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.

He was driven through the city of London in a horse-drawn carriage as thousands of onlookers cheered and waved American flags. According to one press account, Ike “was cheered by hundreds of thousands in tremendous roars which sent flocks of pigeons fluttering in fright from church belfries.”

He was driven to the old London Guildhall, where he received the “Freedom of the City of London” – a medieval honor that constitutes symbolic citizenship. As a band played “See the Conquering Hero Comes” and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the Lord Mayor of London waited. Then Ike and his British entourage arrived. In the company of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the cabinet, the Lord Mayor – Sir Frank Alexander – presided at the Guildhall ceremony, which was held beneath a temporary roof, for the centuries-old Guildhall, like so many other great London landmarks, was damaged during the war.

According to Time magazine’s account, “a stringed orchestra in London’s ancient, bomb-scarred Guildhall had finished playing “My Old Kentucky Home”. In the sudden silence came the sound 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 battle-dress 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 right.”

As it turned out, this speech – known forever after as the Guildhall Speech – made an overwhelming impression upon the British. The Times of London reported that “many who already knew General Eisenhower as a great commander discovered yesterday for the first time that he is also an orator. His speech… had the moving eloquence which is native to the words of a sincere and modest man when he speaks from his heart of the ideals to which his life has been devoted.” Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke recorded in his diary that he “rushed off to the Guildhall for Eisenhower’s presentation of the Freedom of the City. Ike made a wonderful speech and impressed all the hearers in the Guildhall including the cabinet…I had never realized that Ike was as big a man until his performance today.”