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00:00May the 26th, 1940.
00:30Along roads lined with their smashed and abandoned equipment, British and French armies retreat
00:36to the only channel port still open to them, Dunkirk.
00:41Ten miles away along the channel coast, German armour awaits Hitler's orders to attack.
00:49On the Dunkirk beaches, nearly half a million men, British and French, face surrender, or
00:56the slim chance of rescue by ships from England.
01:26The End
01:33The End
01:35The End
01:41There were masses of troops, and they came down in a sort of a V shape to a crocodile
02:03semi-single file as they got near the water's edge.
02:07Of course, many of these soldiers were going out up to their necks in water and climbing
02:12into, say, minesweepers that could get in nearly as close as that.
02:16Others, of course, on the beach were embarking in the small boats.
02:20But there didn't seem to be any panic or worry at all.
02:23One came across lots of these small boats, many of them with perhaps even a dozen or so
02:29soldiers on board heading back for England resolutely.
02:33One quite often offered to take their crews of soldiers off them so that they could go
02:38back for another load.
02:39And they said, no fear, we've got our twelve Pongos and we're going back to England with
02:43them.
02:44You go and get your own.
02:46The beach was, well, you could say thousands of men being on Margate Beach on a bank holiday.
02:53The troops were in a pretty bad state.
02:56They were in a bad way.
02:58There was one man special, I shall always remember.
03:01He came on board.
03:02He had his teeth blown out.
03:04And he was holding a rifle with a fixed bayonet.
03:07And we had to take all the arms away from him.
03:09We couldn't shift this gun out of this man's, this rifle out of this man's hands.
03:13His hands was actually gripped this and they was fixture.
03:17Our chap was on a beach and then he gets aboard a ship and he thinks he's safe.
03:22But they really did think this.
03:24They said, whoa, England home of beauty, let us get there forever.
03:29We were most impressed and they were very tired and most of them just slumped down and
03:33went to sleep there.
03:37Our job was to stop enemy aircraft getting at those troops.
03:41Because, believe me, if enemy aircraft had got superiority of the air at Dunkirk,
03:46they would have massacred those fellows on the beach.
03:48Nothing could have been done.
03:49They had no guns.
03:50They had no anti-aircraft.
03:52And German bombers and German dive bombers, the Stukas, would have just murdered them.
03:59And we couldn't have got those troops off.
04:01Another thing the Germans tried to do, of course, was to sic the ships.
04:05They knew that the fellows would not be and couldn't swim out to England.
04:09Therefore, they had to try and get on the ships.
04:11And if they could sic these ships, then the British army would have been trapped.
04:14The RAF tried to keep the German air force away from the beaches.
04:24But six destroyers and over 200 craft were sunk.
04:29The fighter command had lost nearly half its strength in the French campaign.
04:36A hundred planes and the Dunkirk operations alone.
04:41Dunkirk was a major defeat.
04:44But the inspired efforts of the Royal Navy and the little ships saved 330,000 British and French troops.
05:01For a week, the weather was fine.
05:04And the German army was held off.
05:07I really and truly don't think they thought they'd ever get them off.
05:10That's my opinion.
05:12But it was an act of God that they did.
05:15The weather was good.
05:16The sea was like a mill pond.
05:18And this was a great help to everybody.
05:21If it had been rough water, you would have never got them off at Dunkirk.
05:25Because when those rollers go up their beach, they go.
05:28At any moment, a breakthrough by the German army could have stopped the whole operation.
05:35I don't think, despite the valiant endeavours of the British and French troops who were keeping the Germans back,
05:43they could have stopped the might of the German armour getting through if Hitler had so wanted to do it.
05:51What was left of Dunkirk surrendered on June the 4th.
05:55Thousands of troops could not be rescued.
06:01A fortnight later, France stopped fighting.
06:04And the British Prime Minister, Churchill, broadcast to the world.
06:07What General Weigand has called the Battle of France is over.
06:12The Battle of Britain is about to begin.
