| Notes |
- In September 1939, the United Kingdom and the self-governing dominions, with Ireland excepted, declared war on Nazi Germany. George VI and his wife resolved to stay in London despite German bombing raids. They officially stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the war, though they usually spent nights at Windsor Castle. The first night of the Blitz on London, on 7 September 1940, killed about one thousand civilians, mostly in the East End. On the 13th of September, the King and Queen narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were there. In defiance, the Queen declared: "I am glad we have been bombed. It makes me feel we can look the East End in the face." The royal family were portrayed as sharing the same dangers and deprivations as the rest of the country. They were subject to British rationing restrictions, and U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt remarked on the rationed food served and the limited bathwater that was permitted during a stay at the unheated and boarded-up Palace. In August 1942, the King's brother, the Duke of Kent, was killed on active service.
In 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister, though personally George would have preferred to appoint Lord Halifax. After the King's initial dismay over Churchill's appointment of Lord Beaverbrook to the Cabinet, he and Churchill developed "...the closest personal relationship in modern British history between a monarch and a Prime Minister." Every Tuesday, for four and a half years from September 1940, the two men met privately for lunch to discuss the war in secret and with frankness. The King has related much of what the two discussed in his diary, which is the only extant first-hand account of these conversations.
Throughout the war, the King and Queen provided morale-boosting visits throughout the United Kingdom, visiting bomb sites, munitions factories, and troops. The King visited military forces abroad in France in December 1939, North Africa and Malta in June 1943, Normandy in June 1944, southern Italy in July 1944, and the Low Countries in October 1944. Their high public profile and apparently indefatigable determination secured their place as symbols of national resistance. At a social function in 1944, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, revealed that every time he met Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, he thought Montgomery was after his job. The King replied: "You should worry, when I meet him, I always think he's after mine!"
In 1945, crowds shouted, "We want the King!" in front of Buckingham Palace during the Victory in Europe Day celebrations. In an echo of Chamberlain's appearance, the King invited Churchill to appear with the royal family on the balcony to public acclaim.
In January 1946, George addressed the United Nations at their first assembly, which was held in London, and reaffirmed, "...our faith in the equal rights of men and women and of nations great and small."
Ultimately, George VI's reign saw the acceleration of the dissolution of the British Empire. The Statute of Westminster 1931 had already acknowledged the evolution of the Dominions into separate sovereign states. The process of transformation from an empire to a voluntary association of independent states, known as the Commonwealth, gathered pace after the Second World War. During the ministry of Clement Attlee, British India became the two independent dominions of India and Pakistan in 1947. George relinquished the title of Emperor of India, and became King of India and King of Pakistan instead. In 1950 he ceased to be King of India when it became a republic within the Commonwealth and recognized his new title of Head of the Commonwealth; he remained King of Pakistan until his death. Other countries left the Commonwealth, such as Burma in January 1948, Palestine (divided between Israel and the Arab states) in May 1948 and the Republic of Ireland in 1949.
In 1947, the King and his family toured Southern Africa.The Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, Jan Smuts, was facing an election and hoped to make political capital out of the visit. George was appalled, however, when instructed by the South African government to shake hands only with whites, and referred to his South African bodyguards as "the Gestapo." Despite the tour, Smuts lost the election the following year, and the new government instituted a strict policy of racial segregation.
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1446/george_vi
- British Monarch. He ascended the throne on December 11, 1936, after the abdication of his brother Edward VIII. Generally considered a man of weak character, he showed, during the World War II, to have energy and great charisma. He had a valid help from his wife Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and Sir Winston Churchill, appointed Prime Minister in May 1940, in addressing the serious problems of the United Kingdom. He was highly respected by his people because they flatly refused to leave England during the bombing of London, and when the German invasion seemed imminent. After the war, despite his health was in decline, he was promoter of economic and social recovery of Great Britain.
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1895 - 1952 (56 years)