The Ultimate Power Lunch

When Winston Churchill stepped aboard the battleship HMS Prince of Wales in August 1941, the world was tearing itself apart. London was still bearing the scars of the Blitz, Europe was under Nazi occupation, and the United States remained, at least officially, on the sidelines of the war.

Yet anchored in the fog of Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, history was about to be made over turtle soup and roast grouse. This was the first time Churchill and Roosevelt had sat face-to-face as allies with shared purpose, and the atmosphere in that steel-walled dining room — where the blueprint for the post-war world was being sketched out between courses — must have been extraordinary.

Look closely at the original menu and seating plan, retrieved here from the archives. Note who is sitting next to whom. You can practically trace the birth of the Special Relationship by scanning the names around that table — generals, admirals and diplomats from both sides of the Atlantic, packed in shoulder to shoulder, beginning the vital work of defeating tyranny together.

Tragically, just four months later, HMS Prince of Wales was done for, sunk to the bottom of the South China Sea. Captain John Leach, who had presided as host over this historic lunch, went down with his ship, but for one brief afternoon, his dining room aboard HMS Prince of Wales had been the absolute epicentre of the free world.