Kennedy, US ambassador to Britain, informed the State Department July 31 that the German Luftwaffe had the power to put the RAF “out of commission.” In a press statement, Sen. “Rab” Butler, told Swedish diplomats in London that “no opportunity would be neglected for concluding a compromise peace” if it could be had “on reasonable conditions.” To Churchill’s fury, the undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, Richard A. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, believed that Britain had lost already. Appeasement and defeatism were rife in the British Foreign Office.
In a ringing speech to Parliament, he declared, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills we shall never surrender.” Winston Churchill, who on May 10 had succeeded Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister, was resolute.