06:16Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
06:23If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed.
06:28And the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands.
06:34But if we fail, then the whole world will sink into the abyss of a new dark age.
06:44Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty.
06:49And so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years,
06:58men will still say,
07:02this was their finest hour.
07:21Britain prepared to face immediate invasion.
07:23A new evacuation of children began from the south and east coast areas where a German landing might be expected.
07:34Some parents sent their children overseas to safety.
07:37But this was stopped in September when a U-Burge sank a British liner with 90 children on board.
07:42A guard against invasion, over a million men not required by the regular forces volunteered to form the Home Guard.
07:57They drilled with broomsticks because there were no rifles to spare, and rehearsed bloodthirsty defences against a German attack.
08:16The regular army's training seems to have impressed the newsreaders.
08:40The one-time foot-sloggers have turned kick-starter pushers.
08:44Shanks' pony has given way to a spanking motorbike.
08:48The left-right, left-right blokes have got both feet off the ground at the same time.
08:53They're part of Britain's mighty mobile mounties.
08:57All keen welcomeers of Adolf when he drops in for a cup of tea and a cream bun.
09:02A battalion of infantry on wheels is at exercise.
09:05A swift-moving, striking force that would do the enemy a bit of no good.
09:09And they learn to take the rough with the smooth, under conditions they might meet with on active service.
09:13Up and down they go, but unlike the Huns, they're always on the level.
09:21The army had brought back their rifles from Dunkirk, but almost everything else had been abandoned in France.
09:28In June, the only fully equipped division in Britain was Canadian.
09:32I remember in June, going down to the south-east corner of Britain, where General Thorne was in command.
09:41That's to say, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, that sort of area.
09:44Certainly a possible landing area for the Germans if they were going to attempt it.
09:49And I remember sending a memorandum to Winston, which must be somewhere in his papers.
09:53So I remember, right, I said something like this.
09:55The troops were in very good heart and that they were very well trained and so forth.
10:00But, of course, there is no anti-tank weapon of any kind, no anti-tank gun, and no tanks.
10:09That was in the area where, if the Germans were going to land, they might very well be expected to land.
10:15That was the state of the combat. It was bare.
10:17The King practised marksmanship and rejoiced that Britain stood alone with no more allies to pamper.
10:22The head of fighter command, Sir Hugh Dowding, agreed.
10:26He had lost too many planes helping the French.
10:32Station names and signposts were removed to baffle invading Germans.
10:36The effect was to baffle British travellers.
10:39Anti-tank barriers made sure the Germans wouldn't have an easy passage if they advanced along the railways.
10:45In the invasion areas, the countryside disappeared under coils of barbed wire.
10:56The breaches too were wired to below low water mark.
11:00J.B. Priestley remembers a visit to the seaside.
11:03I went down one hot summer day, late summer, to one of the seaside resorts on the camp coast.
11:15The last time I visited it, packed out the beaches up some cramp and all the fun of the fair going on.
11:21Then to see it in this strange, bright, empty day.
11:28The beaches deserted, lot of barbed wire all over the place.
11:34I felt then that, in a way, this was a kind of symbol of what people felt.
11:39And that they were ready to abandon this for the time being, in order to get on with the war.
11:51Churchill was everywhere.
11:53No longer a suspect politician, but the living embodiment of the British will to resist.
11:58It was a situation he seemed to revel in,
12:01describing for colleagues a vivid picture of himself leading a last man defence of a devastated Whitehall.
12:06Immediately Churchill became Prime Minister, the pace in Whitehall changed.
12:12People started not merely to think fast, but to act fast.
12:16Distinguished civil servants could be seen running down the passages.
12:20Churchill himself was physically very energetic.
12:24He would suddenly make the most extraordinary and energetic sorties.
12:28He would inspect troops, marching at great speed down the ranks and outpacing all the younger men who were following him.
12:33I remember one evening he said that he must go in and inspect some new works.
