page_title: Winston Churchill
section_title: Defeat of Germany: June 1944 to May 1945
hierarchical_section_title: Winston Churchill / Prime Minister: 1940–1945 / Defeat of Germany: June 1944 to May 1945
caption_attribution_description: English: Prime Minister Winston Churchill Crosses the River Rhine, Germany 1945 The Prime Minister Winston Churchill crosses the River Rhine to the east bank, south of Wesel, in an American Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (or Higgins boat) with Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke and US General William Simpson on 25 March 1945.
context_page_description: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG OM CH TD DL FRS RA was a British statesman, army officer, and writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led the country to victory in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, Churchill was a Member of Parliament from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, as leader from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
  Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British India, the Anglo-Sudan War, and the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected a Conservative MP in 1900, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary, championing prison reform and workers' social security.
caption: Churchill's crossing of the Rhine river in Germany, during Operation Plunder on 25 March 1945.
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