Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (July 4, 1941)
BRITONS JOIN AMERICANS IN FOURTH CELEBRATIONS
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Special observances are planned in towns with same names as in United States; tablet to flier will be unveiled.
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London, July 3 (UP) –
London pubs echoed tonight with preliminary toasts to the independence of the United States as the British prepared to celebrate the Fourth of July wholeheartedly for the first time.
The anniversary of the declaration severing America from Britain inspired the British to bring out the United States flag and plan on making the American independence day a holiday of their own.
Bitterness of other years seemed to be gone. This Fourth of July finds American-made equipment speeding across the Atlantic for use against the Germans.
Special celebrations were planned in Washington, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other English hamlets with the same names as American cities and towns.
Americans in Britain will celebrate in various ways. The principal affair will be that of the American Society in London, where Ambassador John G. Winant will speak.
Selecting Independence Day to pay tribute to an American who “died that England might be free,” the British will unveil a tablet in St. Paul’s Cathedral to William Meade Lindsley Flake III of New York, pilot officer in the Royal Air Force, said to have been the first American to die in the current war.
The BBC will put on a special program, The Tradition of Liberty. It will use as a springboard President Roosevelt’s speech to Congress last January when he looked forward to:
…a world founded upon four essential human freedoms – freedom of speech, of worship, from want and from fear.