When Two Leaders Sang Hymns Together
By 1941 German Nazis had taken control of country after country in continental Europe and was at war with the United Kingdom. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill desperately needed help from the United States. Churchill longed to meet face to face with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. The two had met casually in 1918. Aides made arrangements for them to meet in secret in August of 1941. Churchill crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the HMS Prince of Wales.
Roosevelt boarded the presidential yacht Potomac and pretended, even to his wife, Eleanor, that he was going on a 10-day fishing vacation. He soon transferred to the Navy cruiser USS Augusta and sailed to meet Churchill in Placentia Bay, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. On Saturday, August 9, 1941, Churchill went aboard the Augusta where he and Roosevelt met for the first time since that social engagement in England more than 20 years before.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin Roosevelt,
and Roosevelt’s son Elliott, August 9, 1941,
courtesy Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
On Sunday morning, Roosevelt went aboard the Prince of Wales for a joint church service.
Roosevelt, Churchill, British sailors, and American sailors
gather for a church service aboard HMS Prince of Wales,
August 10, 1941. Official U.S. Navy Photograph
Churchill carefully chose from among his favorite hymns: “For Those in Peril on the Sea,” “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and “O God our Help in Ages Past.”
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home:
Under the shadow of your throne
Your saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is your arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
Before the hills in order stood
Or Earth received her frame,
From everlasting you are God,
To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in your sight
Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.
Like flow’ry fields the nations stand,
Pleased with the morning light;
The flow’rs beneath the mower’s hand
Lie with’ring ere ’tis night.
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last
And our eternal home.
Roosevelt and Churchill after the Sunday morning
church service aboard HMS Prince of Wales,
August 10, 1941. Official U.S. Navy Photograph
Roosevelt later said this about the service: “If nothing else happened while we were here, that would have cemented us.” Churchill later said, “The same language, the same hymns, it was a great hour to live.”
The culmination of the four-day Atlantic Conference was the signing of the Atlantic Charter by Roosevelt and Churchill. The charter included eight principles. Among these were respect for the right of all peoples to choose their own form of government, the abandonment of the use of force, and the right of all states to have access to the raw materials they need for their economies.
As the HMS Prince of Wales sailed away on August 12, its signal lamp flashed this message: “God bless the president and the people of the United States.”
Churchill returns to England aboard the H.M.S. Prince of Wales,
courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving,
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God
And a great King above all gods,
In whose hand are the depths of the earth,
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
The sea is His, for it was He who made it,
And His hands formed the dry land.
Psalm 95:1-5