4 June 1940 · House of Commons, London
Churchill: We Shall Fight on the Beaches
The setting
After the evacuation of more than 330,000 Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, Prime Minister Winston Churchill reported to Parliament on a disaster turned into a deliverance, and prepared the country for a possible invasion.
Key passage
We shall fight on the beaches... we shall never surrender.
Speech to the House of Commons, 4 June 1940. Quoted briefly: the full text is still under copyright.
Read the complete textHansard, UK Parliament
What followed
France fell weeks later, but Britain fought on alone through the Battle of Britain that summer and the Blitz that followed. The speech became one of the defining statements of resistance in the Second World War.