RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL, the only son of Winston Churchill, was born on 28 May 1911. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he became a widely-read journalist in the 1930s, reporting first-hand on the German elections of 1932 and warning of Hitler’s military ambitions. In the Second World War he served as an intelligence officer at General Headquarters, Middle East, and in the Special Forces in the Western Desert. In 1944 he volunteered to parachute behind enemy lines to serve as a liaison officer with the Yugoslav partisans. For his war services he was awarded the MBE (Military).
Between 1938 and 1961 he edited six volumes of his father’s speeches. His own books include The Rise and Fall of Sir Anthony Eden; The Six Day War, a history of the six-day Arab-Israeli war of 1967, written with his son, Winston; and the first two main and five document volumes of the biography of his father: Youth, 1874–1900 and Young Statesman, 1901–1914. An Honorary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, Randolph Churchill died at his home, Stour, East Bergholt, Suffolk, on 6 June 1968.