Operation Hope Not was code-name of a funeral plan for Winston Churchill that started in 1953, twelve years before his death in 1965. The detailed plan was prepared in 1958. As a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Churchill led the country to victory in the Second World War (1939–1945). He suffered from a stroke in 1953, after which his death was greatly feared. The British government started a meticulous preparation, as publicly decreed by Queen Elizabeth II to be a commemoration "on a scale befitting his position in history." The official project was undertaken by the Earl Marshal, Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, to be the grandest state funeral for a person outside the royal family since that of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Churchill died on 24 January 1965