In February 1943, when the Allies defeated the Nazis in North Africa. To celebrate, Churchill flew to Tripoli for a victory parade. Enjoying the victory, Churchill, General Sir Bernard Montgomery, and other senior officers of the Eighth Army enjoyed a casual picnic lunch.
Two years later, Church journeyed to the Netherlands, where he had an impromptu lunch with Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery (r) and Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke (m) in February 1945. The meeting was just before the final push against the Germans who surrendered in August. Though this shore on the Rhein was secure, German artillery and snippers were a threat. Winston Churchill at lunch with his generals in Tripoli (1943)
Churchill in Tripoli (February 1943)
According to Cita Stelzer’s Dinner With Churchill, Churchill always insisted on sandwiches with wafer-thin sliced bread, ham with mustard or cold beef, and mustard with his ham sandwiches.
See Winston Churchill. Al fresco lunch in Tripoli. War Office Second World War Official Collection” Catalogue Number E 22267. The photographer is Major Geoffrey Keating. http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205195355; Winston Churchill. Picnic on the Shore of the Rhine, February 28, 1945; Martin Gilbert. Churchill at War: His “Finest Hour: in Photographs 1940-1945 (2004); Cita Stelzer. Dinner With Churchill: Policy-Making At The Dinner Table (2011)
Featured Image: Churchill Lunching on The East Bank of The Rhine with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke. Photograph made by No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Northwest Europe 1944 – 1945. London: Imperial War Museums. Martin Gilbert captions this photo “Churchill picnics in Holland with Montgomery before a gentle boat trip into Germany he had sworn to defeat The Rhine March 1945.”