A Great Hour To Live

Over 80 years ago – on August 10, 1941 – two great nations met on the deck of a battleship. As did their two leading men. On the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, in a place called Placentia Bay, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill gathered for a secret rendezvous. It was the very first time that they had met face to face. It was a bright Sunday morning, and the two parties of American and British heads of state, their top military officers, and two crews of sailors crowded atop the quarterdeck of the British battleship H.M.S. Prince of Wales for a moving, powerful joint church service. That hour of worship, the singing, and the prayers symbolically knit the hearts of the two nations and their leaders together.

They spent four days together in this Atlantic rendezvous in their pivotal meeting. These were solemn meetings between the two great leaders; one had led his country in surviving the Nazi Germany bombing of the Battle of Britain the year before when his country stood all alone in their finest hour; the other, trying to balance his desire to support the British fight against Germany in the midst of his own country still decidedly against intervention in the European and Asian wars.

This meeting is known in history for the origination of what came to be called the Atlantic Charter, a joint declaration of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It made known the common principles of their respective countries and their hopes for a better future for the world. Its core vision, after the final destruction of Nazi tyranny, was the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live – and to see sovereign rights and self-government restored. The Atlantic Charter eventually led to the Declaration by United Nations.

Yet surprisingly, the most significant event of those four days in August, according to the personal writings and conversations of these two great men, was not the Atlantic Charter. Instead, it was that single hour of worship on the Prince of Wales. That hour – emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and viscerally – cemented the friendship of these two nations, and the friendship of these two special leaders in their turbulent journey ahead. The bond of trust, respect, and intimacy carried them through the subsequent war years until final victory was inevitable.

Winston Churchill later wrote: “This service was felt by us all to be a deeply moving expression of the unity of faith of our two peoples, and none who took part in it will forget the spectacle presented that sunlit morning on the crowded quarterdeck – the symbolism of the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes draped side by side on the pulpit; the American and British chaplains sharing in the reading of the prayers; the highest naval, military, and air officers of Britain and the United States grouped in one body behind the President and me; the close-packed ranks of British and American sailors, completely intermingled, sharing the same books and joining fervently together in the prayers and hymns familiar to both. I chose the hymns myself – “For Those in Peril on the Sea” and “Onward, Christian Soldiers”. We ended with “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” Every word seemed to stir the heart. It was a great hour to live. Nearly half of those who sang were soon to die.”

Four months later, the Prince of Wales was operating in Pacific waters near Singapore when, only a few days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it was sunk by Japanese bombers and torpedo planes, depositing its many brave sailors, who experienced together that heart-stirring hour on August 10th on the quarterdeck over the Atlantic, to their underwater Pacific grave.