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00:00And away we go!
00:04We're moving!
00:08They were the machines that made Britain great.
00:12Fast, revolutionary, and sometimes downright dangerous.
00:16These are the stories of our engineering masterpieces
00:20that shook the world and drive the way we live today.
00:30If any one decade can claim to have the greatest impact on human history,
00:42it might just be this one.
00:46It's the 1940s, and the world was at war.
00:50It was a war we had tried hard to avoid.
00:54And when it happened, it was very different from the war we'd expected.
00:58The mighty technological war machines swept through Europe.
01:02Britain was determined to stand firm.
01:04As Churchill declared,
01:06We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.
01:10We shall never surrender.
01:12The threat of invasion sparked an unprecedented period
01:16of innovation, ingenuity, and improvisation.
01:19Producing an amazing variety of new machines,
01:22unsung heroes of World War II, and the roots of modern Britain.
01:27Life would never be quite the same again,
01:29because war really was the mother of invention.
01:41May 1940.
01:43The greatest retreat in history begins.
01:45Following a crushing defeat by Germany in Europe,
01:51330,000 Allied troops are rescued from Dunkirk.
01:55For nine days, hundreds of ships and boats raced between Dunkirk and the English coast.
02:01There were dark days ahead, and Britain was ill-prepared for war.
02:05The mighty German army was now encamped just 46 miles from Britain.
02:13From July 1940, the skies over the English Channel were filled with thousands of German aircraft.
02:19We faced the greatest threat of invasion since 1066.
02:23The battle of Britain had begun.
02:26Angels 16, Willy-Victor 34.
02:31Scramble 222 and 504. Intercept Celsie Bill.
02:37Vastly outnumbered, our pilot's lifeline was a new experimental machine,
02:43that shared its technology with the latest household gadget.
02:47This is London calling.
02:49The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on up.
02:55At the time, few people knew what a radio wave actually was.
02:59Some even believed it could have potential as a lethal weapon.
03:03In the 1930s, the Air Ministry, in all seriousness, offered a £1,000 reward to anyone
03:09who could demonstrate a radio wave death ray that could kill a sheep at 100 yards.
03:16The turning point came when they approached top British physicist Robert Watson Watt.
03:21They asked him if he could generate a beam of radio waves so powerful it could destroy an enemy aircraft.
03:27Watson Watt calculated the required energy levels as wildly beyond existing technologies.
03:33He also pointed out that the metal fuselage would protect the crew from the radio waves.
03:38But he did have another very useful suggestion.
03:42He calculated that even a normal low-power radio wave like those used by the BBC's broadcasts
03:48would bounce back off a metal aircraft.
03:51So instead of radio destruction, he suggested radio detection.
03:57Just two weeks later, in a field near Daventry, Watson Watt made his first attempt to demonstrate his invention.
04:05Radar.
04:07Using modern equipment, here's my version of that historic day.
04:12In here we have a radio transmitter and a detector, and over here we have a display screen.
04:17Now, back then, the equipment would have been much bigger, but the principle is exactly the same.
04:28First, the transmitter emits short pulses of radio waves.
04:32So I'm beaming radio waves across 90 degrees in that direction.
04:39According to this screen, there's nothing out there that's moving.
04:43With a clear line of sight, radar can see much further than the naked eye.
04:48Well, yes, I'm seeing a blue blip at the top of the screen.
04:53My radio wave pulses are reflecting off a moving object.
04:57It's just going from left to right.
05:00Based on the time it takes for the echo from each pulse to return to my detector,
05:04the radar system can calculate the range and speed of the object.
05:09Right, a range of 301 metres.
05:13Radial velocity, or speed, 4.46 miles an hour.
05:18And it represents the only moving thing that's out there, which is a BSA M20.
05:25With his first prototype, Watson Watt detected a bomber eight miles away,
05:32four minutes before it reached his position.
05:35He had a working early warning system,
05:38and it went on to be one of the most important British machines ever created.
05:43In 1936, a chain of radar stations began to appear around the British coastline, codename Chain Home.
05:52Each had four 350-foot-tall steel masts to send out the radio pulses.
05:58The echoes were detected by antennae on four shorter receiver masts.
06:05Inside, operators kept a vigil day and night.
06:09They were capable of detecting incoming aircraft up to 120 miles away.
06:13By 1940, 21 radar stations were linked to command centres buried deep underground,
06:22out of reach of German bombs.
06:24Where the Battle of Britain would be won or lost.
06:28This one, at RAF Uxbridge in north-west London, oversaw Eleven Group,
06:34the squadrons at the sharp end of the battle.
