American Valor Quarterly Issue 6 - Spring/Summer 2009 | Page 8

Eisenhower’s Triumph
The Guildhall Address of 1945
By Richard A. Striner
Little more than a month after Nazi Germany’s defeat, the Supreme
Commander of Allied Forces in Europe – General Dwight D.
Eisenhower – made a powerful speech to an audience in London:
his “Guildhall Address” of June 12, 1945. This remarkable speech
should be brought to the attention of Americans – especially
veterans and troops on active duty. It stands as a superb expression
of the values that people in Eisenhower’s time often called
“the American Way.” Ike’s speech represented our nation at its
best: confident, and yet appropriately humble in the face of the
challenges of history.
Ike was in London to celebrate
the end of the Nazi regime
that had fire-bombed London
and other English cities. He
was also in London to be
celebrated as the hero who had
led the cross-channel invasion
and the great campaign that
followed. June 12, 1945 was the
anniversary of the day when he
first arrived in Normandy.

of an honor guard presenting arms outside, then the loud voice
of an announcer near the door: ‘The Supreme Commander of
the Allied Expeditionary Force!’ The crowd came to its feet with a
roar. Down the aisle, behind slow-walking officials in fur-trimmed
blue, came General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, his battledress pressed to Regular Army perfection, his face betraying his
emotion. As he climbed to the dais, jammed with the great men
of England, the applause went on and on.”
Time presented more details about Ike’s performance that day: “As
he walked to the microphone
he grinned, and the audience
went up again. But he looked
pale and nervous in the glare of
the floodlights; when he began
to speak his voice almost failed.
He had worked on the speech
for days, had reworked it the
night before in his suite at the
Dorchester, and had committed
it to memory like a high-school
valedictorian. For a few minutes
he sounded like one. But as he
went on, he got better, and the
crowd began to realize that Ike
was doing all righ л