London - King George VI made plans to drive from Windsor Castle to Portsmouth at dawn and order the arrest of Winston Churchill. The king's purpose was to stop Churchill defying him by sailing on the HMS Belfast with the D-Day invasion fleet.
He feared Churchill would be killed, with "devastating" results for national morale. But Churchill had ignored all his requests and appeals not to go. Details of this secret crisis - drawn from royal documents - are due to be disclosed on November 5th in a new book by the historian, biographer and ex-Conservative MP, Sir Robert Rhodes James, the first scholar to have been given full access to King George VI's correspondence since the 1950s.