A Globe for Churchill: Christmas 1942

In the fall of 1942, Captain Bradfute Warwick Davenport was serving on General George C. Marshall's War Department staff in Washington when he received one of the stranger assignments of the war. Marshall had become convinced that flat maps were inadequate for a truly global conflict, that his staff and the nation's leaders needed to feel the shape of the world. Three massive globes were commissioned from a manufacturer in Chicago: each fifty inches in diameter, eight hundred pounds, built in two sections for easier transport. One would remain at the Pentagon. The other two were Christmas gifts, one for the President of the United States and one for the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Davenport was dispatched to Chicago to collect the globes and see Churchill's delivered in time for Christmas. With a pilot and co-pilot, he boarded a private aircraft and headed north. Weather held them on the ground in Maine for a day. Then came the long arc east over Greenland to England, then south along the West African coast, landing at Accra to refuel, before heading north through German-controlled airspace toward Gibraltar. German aircraft picked them up, tailed the plane, and fired. They missed.

On December 23, 1942, Davenport was ushered into Churchill's office at 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister looked up and said: "Where the hell have you been, Davenport?" The globe was presented. Churchill, already aware of the route the mission had taken, was pleased. Before Davenport departed, Churchill had one more request: could he give General de Gaulle a lift back to North Africa? Of course he could.