06:37A room I've seen in so many war films.
06:43Just incredible, but the sense of history, the smell of history,
06:47is just incredibly powerful.
06:49Radar operators telephoned enemy sightings through to this control room.
06:55On a huge map, markers tracked the movement of enemy units approaching Britain.
07:00Hostile 10, 40-plus aircraft.
07:03A system devised by the forward-thinking Head of Fighter Command,
07:07Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding.
07:10So, Chris, how much time did the system and radar buy us?
07:13Remember, at the shortest point of the channel, it's only 20 miles across,
07:16German bomber formation would cruise at about 180.
07:20So, you can work it out, it didn't take too long to get across.
07:23From detection over France to our airfields could be as little as 20 minutes.
07:28It takes a Spitfire squadron around about 13 minutes to get to 20,000 feet.
07:34So, you can see how radar gave us time to get the aircraft airborne and up into position.
07:41Angels 1-6, Willy-Victor 3-4.
07:45From July 1940, thousands of enemy aircraft converged on Britain.
07:50When incoming aircraft were detected, Allied squadrons were scrambled.
07:55Then, again using radar, guided to intercept the enemy.
08:01Scramble 2-2-2 and 5-0-4. Intercept Celsie Bill.
08:05Enemy in charge.
08:07The RAF was outnumbered by the Luftwaffe 2-1.
08:12But thanks to the great British invention of radar, they could be scrambled exactly when needed,
08:17and flew far more successful sorties than the enemy.
08:20In nearly four months of fighting, 1733 German aircraft were taken down.
08:29But, at a cost.
08:32Yes, more than 900 RAF aircraft were shot down.
08:36The aircraft were replaceable, but trained pilots weren't.
08:41So, victory in the Battle of Britain would also depend on another great British machine.
08:47Every day, dozens of pilots ended up in the sea.
08:50And if you were lucky, you'd scramble out of the cockpit, deploy your parachute,
08:54and end up bobbing up and down in the English Channel,
08:57kept alive only by your trusty Mae West.
09:00But, you wouldn't survive out there for long.
09:03It was a race against time to find and rescue the downed pilots,
09:08in the 29,000 square miles of the Channel, before they died from exposure.
09:13There were no life rafts, no distress beacons, and no helicopters.
09:18But, by 1940, what we did have was this.
09:22A fantastic high-speed, long-range, all-weather rescue boat,
09:26built specifically for the RAF, the HSL, or High Speed Launch.
09:33Its story begins a decade earlier,
09:37with a friendship between two great British petrolheads,
09:40racing boat builder Hubert Scott Payne,
09:43and aircraftman T.E. Shaw, Lawrence of Arabia.
09:48In 1931, stationed with the RAF near Plymouth,
09:52Lawrence witnessed a seaplane crash.
09:55He was in one of the first boats to reach the wreckage,
09:58and dived in to rescue survivors.
10:01Of the 12-man crew, only three survived.
10:06Lawrence was convinced that more lives could have been saved
10:09if the RAF had faster rescue boats.
10:12So he teamed up with Scott Payne to develop new designs
10:15based on the latest racing technology.
10:18For hundreds of years, seagoing ships and boats had rounded displacement hulls like this model.
10:25They were stable and streamlined, and allowed the boat to push through the water.
10:30But as speed increases, it creates a larger and larger bow wave
10:35that will eventually limit a boat's top speed, known as hull speed.
10:39Scott Payne knew a way round this ancient law.
10:43Rather than a curved hull, he used a flat bottom with sharp edges called hard chimes.
10:49Like his racing boats, given enough power, this design lifts the hull up onto the surface of the water,
10:55overcoming the drag that a bow wave creates.
10:58It's called planing, and allows boats to far exceed their hull speed.
11:03In this boat, Seaplane Tender 206, Lawrence, after months of testing, achieved 29 knots.
11:11Still not fast enough.
11:13Fast enough.
11:16In 1936, although Lawrence sadly didn't live to see it,
11:20Scott Payne finally unveiled their high-speed planing masterpiece.
11:26And here she is, the 100-class High-Speed Launch, or HSL.
11:32A 64-foot Sea Rescue Revolution.
11:36So, here we are in the middle of the boat, in this beautifully restored wheelhouse.
11:44Phil, we're underway, aren't we?
11:46We're underway.
11:48Today, I'm heading out with HSL expert Phil Claburn
11:51to discover exactly how these boats were used on rescue missions.
11:55These were very, you know, sort of fast, get out quick,
11:57and pick up the pilots and bring them straight back.
