Video: 'We Shall Fight On The Beaches'

(Tuesday, June 4, 1940, 3:40 p.m. British Summer Time; following the Dunkirk evacuation, part of Battle of France on the Western Front of World War II) — Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his moving and dramatic “We shall fight on the beaches” speech to the British House of Commons this afternoon, declaring that even if the motherland had to fight alone against the German military machine, the British fleet and empire would fight on to the bitter end.

The speech was delivered only hours after the conclusion of the Miracle of Dunkirk, the nine-day evacuation of 338,226 Allied troops across the English Channel by a hastily assembled fleet of over 800 vessels, and British defeat at the Battle of Dunkirk.

Churchill reminded the country that “we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations. But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted.”

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Churchill concluded with a rousing vow that Britain would “never surrender” to Nazi Germany.

“We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

No audio record was made at the time of the original speech; Churchill only produced an audio recording in 1949, by repeating his previous oration.

Despite this many people after the war misremembered that they had heard Churchill speaking on the radio in 1940 when all there had been were BBC news reports that quoted his words.