American Valor Quarterly Issue 6 - Spring/Summer 2009 | Page 9

that countryside, the honored guest of a city
whose name stands for grandeur and size
throughout the world. Hardly would it seem
possible for the London council to have gone
farther afield to find a man to honor with its
priceless gift of token citizenship.”
Then he turned to the subjects that had drawn
so many millions to fight: the shared values
of freedom and decency. He talked of “those
inner things – call them what you will – I mean
those intangibles that are the real treasures
free men possess. To preserve his freedom of
worship, his equality before the law, his liberty
to speak and act as he sees fit, subject only to
provisions that he trespass not upon similar
rights of others – a Londoner will fight. So
will a citizen of Abilene.”
He praised the way in which the British had
borne the Nazi onslaught. “What man who
has followed the history of this war could fail
to experience an inspiration from the people
of this city? When the British Empire stood
– alone but unconquered, almost naked but
unafraid – to deny the Hitler hordes, it was on
this devoted city that the first terroristic blows were launched. Five
years and eight months of war, much of it on the actual battle-line,
blitzes big and little, flying V-bombs – all of them you took in your
stride. You worked, and from your needed efforts you would not
be deterred. You carried on, and from your midst arose no cry for
mercy, no wail of defeat. The Battle of Britain will take its place
as another of your deathless traditions.”

General Eisenhower greets the throngs gathered outside the Mansion House following his
Guildhall Address. The speech was Eisenhower’s first major public address, coming exactly
one year after he first set food in Normandy. The massive tribute accented his metoric rise
from an unknown brigadier general in 1941 to commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied
Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and the rank of five-star general.

sacrifices of his friends.” Ike acknowledged the great British tribute
– the personal honor that was his. But he continued to qualify
his acceptance of the honor. In measured words, he expressed
the overwhelming grief that he had felt the year before on the
eve of D-Day. He had known all along that his orders would
send brave men to their graves. That was inevitable. But he felt
the responsibility so keenly at the time that he drafted a message
accepting the blame – the full blame – if the invasion should fail.

Corbis

So he continued that day in the Guildhall: “Conceivably a
commander may have been professionally superior. He may have
given everything of his heart and mind to meet the spiritual and
physical needs of his comrades. He may have written a chapter that
will glow forever in the pages of military history. Still, even such
a man – if he existed – would sadly face the facts that his honors
cannot hide in his memories the crosses marking the resting places
of the dead. They cannot soothe the anguish of the widow or the
orphan whose husband or father will not return.”
Then he turned to the only subject that could mitigate the
terrible losses: the righteousness of the cause for which his brave
men fought. He talked of the distance through which the great
crisis of war had drawn him and many others to London, to the
English Channel, and to France. “I am not a native of this land.
I come from the very heart of America. In the superficial aspects
by which we ordinarily recognize family relationships