11:59There wasn't much facility to operate on them all, you know, do injuries on board.
12:04For these ambulances of the sea, speed really was a matter of life or death.
12:09A 64-foot boat's theoretical hull speed limit is 11 knots.
12:14So let's just see how much faster Scott Payne's HSL can go.
12:18At the moment, we're just on tick-over speed, or displacement speed,
12:22where the boat is sitting in the water.
12:24If I start to give a few revs, like so, and then maybe a few more revs,
12:30the idea is to get on the plane, which is about 13 knots with the 100 class.
12:36So, a few more revs.
12:4213, 14 knots, and we're starting to lift up out of the water.
12:50Steady on, Phil.
13:00The HSL's originally had three massive petrol engines,
13:12together producing 1,500 horsepower.
13:15Her modern diesels produce over 1,200.
13:18Plenty of grunt to get us on the plane.
13:21You can feel the whole vessel lift a little bit there,
13:25and now we are definitely on the plane.
13:28With her no-compromise combination of power and hull design,
13:31the HSL was capable of 39 knots, 45 miles an hour.
13:37Job done, boys!
13:40The hard chimes also bring great control.
13:42These boats could head out in almost any weather.
13:50Urgent message, pilot down.
13:5624-6 west, 45-3 north.
13:58Let's go, chaps!
14:01By June 1940, 22 HSL's were positioned along the coastline.
14:06The world's fastest sea rescue service had been created,
14:09just in time for the Battle of Britain.
14:12Ah, I got him!
14:14Eleven acrobat!
14:19Another pilot saved.
14:21During the war, more than 11,000 were rescued
14:24by RAF launches around the world.
14:26There you are, Cummings.
14:27There's your tea.
14:29Oh, alright, I'll leave it here for you.
14:31Drink it, mind.
14:32Thanks to this great British machine,
14:34we didn't run out of pilots,
14:36and after three months of intense aerial fighting,
14:39the Battle of Britain was won.
14:45In 1940, the realities of war
14:47took over the everyday lives of the British population.
14:51Millions of civilians, mostly children,
14:53were evacuated to the country.
14:55Those that remained were getting used to blackout blinds
14:58and air raid drills.
14:59On September the 7th, 1940,
15:02the German Luftwaffe began the most devastating series of attacks
15:06British cities had ever endured.
15:09London faced 57 consecutive nights of relentless bombing.
15:25As fireman Gerry Knight said,
15:28send all the bloody pumps you've got,
15:29the whole bloody world's on fire.
15:32The Blitz had begun.
15:34London's firemen, including thousands of raw recruits,
15:37faced the fight of their lives.
15:40The Blitz, like the war itself,
15:42was a crisis for which Britain was barely prepared.
15:45In 1938, Britain's largest city, London, had just 2,500 firemen.
15:57Not enough to cope with an all-out bombing raid.
16:00So the government established the AFS, the Auxiliary Fire Service.
16:05With true British wartime spirit,
16:08over 30,000 men and women volunteered.
16:12But there was a dire shortage of firefighting kit.
16:16Classic fire engines like this beautiful 1938 Dennis
16:20simply couldn't be produced fast enough.
16:25It was time to improvise.
16:27And production focused on the one piece of a fire engine
16:30you couldn't do without.
16:32The pump.
16:33This is a 1941 Jowett.
16:38Fundamentally, this machine consists of
16:40an 8-horsepower car engine in here,
16:42driving a pump here.
16:45You attach your supply hose here,
16:47and your delivery hose here,
16:49and you could expect to squirt out
16:51roughly 250 gallons per minute.
16:54Simple and easy to use.
16:56Or so they say.
16:58Barry Lambeth from West Sussex Fire Service
17:02is going to give me some hands-on training
17:04as an AFS volunteer.
17:07My first job is to stop Barry falling over.
17:10That's it with your left arm on my shoulder.
17:13OK, like that.
17:14That's it.
17:15So why my arm on your shoulder, Barry?
17:17Your arm on my shoulder is basically
17:19to stop me being pushed back.
17:20OK.
17:21When the force comes through the branch,
17:23you will see how much force there is pushing back.
17:25And this is known as the branch, yeah?
17:26This is the branch.
17:27OK.
17:28This is the branch.
17:29This is the branch.
17:30OK.
17:31These trailer pumps didn't have as much pumping power
17:33as the old-style fire engines,
17:35but they could be produced much faster
17:37and in vast numbers.
17:39And they were easier to use,
17:41although training was still intensive.
17:44The auxiliary firemen at the beginning of the war
17:47did 60 hours before they were actually allowed
17:50to go out to fires.