12:39And although he was 65 years old, he vaulted over a brick wall and landed feet first in a pool of liquid cement.
12:48And with an impertinence, which in retrospect I'm surprised at, I said to him,
12:52Well, I think you've met your Waterloo, because he was stuck in the cement.
12:56And he turned to me and said, How dare you?
12:59Anyhow, my Blenheim.
13:00In the arms factories, men and women worked long hours to fill the gaps in British defences.
13:10Production reached a peak in June, then fell as workers tired.
13:14But the spurt lasted through the critical time.
13:19Production of fighter planes doubled.
13:21A hundred new Spitfires and Hurricanes a week replenished Dowding's forces.
13:25The new minister of aircraft production, Lord Beaverbrook, took care to make ordinary people feel part of the production battle.
13:33My father was a master of propaganda.
13:36There was a pots and pans, where everyone was asked to give up pots and pans and railings.
13:43And Stanley Baldwin didn't give up his gates, but most people gave up everything they could in the way of metal.
13:48The pilots and we all knew that you couldn't make aircraft out of pots and pans, but it was good stuff.
13:55It brought the people to realize that it was a desperate situation.
13:59The response to the pots and pans was tremendous.
14:01They had piles and piles of pots and pans, not knowing what to do with it.
14:05But as I say, he was a great propagandist.
14:08But where was the German invasion?
14:11In June 1940, Hitler had not begun to think about invading Britain.
14:23He was busy celebrating his French victory and expected Britain, like France, to make peace.
14:28Berlin gave him a hero's welcome when he returned there on July the 6th with Admiral Rader and his other commanders-in-chief.
14:35Only the German Navy seemed to have plans for an invasion.
14:38By the time Hitler began to take an interest in them, the army had its own plans and was critical of the navies.
14:45Both looked to Goering, the Luftwaffe chief, to win control of the air, vital for an invasion.
14:53And Goering believed the Luftwaffe on its own could knock out Britain.
14:58Arguments between the services went on for months.
15:01The army at first wanted to land forty divisions on a wide front between Ramsgate and Lime Bay,
15:09and press onto a line from Malden and Essex to the seven estuaries sealing off London.
15:14This was later scaled down to a landing by nine divisions between Folkestone and Brighton,
15:20supported by two airborne divisions, about 200,000 men in all.
15:23By September, Britain had overcome her earlier weakness and had sixteen divisions available in the south-east.
15:35An invasion fleet drawn from all parts of Germany was assembled in northern ports.
15:40The landing craft were built and boats converted to carry troops and amphibious tanks.
15:52The army thought the fleet too small.
15:54The Navy thought even that size fleet difficult to protect.
15:58Both agreed that air supremacist vital.
16:00The invasion, codenamed Operation Sea Lion, was set for mid-September.
16:05The plans did not impress the Luftwaffe on whom everything depended.
16:09In my opinion, the plan was not serious.
16:14Especially the Navy didn't want to have the responsibility.
16:20And the Navy has asked the Air Force first at all to establish the absolute air superiority over the invasion area.
16:34And the preparations the Navy did were not very convincing.
16:39Also, our preparation, my wings especially, was
16:43We were destined to be one of the two wings to be transferred to England.
16:49And our preparations were about ridiculous.
16:53The Air Force was not trained and prepared to conduct an independent air war over England.
17:01As the invasion fleet assembled, the Luftwaffe's first targets were merchant convoys and harbors.
17:20Particularly in the narrow seas of the Channel.
17:24Dover became known as Hellfire Corner.
17:26There was always something for the newsreel camera or the news reporter.
17:30For instance, Charles Gardner of the BBC.
17:35Now the Germans are dive bombing a convoy out into sea.
17:40There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
17:42There's one going down on his target now.
17:47No, missed the ships.
17:48He hasn't hit a single ship.
17:49There are about ten ships in the convoy.
17:52But he hasn't hit a single one.
17:53Here they come.
17:54They come in.
17:55Absolute deep dive.
