The Royal Governor.....and The Duchess: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in The Bahamas 1940-1945 [Paperback]

Roy Bouchier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 14, 2003

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the British government, alarmed at the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's association with the Nazis and the possibility that they would remove themselves to the United States to preach their pacifist (and slightly pro-German) credo, decided that a job had to be found for the ex-King Edward VIII. and his wife, the American, Wallis Simpson. He was appointed Governor of The Bahamas, one of the smallest and least important possessions of the British Empire, far away from the scene of battle.Away from their sybaritic living in the south of France, the couple struggled unhappily with the very different lifestyle of minor colonial life. This story is of their successes and their failures during their last official service to The British-and of the only Royal Governor to have served in British colonial history.Owen Platt's recounting of their escapades in wartime Bahamas is a fascinating insight into a little known aspect of British history.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Educated in Paris and London, Owen Platt is the author of a number of books, including the story of the Duke of Windsor?s exile in The Bahamas during World War II, The Royal Governor and The Duchess, the incredible story of the fraudulent First International Bank of Grenada One Big Fib, a history of the D-Day deception Bodyguard for Overlord and the story of drugs, money and politics in The Bahamas Paradise Lost, as well as a book of children?s stories,The Truant Mermaid. He lives and works in France and in The Caribbean.

Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (July 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595287832
• ISBN-13: 978-0595287833
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,320,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > History > Americas > Caribbean & West Indies > Bahamas

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh, serve the re-hash, February 9, 2006

By 

Shirley Corley "DuchessofW" (Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Royal Governor.....and The Duchess: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in The Bahamas 1940-1945 (Paperback)

Anyone really interested in the Windsor's should skip this book. It is a total re-hashing of known events previously published. The events of his governorship were covered, but not in much detail. A great deal of the book was devoted to the history of the circumstances surrounding their births, courtship and abdication. The only new portion of the book was a small up-date on the island as it is now,to include new building projects, demolitions, and current usage of houses etc. No photos were included.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The agile thighs of the Duchess saved Britain, August 2, 2009

By 

Laurence Daley (Corvallis, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Royal Governor.....and The Duchess: The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in The Bahamas 1940-1945 (Paperback)

This is a short, informative and very exciting book. It attracted my attention, and held it until all was read.

Britain is a constitutional monarchy, and as such the King or Queen "rules" but does not govern. However, this monarchy especially during War times exerts powerful influence. In 1936, WWII was merely a bloody but distant conflict in China; yet nearby, a dangerous foe of freedom named Adolf Hitler was in control of a resurgent and ever more powerful Germany with ambitions to control all of Europe. There was no such thing as peace with such ravening wolves as were the mad German leadership of the time; they merely swallowed whatever was offered, burped for a little while, and come back for more.

At that critical time an American woman, the to be Dutchess of Windsor, Mrs. Wallis Simpson--despite her apparent pro-German views --acted, perhaps unintentionally, against the Nazi's setting the scene that led at year's end to the abdication of her pacifist inclined royal lover Edward VIII. Edward had long carried out dalliances with experienced women, thus he could not have fallen so madly in love with any but by the most skilled of mistresses, and certainly Wallis was such. Edward by marrying "the woman he loved," allowed his younger, tougher brother to become King George VI. Thus a rational history of the times cannot ignore the important role the Dutchess sexuality played in this real life drama

I find it so oddly strange that the Windsors, would spend WWII on the Bahamas Islands so near to Cuba, while my Cuban mother and us children would spend WWII in Britain. My family --as has far more recently become apparent through DNA analysis--were not as we pretended to be merely part Cuban of "European stock." Eons ago--before written history--some of mother's ancestors had passed through the Bahamas on the way to Cuba and to help exterminate the last great ground sloth.

As I write my memories (Narrations of War in Cuba), it is abundantly clear that my family may well have been saved from the Nazis because the Duchess held Edward VIII in so wanton and skillful a hold, as to make him seem almost addled. If through British pacifism or inaction, the Nazi's ever gained control of Britain--there were raging "nuts" in England who wanted that--and our true origins were discovered would have been doomed. This was because then we would be categorized as Untermenschen (Hitlerian German jargon for under man, sub-man, subhuman etc) as were Slavs, Jews, or Gypsies and in all probability we would be sent to a deadly fate in some extermination camp.

The amazing thing is that Wallis saved Britain despite what may well have been early Nazi sympathies and suspicious friends, even including Count Ciano one of her former lovers in Shanghai, and then head of the Italian Air force. However, one should also note that loves with presumably dashing Italian officers, were seemingly common in prewar Europe. The Italians were nowhere near as racist as were the German counterparts of that time. Even my Aunt Rosie, the movie actress (see Rex Ingram's only sound film, Baroud (aka Love in Morocco (1931-2), who lived in France at the time fled in the same general manner as the Windsors did left in her possessions some puzzling mementos of such an affair with an Italian officer these including some photos of monuments in Italian conquered Africa.