17:52Hmm.
17:53I wonder how many hours before I get a go.
17:55By the start of the Blitz,
17:58the AFS were equipped with more than 20,000 pumps.
18:02But what remained in short supply
18:04was a means of getting the pumps to the fires.
18:06In the middle of the night, in a blackout,
18:08and often with bombs still falling all around you.
18:11Taxi!
18:12South of the river this time of night, Governor.
18:13You must be joking.
18:14Come on, mate.
18:15Oh, all right then, you little so-and-so jump in.
18:28All right, chaps, let's be having you.
18:30Yes, about 2,000 London taxis
18:34were drafted into the fire service during the Blitz.
18:37Taxis like this classic Austin 12.
18:40The Austin Heavy 12 was purpose-built
18:43to negotiate London's maze of streets
18:46with plenty of grunt from the 12 horsepower engine.
18:49Just hook up your pump
18:50and there's plenty of room inside
18:51for a team of five firemen and their gear.
18:57OK, even a very roomy cab was a bit tight,
19:00but it did have one very special attribute
19:02that made it perfect for the fire service.
19:05Like all London black cab drivers since 1865,
19:09all licensed cabbies
19:11had to pass the knowledge
19:13and learn every road and landmark
19:15within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross.
19:18So of all people, they would know the fastest route to a fire
19:22even if a road was blocked by a bomb crater
19:24or a collapsed building.
19:26London's firefighting taxis are a wonderful example
19:30of British ingenuity and improvisation.
19:35During the Blitz, they helped save thousands of lives.
19:38A great stopgap that kept the fire service moving.
19:42Come on, gentlemen.
19:43Well, just about.
19:45As hard as you can, gentlemen.
19:47Until a new purpose-built fire truck started rolling off the production lines.
19:55Did someone say fire?
19:57It may not look it, but this is the forerunner of the great British fire engine as we know it today.
20:09Made by Austin, like the taxi, this is a K2 truck chassis
20:13powered by a six-cylinder, 28 horsepower overhead valve engine.
20:17Unlike the taxi, this engine had more than adequate pulling power
20:21to tow a pump and a full fire crew around London.
20:25Right, into the back of the K2 we go.
20:28And these marvellous bench seats.
20:30There we are, look at that.
20:31Plenty of room for fire equipment.
20:35And plenty of room for firemen.
20:37And unlike the taxi, a shrapnel-proof roof.
20:44Keeping your crew protected inside was a major improvement,
20:47just as they are today.
20:49And crucially, Austin was able to churn out large numbers of these trucks quickly.
20:54Thanks to the simple idea of taking an existing general purpose chassis
20:58and giving 5,000 of them firefighting bodywork.
21:05Of course, with these machines, everything is heavy duty.
21:08Everything is massive and built to last.
21:10And it's that familiar sound of the whine of the gearbox.
21:15There it is, the cogs turning.
21:17You can hear it all.
21:18Very, very distinctive.
21:20With the rustle of the six-cylinder engine.
21:23And a rather ambitious speedo clocked up to 80.
21:26Absolutely brilliant.
21:28In September 1940, all hell broke loose as German bombers dropped thousands of tons of explosives
21:35and incendiary bombs on British cities.
21:39This was Britain's fire brigade's finest hour.
21:42And a turning point.
21:44The foundations for the highly modern service we see today were set in the flames of the Blitz.
21:49During the Blitz, 2 million British homes were destroyed, 90,000 civilians were injured and 60,000 killed.
21:57A great many more homes and lives would have been lost had it not been for the grimy-faced angels of the fire services.
22:05And their great British machines.
22:08Finally, in May 1941, when Hitler invaded Russia, the bombing stopped.
22:18The people of Britain were granted a reprieve and a chance to regroup.
22:24But U-boats were still blocking Atlantic supply lines and rationing was in full force.
22:31So while British men enlisted for the fight back, it was up to the 80,000 new recruits of the Women's Land Army to feed the nation.
22:44They would have to learn fast and work as effectively as possible, or Britain would starve.
22:52Thankfully, the Land Girls had a new best friend.
22:55A revolutionary farming machine that would prove easy to use and very efficient.
23:02The David Brown VAC 1.
23:06In the 1940s, these machines pioneered a new era for the tractor,
23:11which had always been very much a slow, lumbering workhorse.
23:15And the key to its success was David Brown's expertise with gears.
23:20The David Brown Company had been building precision gears since 1898 for everything from tanks to battleships.
23:32Now they wanted to start building their own machine, and they'd found an opportunity.