17:56You can see that bomb is actually leaving the machines and coming to water.
17:59You can hear our own guns going like anything now.
18:02There's a spike going on.
18:03You can hear the little rattles of the machine gun bullets.
18:07That was a bomb, as you may imagine.
18:10There's another bomb dropping.
18:14Yes, it's dropped.
18:15Oh, missed the convoy.
18:16No, they haven't hit the convoy in all this.
18:18What?
18:19What?
18:20What?
18:21Yes, oh, we just hit a Messerschmitt.
18:22Oh, that was beautiful.
18:23He's coming right down now.
18:24I think definitely that was the first attempt.
18:29Absolute steep dive.
18:30Can I just move around so I can watch him a bit more?
18:32Here he comes.
18:34He's going slapping to the sea, and there he goes.
18:37Oh, boy, I've never seen anything so good as this.
18:40The RAF fighters have really got these boys today.
18:43The convoy system was disrupted, and harbours like Dover were badly hit.
18:51But while the town suffered casualties,
18:53Dowding had not yet been forced to commit his full fighter strength.
18:58The unique thing about Fighter Command
19:00was that when war broke out in September 1939,
19:04we had there a system covering the entire country
19:08for air defence.
19:11And that system was based on a radar,
19:14or as we used to call it in those days, RDF.
19:17And we had this chain of radar stations around the coast,
19:20and they were looking out up to 100 miles.
19:23And they were feeding on landlines
19:25all the information to the headquarters of Fighter Command.
19:30Our radar really won the Battle of Britain.
19:32And we had to do it.
19:33Because without it, we would have been doing standing patrols,
19:37and with a limited number of aircraft
19:39and a limited number of pilots,
19:41you couldn't have done it.
19:43As it was, we could wait on the ground,
19:46and then radar would watch,
19:49and through the various controls,
19:52we would be told to take off at a time
19:54when the Germans were massing over Calais or over Abil.
19:57And so, therefore, we wasted no petrol, no time, no energy.
20:04In fact, we could sleep in between patrols,
20:08and then we'd take off,
20:09and we would be directed towards the German formation,
20:13given height, distance, and their numbers,
20:16which is very important.
20:20On August the 13th, Goering changed his tactics.
20:22He ordered an attack against radar stations and fighter airfields,
20:27which Fighter Command was bound to defend.
20:32While German bombers blitzed airfields that defended London
20:35and South-Eastern England,
20:37their escorting fighters would deal with the British fighters
20:39that came up to attack the bombers.
20:41fighting over England put the Luftwaffe at a disadvantage.
20:43It was expected, but not equipped,
20:44to attack the bombers.
20:45to win a decisive battle among them.
20:47It was expected, but not equipped,
20:48to win a decisive battle among them.
20:49It was expected, but not equipped,
20:50to win a decisive battle among them.
20:51The German bombers were not designed to carry a heavy enough bomb.
20:54The German fighters were not only to carry a heavy enough bomb,
20:56which had a decisive battle among them.
