An original wartime Press photo of British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill inspecting an American tank in August 1941

Stockholm: Copyright A.B. Text & Bilder, published by Svenska Dagbladets, 1941. Photograph. This is an original Second World War press photograph of Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill inspecting an American tank in August 1941. Although the United States did not formally enter the Second World War until December 1941, the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 greatly increased the flow of material aid to Britain by authorizing the sale, lease, transfer, or exchange of arms and supplies to "any country whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the United States." Britain proved the primary recipient of such aid, testified by this image.

The gelatin silver print on glossy photo paper measures 4.625 x 7.25 inches (11.75 x 18.42 cm). Condition approaches very good, the image bright despite superficial blemishes and scuffs visible under raking light and a single pinhole at each corner. The front of the tank is in the foreground, Churchill centered, attended by a civilian and military coterie, visible from the waist up, looking over the front of the tank.

The verso of the photograph features the “COPYRIGHT” ink stamp of “A.B. TEXT & BILDER” of “STOCKHOLM – SWEDEN” as well as the ink stamp of “Svenska Dagbladets Bild-Arkiv”. Svenska Dagbladets was a Stockholm daily newspaper, and bild-arkiv translates to photo archive. Affixed to the verso is an original typed caption in Swedish dated “augusti – 41” and titled “CHURCHILL INSPEKTERAR.” – translating roughly as “CHURCHILL INSPECTS”. The caption text translates roughly as “Prime Minister Churchill inspected an armored detachment at Southern Command and is seen having studied an American tank.” The verso also features printing notes and crop marks in pencil, as well as a hand-written date of “17/8/1941”.

Tanks would be very much on Churchill’s mind in the coming months, nor was it any surprise that he would take time to inspect one himself.

Churchill was a soldier before he was a politician and maintained a lifelong informed fascination with the minutiae and machinery of combat. The man who began his career as a cavalry officer and participated in the ‘last great cavalry charge in British history’ would later help design the tank, pilot aircraft, direct use of some of the earliest computers (for WWII code breaking), and ultimately preside as Prime Minister over the first British nuclear weapons test. During the Second World War he showed keen interest in – and critical support for – the struggle for technological mastery that would prove as critical to winning the war as men, material, and logistics.

Tanks are of particular note. As First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War Churchill advocated development and application of the tank as a decisive offensive battlefield weapon. The tank would, of course, revolutionize offensive warfare during the Second World War.

In August, America was scrambling to increase war material production and Britain had long been besieged, chronically short of weapons and munitions. Now Stalin’s Russia, formally allied with Churchill’s Britain since mid-July, was clamoring for tanks on the eastern front. By early September, “Churchill told Roosevelt that the supply of tanks to Russia, as Stalin had requested, was ‘hitting ourselves very hard”… By 22 September, Roosevelt offered to send Britain a substantial increase in United States tank production and Churchill replied by telegram: “Your cheering cable about tanks arrived when we were feeling very blue about all we have to give up to Russia. The prospect of nearly doubling he previous figures encouraged everyone.” Roosevelt had informed Churchill that “The tanks available to Britain were 3,994 medium tanks and 1,953 light tanks between October 1941 and June 1942. These were ‘minimum figures’, Roosevelt explained a week later, ‘because I have directed that production during the next nine months be increased by ten or fifteen percent’”. (Gilbert, Vol. VI, pp.1185-1200)