23:39No one, it seems, had ever asked the farmers what they wanted from a tractor.
23:44But David Brown's team did ask, and this is what they heard.
23:47More speed, please.
23:51And that's where that gearbox expertise came in.
23:54So here we have a standard car gearbox.
23:57Inside here we've got four forward gears and one reverse.
24:00Now, as this is a tractor, we have a three-speed low-ratio box, good for high-torque pulling power in the field.
24:07But this is the difference. Once you get out onto the road, this shorter lever here you can shift from low to high and double your speed.
24:17A brilliant innovation, and gearboxes like this with two ratio ranges are found in most modern tractors and 4x4s.
24:23It gave the VAC1 a top speed of 20 miles an hour, over double the speed of its rivals.
24:30Saving the land girls precious time getting to the fields before they even started work.
24:35So we are now ploughing, folks.
24:39And what I'm doing is I'm keeping the two offside wheels in the original furrow that I ploughed before.
24:50No broken nails so far.
24:54This is ploughing made easy.
24:57If I can handle it, so could the land girls.
25:00Great bit of fantastic old, purely solidly steel machinery.
25:07Shifting, god, magnificent.
25:11Then at the end of a row, another great feature of this machine.
25:15I can lock up the rear brakes for a kind of tractor hand brake turn.
25:20And before you know it, I'm ploughing the next row.
25:25I have to say it's a fantastic feeling. Shifting all this earth.
25:29Really good, earthy feeling.
25:32The all-new VAC1 helped the land girls grow the food that fed the nation.
25:38And soon, equipped with more new machines, we were ready to fight back.
25:46The first target was industrial Germany.
25:50Production of Hitler's high-tech war machine had to be slowed down.
25:54We had built some great long-range bombers, but they couldn't get the job done on their own.
25:59It's so running dark down there, I can't see a damn thing.
26:03Bastard clowns.
26:05By day, our bombers were shot out of the sky.
26:09By night, they couldn't see what they were bombing.
26:14In the early 40s, less than half of our bombs were falling in the right place.
26:19We had to get more accurate.
26:22So, once again, we turned to radar.
26:24Radar technology was developing fast, and it was shrinking.
26:31This tiny device had 100 times the power of the first chain home radar transmitters.
26:37It's called a cavity magnetron.
26:41This is a very cleverly designed valve which produced radio waves with a much shorter wavelength than any device before.
26:48Now radar could detect much smaller objects with something considerably smaller than a chain home radar station.
26:57In fact, so small you could fit it into an aircraft.
27:01A development without which modern aviation and shipping would grind to a halt.
27:05By 1943, Lancaster bombers were fitted with onboard radar units, called H2S.
27:12Inside, the operators saw an image of the ground ahead for up to 30 miles.
27:18Now, they could see in the dark.
27:22So here we are in our aircraft, right in the middle of this top screen.
27:26Our target is the southern tip of this landmass here, you can just see it being lit up there.
27:31And this straight line here represents our direction of flight, which as you can see, is right over the target.
27:40Now, by twisting these two dials under here, you can determine your altitude and your range, given by this circle here.
27:50And with all of this information, you can calculate exactly when to drop your bombs.
27:54By late 1943, guided by this great British invention, allied bombers were targeting the heart of Germany, Berlin.
28:03In winter, Berlin was often hidden beneath cloud cover.
28:07No longer a problem for British and American bomber crews.
28:11Thanks to H2S radar, they had a precise picture of their targets on the ground, day and night, whatever the weather.
28:18Bombs away!
28:19In the 1940s, while our bomber crews did their best to cripple German industry, back home our own factories were preparing for war on land.
28:32All sorts of civilian companies suddenly found themselves in the arms business.
28:36With some surprising successes, like British car builder Daimler, makers of this beautiful 1938 DB17.
28:52Daimler built luxury cars for the well-to-do and the upper classes, including the royal family.
28:57With luxury features like the pre-selector gearbox, a predecessor of the modern automatic gearbox.
29:04Choose your gear, press pedal to metal, it changes gear for you.
29:12Yes, this is one of the smoothest pre-selector changes I've ever used. Really good.
29:19But as the 30s came to an end, the demand for luxury had somewhat fallen off.
29:27In 1938, Daimler was the perhaps rather unlikely recipient of a government contract to build a totally new type of vehicle.
29:36It had to be fast, it had to be stealthy, it had to be armoured.
29:39But it also had to have superb go-anywhere off-road capability.
29:45And it had to be built from scratch in just one year.
29:49Impossible?