20:57fighting over england put the luftwaffe at a disadvantage it was expected but not equipped
21:10to win a decisive battle the german bombers were not designed to carry a heavy enough bomb
21:19the german fighters carried only enough fuel to stay over england for half an hour whereas the
21:25british fighters close to their bases could land and refuel quickly enough to rejoin the battle
21:30our range was very very limited and we could only cover a small part of the british islands
21:40including london but over london as an example we could only stay for 10 minutes
21:47to come back to our bases
21:49so this limited range of our fighters in the escort has been perhaps the
22:00main point
22:04which avoided an effective air offensive against britain
22:11luftwaffe intelligence misled its pilots about the damage done to british airfields in the first
22:17assault they claimed eight had been virtually destroyed in fact none had been knocked out
22:23and those damaged were quickly patched up again the german pilots faced by resistance they hadn't
22:29expected became pessimistic about winning the battle we fighting crews were convinced that we
22:36couldn't win the battle and we couldn't force england to surrender by attacking without any operation from
22:48the part of the army or the navy therefore we were asking that the high command should order the invasion
22:58the sea lion
23:02a mere 1400 british fighter pilots and their ground crews stood between britain and invasion
23:08their responsibility was great too great perhaps to bear thinking about
23:13the face they showed the world was dashing and carefree
23:16i think they took the situation not the least bit seriously from the point of view of their lives generally
23:23and fellows would just kick a ball around or lie around some would sleep
23:28read paperbacks listen to the radio and that was our life
23:35i wanted to shoot an aeroplane down but i didn't want to shoot a german down i really did not
23:47we did hear stories of germans shooting our fellows in in parachutes and we used to think that was pretty
23:55horrible but we weren't sure whether it was true or not
23:59i know i had an experience of uh of a german aircrew getting draped over my own wing
24:06he bailed out of a bomber and uh got caught on my wing with his parachute
24:11and i was jolly careful to get him off as easily and as quickly as i could by
24:17yawing the aeroplane and shaking him off i'd say there was no chivalry at all
24:21mean between the german air force and the british i'd say absolutely none
24:24not as far as i was concerned i hated them
24:26they were trying to do something to us they were trying to enslave us
24:30the climax of the battle came at the end of august and at the first week in september
24:58upon the result depended hitler's decision to launch his invasion
25:03but the air battle itself was between a comparative handful of individuals on either side
25:08the fights were rather extraordinary in a way because although there were a lot of aircraft about
25:25suddenly when you were fighting a particular man the sky became empty
25:30i don't think anyone ever considered that he would be killed death was something which was just put at the back of your mind
25:45if it was not then you'd have just got the jitters about it and been very worried
25:50if a fellow did go missing it was just poor old so and so he's had it and that was that
25:57inwardly of course you'd feel it tremendously if you lost a pal
26:04but you didn't uh you didn't dwell on the subject of death at all
26:09sometimes you could tell a fellow was going to get killed yes you could
26:13he sort of lost it you know
26:16my greatest friend was killed he was shooting down or shooting at a messerschmitt
26:21and there was another messerschmitt hit him from behind and that was all i was shouting at him and you couldn't do anything
26:26and you saw him go in uh that affected you but you had to get on with it
26:33your friends affect you deeply terrible but you couldn't help it
26:41in the last week of august and the first week of september
26:44103 of fighter command's pilots died
26:48128 were seriously wounded
26:53six key airfields in the southeast were put out of action for days at a time
26:58against the fire of german fighters and bombers britain was now losing fighters even faster than germany
27:03nearly 500 in two weeks
27:07the last week in august the first week in september those two weeks
27:12were the worst for us because by that last week in august
27:17the germans have been pounding the airfields mercilessly
27:22and the 31st of august was
27:25probably our worst day
27:27fighter command was
27:29very nearly on its knees
27:31and dowding was very conscious of that
27:33and this was what was worrying him
27:35this constant pounding of the airfields
27:37and he was wondering how much longer
27:39he could hold out
27:41when i say he
27:42i mean fighter command
27:44because he was still having to face that big problem of denying the germans
27:48air superiority and yet here they were knocking the airfields to pieces
27:52with the threat of knocking out fighter command
27:55on the 6th of september
27:57the king and queen visited fighter command
27:59and there were quite a few people
28:01who commented
28:03on how tired dowdy appeared to be
28:06the day after
28:08the 7th of september
28:10when an invasion alert
28:12was issued
28:14invasion imminent
28:16and all that day things were remarkably quiet
28:19and all of us were beginning to wonder what the devil was going to happen next
28:23and then later afternoon
28:25the germans launched
28:27what many of the pilots who in the air having to face this onslaught
28:32found to be just about the heaviest attack they'd ever known
28:36and then came what
28:37dowding later described as the miracle
28:40the attack didn't go to the airfields
28:43it went to london
28:44and the airfields were spared
28:46five minutes to five
28:49the sirens went
28:51walking out onto the veranda
28:53my veranda
28:54looking down the river
28:56the sky was full of planes
28:59within
29:00a couple of minutes
29:02the bombs started dropping
29:03in the middle of all dock
29:05and I could watch them
29:07and that's how it went on
29:08for an unconsiderable time
29:10on that first Saturday
29:12they practically obliterated
29:14from the Silvertown Way
29:16to Silvertown
29:18as a matter of fact
29:19the whole of the tidal basin
29:21custom house
29:22right up to Silvertown
29:23was obliterated
29:24make no mistake about it
29:26if it had continued that type of bombing
29:29in the daylight
29:31we'd resent everything of consequence
29:35shipyards
29:37gas works
29:39oil farms
29:41everything of consequence
29:43nearly all the bombs are dropping in the
29:45in the proper target area
29:48that night
29:49250 bombers returned
29:51the burning docks and warehouses
29:53an unmistakable marker
29:54but Goering's change of tactics
29:56relieved the pressure
30:03height of command regrouped
30:05london
30:07london
30:08london
30:09london
30:10london
30:12After the raid on September the 7th,
30:35many rescue workers and firemen worked 40 hours non-stop.
