Finished read The Splendid and The Vile after many fits and starts. Was also reading The Anarchy in parallel - not related to the WW2 but useful in understanding the East India Company and therefore British colonization of India. Somewhere along the way found this essay that offers a point of view on the WW2 that is not the lens that Erik Larson uses in his Book. Reading snippets of history that tackle small perspectives at a time is a lot like the parable of the elephant and the blind men - the only thing I learned is that the topic is vast and complex and just to understand the all points of view could take a life-time and yet provide no resolution. 

The key protagonists are complex and multi-dimensional. The unambiguous villains are the easiest ones to classify but the "heroes" can invoke a fantastic range of response depending on who is telling the story. Larson shows Churchill as a hero in his book and given the plot points he covers, there is some logic to that. Others have called him a war criminal and they have their reasons too. I have a few more books lined up to read on WW2 and am sure that will only serve to open my eyes to the many other perspectives on what happened and why.