5 pounds - Elizabeth II Winston Churchill

Issued to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Churchill's death in January 1965, this Guernsey crown-sized piece appeared alongside a flood of similar commemoratives from British territories that year. Guernsey's connection to Churchill is grimmer than most issuers acknowledge: the island was occupied by German forces from 1940 to 1945, and Churchill made the deliberate strategic decision not to defend or attempt to retake the Channel Islands, judging them militarily indefensible.