30:39Most of us had the wind up to start with, one of them said.
30:42But you looked around and saw the rest doing their job.
31:06On September the 15th, the Luftwaffe mounted another major daylight attack,
31:10expecting no opposition, but this time the Spitfires and Hurrikans were waiting for them.
31:15I'm sorry.
31:16I'm sorry.
31:17I'm sorry.
31:18I'm sorry.
31:20Oh, my God.
31:50On that day, September the 15th, 56 German planes were shot down.
32:16Britain had retained command of the air by day.
32:20The Royal Air Force had won the Battle of Britain.
32:27September 1940.
32:41Now there were no more daylight raids and there could be no invasion before the spring.
32:48But Britain's cities became targets for the night bombers.
32:53For 76 nights in succession, London was bombed.
32:57Queuing for shelter at dusk became an orderly ritual.
33:00The evening alert, the dawn all clear, part of Londoners' lives.
33:07Oh, my God.
33:16Oh, my God.
33:25Oh, yeah.
33:26Oh, yeah.
33:27Oh, yeah.
34:28And the next one, I'd go, miss my house.
34:30And that used to go on all night.
34:32Well, about 10th, I said to my wife and my in-laws, well, I'll be off now.
34:37And I just walked out the door, lovely big three-floor houses they were.
34:42And I just walked up Approach Road about 20 yards from the church, which was our post.
34:48And so there was nothing.
34:51I heard nothing.
34:53And I've talked to this to people afterwards.
34:56And the bomb that hit them, they never heard.
34:59Now, I wonder if the people who are sitting here now had that same experience.
35:02The bomb that hit you, you never heard.
35:05And I fell flat on my face.
35:07I picked myself up.
35:09I turned around.
35:10All I could see was just a grey curtain hanging down in the middle of a wide road,
35:15about twice as wide as this pub.
35:17It was just a brownish grey curtain hanging there.
35:20All I could see was just a grey curtain hanging down in the middle of a wide road.
35:50No matter what shelter you went in, there was always someone there
35:58who would provide the entertainment to sort of take away the strain.
36:04The underground stations, it was decided, must not be used as shelters.
36:09But people simply took them over, and the authorities had to accept the fact.
36:15Well, we was all singing.
36:16We was all happy, just like there was no war at all.
36:19There was a canteen there, and I used to sing as well for the people
36:22and cheer all the people up when the bombs were going.
36:25Until one night, it was very vain.
36:27I was just under the seat and praying for the big guns to start.
36:34I was talking to a gunnery sergeant who had actually been stationed in Hyde Park.
36:40And he told us without hesitation.
36:42And he cried when he told us.
36:45He said, believe me, he said, when we were sent into London,
36:47we simply elevated our guns to its maximum and fired.
36:51And we knew that every shell we was pumping up had no chance of hitting a plane.