29:55And this is it. The Daimler Scout car, affectionately known as the Dingo.
30:00Is there a problem?
30:02I think we can let this chap through, Pearson. Back up.
30:09The Dingo has a reputation as one of the greatest reconnaissance vehicles ever built.
30:15It saw action from 1939 well into the 50s.
30:19Its modern descendants still patrol the world today.
30:22But its finest hour came in the aftermath of D-Day.
30:27Armoured vehicle expert, John Pearson, has joined me to explain more.
30:32It wasn't intended to fight. It was intended to sneak up, look, get the information back,
30:37so that the advancing army would know where the enemy were.
30:43Old-style scouts on horseback were no longer able to keep up with a modern, mobile, mechanised enemy.
30:50But the Dingo could.
30:53With war approaching fast, Daimler had rushed their design from drawing board to working prototype in less than 12 months.
31:00And yet, the Dingo achieved an amazing 60 miles an hour, on and off-road.
31:07Making light work of the odd bump, and gleefully wading through rivers.
31:13This fantastic performance was partly achieved with a massive 55 horsepower engine adapted from one of Daimler's luxury cars.
31:24But it also came down to some very pragmatic design decisions.
31:28As an armoured car, the Dingo has to trade, protecting its crew against speed and agility.
31:34The weight is kept down to roughly three tons, there's no turret, no roof, and a tactical approach to armour.
31:43Most of the armour is no more than 10mm thick steel plate, just about enough to protect against machine gun bullets.
31:49Where we're most vulnerable to attack is here at the front, which has much thicker 30mm armour.
31:57Which, in theory, is enough to stop a light anti-tank round.
32:01But, I don't think I want to be sitting in here when they tried that out.
32:06In June 1944, the Dingo faced its greatest test, in the aftermath of D-Day.
32:11Following the bloody carnage of the landings, the Allied invasion force found itself penned in against the Normandy coastline.
32:21It was up to the Reconnaissance Corps, the eyes and ears of the invasion force, to find a way through.
32:28On the 31st of July, a Dingo driven by trooper GB Bland, left on a risky recce mission.
32:36What could you see, Pearson?
32:39The diminutive Dingo was great for sneaking along narrow tracks and hiding in cover.
32:44But, as trooper Bland headed into hostile territory, there was a very real risk of contact with the enemy.
32:51So, as well as stealth, he needed firepower too.
32:55The Dingo was equipped with a Bren light machine gun, like this one.
32:59A British version of a Czech original.
33:01The British Bren gun was perfect for the Recce Corps, because it was light, simple to use and proved very reliable.
33:10And it could unleash 120 rounds a minute, with deadly accuracy.
33:15A skirmish with infantry was one thing, but the lightly armoured Dingo had to pick its fights.
33:23Do I see panzers before me, Pearson?
33:26Yes, definitely panzers, Pearson.
33:27Time to employ the secret weapon.
33:30Select first, engage, throw it in reverse.
33:35Pre-select third.
33:37And this time 60 miles an hour backwards.
33:41And we're going as fast backwards as we were forwards.
33:44Absolutely fantastic.
33:45All five gears in reverse.
33:48It's thanks to the same pre-selected gearbox as the luxury DB-17 I was driving earlier.
33:55Which means, as the troops said at the time, you can get out of trouble faster than you got into it.
34:01In his hunt for a route out of Normandy, Trooper Bland was now deep behind enemy lines.
34:09Hello, sir.
34:11Yes, enemy infantry spotted at crossroads one mile west, northwest of our position, sir.
34:17He had found an intact and lightly guarded bridge.
34:20Secure that bridge, Bland.
34:21Very good, sir.
34:22On our way, sir.
34:24Moving out, Pearson.
34:27Trooper Bland and his Dingo secured the bridge, the Allies' escape path from Normandy.
34:36The Dingo, a brilliantly improvised machine, rushed into production on the eve of war, was the mechanical hero of the hour.
34:47And the march to Berlin could begin.
34:51Well done, men. God save the king.
34:55The end was in sight.
34:58With grit, valour, ingenuity and inventiveness, the Allies had achieved the impossible.
35:04We turned the tide of war.
35:07But there was one great invention of the 1940s that took much longer to develop.
35:12It played only a minor role in the war, but it went on to change the world like no other machine of the decade.
35:19Even though it was based on an idea that, at first, must have sounded completely crazy.
35:25An engine that pushed you along using its own exhaust tube.
35:29And it was made possible, in no small measure, by the humble knife and fork.
35:35Surely only a fool could imagine such a thing replacing the mighty piston engine.
