He made the first scheduled west and eastbound airmail flights across the Atlantic by a European operator, landing at Foynes to be greeted by Éamon de Valera.

[2] The historic January 1942 flight on the British Boeing 314 flying boat, Berwick, came about after Churchill had insisted on a face-to-face meeting with President Roosevelt following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Keen to avoid another long and hard sea voyage, Churchill and his party agreed to fly in the Berwick to the British colony of Bermuda on the first leg of their journey home, and meet the Duke of York there.

The day after landing at Bermuda, the aircraft, with Churchill, two Chiefs of Staff and Lord Beaverbrook, his Minister of Supply, among those on board, set off for England.

In the nick of time, he claimed, they altered course but the aircraft was reported as a hostile bomber coming in from France and Fighter Command planes were ordered to shoot it down.

But as the fighters patrolled the skies, radar detected what was thought to be an enemy bomber 30 miles west of Brest, and four Spitfires of 310 (Czech) Squadron were scrambled to intercept it.

The suspected enemy bomber was a British Lockheed Hudson that had taken off from Cornwall's St Eval airstrip on a routine anti-shipping patrol off Brest.