terms of the strategy until at least 1943.'
Labour was quick to leap on Mr Cameron's mistake.
Former defence minister Kevan Jones told the Mail: 'David Cameron is guilty of talking down Britain and disrespecting Second World War veterans who know that Britain was fighting alone against Nazi tyranny while America was still putting its fighting boots on.'
As hostile reaction swept the internet, Mr Cameron's gaffe was greeted with dismay by retired military men.
SAS hero Andy McNab said: 'It's very important to get this history right because people are still living who fought in 1940. There are still survivors of Dunkirk and fighter pilots from the Battle of Britain. For them it is very, very important to recognise the role they played. This is living history.'
General Cordingley said: ' Having just spent the day with some Normandy veterans, I'm surprised that the Prime Minister has forgotten the sacrifice of those who fought in the Battle of Britain and North Africa before the U.S. entered the war and those who were bombed during the Blitz.'
General Sir Mike Jackson, a former head of the Army, said: 'The Prime Minister's history is not as good as it should be. Without doubt we were the superior partner until America's entry into the war. I'm sure the Prime Minister's jet lag is catching up with him.'
CORRELLI BARNETT: BRITAIN BORE THE BRUNT
David Cameron's not just a travesty of the truth but also an insult to the memory of all those Britons who fought so heroically in the dark months of 1940, when this country stood alone against the Reich's tyranny. Contrary to his absurd claim, there was no partnership whatsoever between the U.S. and Britain in that year. indeed, America was not involved in the war at all, either militarily or in supplying material support.
Despite the U.S.'s colossal resources and tradition of liberty, the republic did little to aid Britain's cause against the Nazis. Under the American Neutrality Act, it was actually illegal for the U.S. to ship any goods to a combatant unless cash was paid on strictly commercial terms.
Therefore, in the summer of 1940, Churchill's government had to pay up front for all the military equipment and aircraft it bought from the U.S., almost bankrupting itself by early 1941.
Nor was the U.S. remotely supportive during the Battle of Britain.
Remarkably, heroic young Americans who wanted to volunteer for the RAF were warned that they could lose their U.S. citizenship and even be fined if they took part in the fighting, an edict that many of them thankfully ignored.
This reluctance to help Britain reflected the mood of anxious isolationism which gripped America in 1940.
Part of this stemmed from hostility to the old colonial power, part from the belief that conflicts in Europe were nothing to do with the New World.
It was an outlook that could be found right across Congress and the American public.
Even the U.S. ambassador to London, the roguish Joe Kennedy, father of the future President JFK, shared this mentality. In a typically defeatist outburst, Kennedy said in 1940 that 'democracy is finished in England'.
Franklin D Roosevelt himself, though personally much more eager to back Britain, was constrained by these attitudes.
Churchill fought a constant battle against this spirit of separatism.
One of the reasons that he took the notorious action in blowing up the French fleet in July 1940, after France had signed an armistice with Germany, was to impress Americans about Britain's determination to carry on the fight.
He also hoped that the defiance of the RAF against the Luftwaffe would change attitudes. But still the U.S. did not bend.
The dogma of isolationism was ended only when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December, 1941, 'a day that will live in infamy', to quote the words of Roosevelt.
It is no exaggeration to say that America might never have entered the war but for that fateful action.
For the first two years after Pearl Harbor, Britain and America could be described as 'equal partners'.
America might have had more military muscle, but Britain had all the experience of fighting.
At the vital planning conferences during 1942 and 1943, it was Churchill rather than Roosevelt who set the military strategy.
In particular, he saved America from the folly of launching an invasion of France in 1943, which could have only ended in disaster because the Allies were insufficiently prepared and Germany remained too strong.
Far more sensible was Churchill's plan for wiping out the Axis forces in North Africa and Italy.
It was not until D-Day was reached in June 1944 that Britain could be regarded as the junior partner, if only because of the colossal weight of the U.S. forces in Europe.
But D-Day could never have been happened if Britain had not fought so bravely four years earlier, when she alone withstood the might of the all-conquering Nazi war machine.
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