35:42So, when a young RAF test pilot told the British government that beauties like this 1800 horsepower Bristol Hercules had reached the end of the line,
35:52and that development money should be poured into his gas turbine engine,
35:55the government said in that way that governments so often do,
35:59Er, no.
36:00No.
36:04That test pilot was Frank Whittle.
36:07In 1930, aged just 23, he patented the gas turbine or jet engine.
36:13It was designed to produce incredibly high-pressure exhaust, with just one main moving part.
36:18The rotor.
36:19But to generate sufficient exhaust thrust to power an aircraft, the rotor had to spin at 16,000 revs per minute,
36:29enduring temperatures of 500 degrees Celsius.
36:32No chance with traditional materials.
36:35But Whittle believed he had just the material for the job,
36:39a newly developed relative of stay-bright cutlery steel.
36:42In 1939, just in time, the next generation of this came along, Rex 78,
36:50which could handle temperatures 100 degrees higher than any stainless steel around.
36:55Most top government advisers remained unconvinced.
36:59But Whittle did have supporters, including Hugh Dowding of Fighter Command,
37:04who was quite literally bowled over by Whittle's progress.
37:07During a test run, unable to be heard over the racket,
37:10Whittle pointed out the jet nozzle to Dowding as if to say,
37:14that's the business end.
37:16Oblivious, Dowding walked straight into the blast,
37:19and was instantly hurled across the floor.
37:22Point made, I think.
37:25In May 1941, Whittle's perseverance was finally rewarded
37:30as Britain's first jet aircraft took to the air,
37:33the Gloucester Pioneer.
37:34Which three years later evolved into the first jet fighter.
37:41And this is it, the wonderful Gloucester Meteor,
37:45a 500-mile-an-hour jet fighter.
37:47Its two Rolls-Royce jet engines were developed from Whittle's original designs
37:52and each produced over 3,500 pounds of thrust.
37:55Unfortunately, no two-seater models were built.
38:00So pilots couldn't actually be trained to fly this revolutionary aircraft.
38:06All the pilot got was this.
38:09Pilot's notes.
38:11The trimming controls are spongy in operation,
38:14and accurate trimming therefore demands great patience.
38:18Just what you want to know when you're hurtling towards the ground
38:20at over 400 miles an hour.
38:23As they got to grips with their meteors,
38:26these brave pilots pioneered the jet age.
38:29A whole new world of extreme speeds and g-forces,
38:33in which everything happens so much faster.
38:36And that includes things going wrong.
38:39So the Meteor was used to develop another great British machine,
38:44the ejector seat.
38:45A challenge that the Martin Baker company had been working on for some time.
38:51The challenge was to eject a man and his seat,
38:54combined weight of say 200kg,
38:56clear of the cockpit,
38:58in a target time of under 4 seconds.
39:00The simplest solution was to fire the chair vertically through the canopy
39:04like a giant bullet from a gun.
39:06BANG!
39:09Unfortunately, shooting 200kg fast enough required an explosive force
39:13that would subject the pilot to 300 times gravity.
39:18300g.
39:20In experiments, Martin Baker calculated the human spine could only handle a maximum of 21g.
39:28So they developed an ingenious solution that fired the ejector seat more gradually.
39:35Pull these two handles here, and the first charge here is triggered.
39:39BANG!
39:41And this gives you your initial push.
39:43The blast gas is passed down here to these other two charges.
39:47BANG! BANG!
39:48Which gets you up to full speed.
39:50And reduces the maximum g-force to 21g.
39:54But even with this gradual push,
39:57your spine could still be compressed by up to an inch and a half.
40:00BANG!
40:10This is 70-year-old ex-RAF pilot Stan Hodgkins,
40:14who's been flying meteors since 1988.
40:16So, here we are Stan at the Meteor.
40:20Back in the day, apart from speed,
40:22what were the main differences that pilots would have experienced going from props to jets?
40:26Oh, this is a beautiful ride.
40:28Taxing is like a Rolls-Royce.
40:30It's got a wonderful soft undercarriage,
40:32and the engines are remote from the cockpit,
40:35and you can hardly hear them.
40:36Today, Stan's taking to the skies in this stunning 1952 night-fighting meteor,
40:51to give me my own private jet fly-past.
41:06In August 1944, meteors finally saw action,
41:21against one of Hitler's super-weapons,
41:23the robotic V-1 flying bomb.
41:26The new high-speed jet fighters were the only British aircraft
41:30fast enough to catch up with the V-1,
41:32destroying 14 in the final stages of the war.
41:37In the 1940s, it must have looked totally insane.
41:40Where's the propeller?
41:53A fantastic machine.
41:56And this was just the beginning.
41:58Thanks to the Gloucester meteor,
42:00and Whittle's jet engines,
42:02Britain would soon lead the world into the jet age.
42:04More than any other invention of the 1940s,
42:08this machine changed the way we live today.
42:14On the 8th of May 1945, Britain celebrated victory in Europe.
42:20There was dancing in the streets.
42:22The process of rebuilding Britain and rebuilding lives began.
42:26There was a spirit of fun and adventure in the air.
42:29And even Britain's engineers were getting in the mood.
42:34In 1947, David Brown, with his tractors selling well,
42:39saw an advert in the Times for a struggling high-class motor business.
42:43Agnes, love, get me the bank manager on the phone, will you, dear?
42:48Right.
42:50And so he decided, in his own words, to have a bit of fun.
42:55And splashed out £20,000 to buy the company.
42:59So what was the name of the clapped-out car manufacturer?
43:03It was none other than Aston Martin.
43:07This was the prototype sports car he inherited,
43:11and gave his initials to the David Brown, or DB1.
43:15Unfortunately, it wasn't much cop.
43:17It was underpowered, overpriced, and, at least in its standard four-seater form,
43:24too slow to win any races.
43:28Agnes, love.
43:30So DB called the bank manager again.
43:34Ah, now this looks a bit more like it.
43:37The DB2.
43:39Oh, yeah, it's lusty.
43:42Lusty, lusty, lusty lady, this one, woof.
43:48But the DB2's performance didn't come cheap.
43:52In fact, to achieve it, David Brown had to spend a lot more money.
43:57Brown had heard that the legendary W.O. Bentley
44:01had recently designed a new engine for a company called Lagonda.
44:05Bentley's design produced more power without the need for a bigger engine.
44:10Thanks to its double overhead camshafts.
44:13Here we have a camshaft.
44:15Now, as this spins, these cams here open and close the engine valves,
44:22allowing the fuel-air mixture in and the exhaust gases out.
44:26In W.O. Bentley's Lagonda engine, there were two camshafts.
44:31One under here, opening and closing the inlet valves, allowing the fuel-air mixture in,
44:36and one under here, opening and closing the exhaust valves, allowing the exhaust gases out.
44:43With this setup, the engine can breathe more freely, which boosts power and performance.
44:48David Brown was so impressed with the Lagonda engine, he bought the whole company.
44:56Together with an improved chassis and, of course, a top-notch gearbox, the engine gave Brown what he wanted most.
45:03A ferocious top speed approaching 120 miles an hour. Very fast for 1949.
45:11It pulls nicely for about 1300 RPM, which is good.
45:15And, of course, this is a racing car, so we've got lots of rattles and tattles around the place.
45:22Because it is built really for one thing, and that's going that way quickly.
45:26You know, this is built for business.
45:27Straight line speed was exactly what Brown needed to relaunch his new company on the world stage.
45:36At the world's greatest race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
45:41At the third attempt in 1951, Aston Martin DB2s took first, second and third in class.
45:49And a few years later, the DBR1 took overall honours.
45:53The Aston Martin was no longer a struggling high-class motor company, but a world leading mark.
46:01And the transformation was complete when it inspired one of the great writers of the generation.
46:07Ian Fleming made the Aston Martin the ultimate aspirational car for every go-getting, action-loving gentleman.
46:19Ejector seat, you're joking.
46:21I never joke about my work 007.
46:25Great, ambitious engineering, and an amazing success story.
46:30Like so many of the great machines of the 1940s, built from a stubborn refusal to give up.
46:37Thanks to the spirit of those times, as well as some of the world's best sports cars, we soon had a modern fire service.
46:44Air-sea rescue, mechanised farming, and aircraft that could travel around the world using radar to know exactly where they're going.
46:55And more often than not, delivering passengers rather than bombs.
46:59Because the 1940s was the mother, not just of invention, but of the modern world.
47:06The modern world.
47:07The modern world.
47:08The modern world.
47:09The modern world.
47:10The modern world.
47:11The modern world.
47:12The modern world.
47:13The modern world.
47:14The modern world.
47:15The modern world.
47:16The modern world.
47:17The modern world.
47:18The modern world.
47:19The modern world.
47:20The modern world.
47:21The modern world.
47:22The modern world.
47:23The modern world.
47:24The modern world.
47:25The modern world.
47:26The modern world.
47:27The modern world.
47:28The modern world.
47:29The modern world.
47:30The modern world.
47:31The modern world.
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