36:56But he said, by God, he said, don't tell me he didn't give you courage.
36:58And there's not a person sitting around this table, I think, can say that he didn't.
37:03Once they heard those guns, I said, good, we've got them now.
37:06But they only knew that it was the morale.
37:10And that's all it did to them.
37:11But the bombs themselves, I mean, they just had to come down.
37:14They'd make the stuff.
37:15The 76 mornings, rescue squads dug through rubble searching for survivors.
37:33A bomb dropped on a block of flats about four storeys.
37:37And it took the whole front out.
37:40And they said, there's an old chap up there, he won't go in the shelter.
37:43So we go up, and when we got up there, there's an old chap there snoring his head off.
37:48There were about 20 empty bottles around his bed.
37:50And the bed's nearly out in the street.
37:53And he never woke up then.
38:00We saw this dear old lady sort of staggering around.
38:03And we said, come on, we'd have to come out.
38:06And she came out, and all she got on was just half of what should have been a nightdress.
38:11And I said, no, you'll have to put something on, make yourself a bit decent.
38:16And she was about 80, but she was completely in the daze.
38:20And she said, oh, I'll go in and get something.
38:22And she came out, she got her hat on.
38:23People somehow got to work through a nightmare of upended buses, cratered roads, bombed railways.
38:39London calling in the overseas service.
38:41Radio reporters told America and the world that London could take it.
38:45The spirit of Londoners won sympathy and help, but the United States remained neutral.
38:53While Britain stood alone from September 1940 to May 1941, 40,000 people were killed in raids, half of them Londoners.
39:04Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless, eating, living, sleeping in rest centres.
39:09Clothing and everything else had vanished with their home, but not morale.
39:17To be clean, you couldn't very well say, well, I'm going to have a bath today.
39:21Because she was afraid the warning would go halfway through it.
39:25So you'd have a bowl of water and have a wash and perhaps get your neck done and run and take all your things in the shelter.
39:33Finish your bath perhaps the next day.
39:35Never actually have a bath properly.
39:37Step in and step out.
39:38Get used to it.
39:40You can get used to anything.
39:42It was not an uncommon sight to see.
39:45No windows, but plenty of spirit.
39:49Or, sorry we've got no front door.
39:52Don't trouble the door.
39:53Come straight in.
39:54And you see these funny little notices put up outside the door.
39:57This was the sort of thing that really made you think that there was something in it.
40:01And the more you saw it, the more you felt encouraged to be able to go out.
40:06And you knew that once you'd gone out to go on to a job and your family were left behind, you always felt that somehow, all right, well, the Joneses or the Smiths up the road, if anything happens at the time, they'll look after them.
40:19Factories went on working by night as well as by day.
40:27But night workers were constantly interrupted by raids.
40:31There was no real defence against German bombing at night.
40:37Fighter command's helplessness worried its chief, Dowdy.
40:41I once went down to Red Hill with him when bombers were coming over London and that was a squadron down there, commanded by a fellow called Jimmy Little.
40:49And he said to me on the car going down, he said, you know, Max, I hold my head in my hand at the horrible sword of all the little people being bombed and I cannot do anything about it.
41:02To the relief of the authorities, Buckingham Palace was bombed as well as East London.
41:07Now it could be seen that King, Queen and people were all in it together.
41:14King George and Queen Elizabeth won respect by their tours of the blitzed areas.
41:19They had come to the throne in the shattering circumstance of the Duke of Windsor's abdication.
41:24Now, for the first time, they emerged as popular figures in their own right.
41:32Churchill, too, with bustling exuberance, persuaded most political opponents to forget his past.
41:38The average East Londoner couldn't have cared tuppence for Winston Churchill as a man or politician.
41:44But the man who filled up Chamberlain's place, he was a leader.
41:49There's no doubt about it. He was a leader.
41:51And I think every time he opened his mouth, he inspired confidence into the people.
41:55Whether they accepted him as a conservative, but he was there.
42:00He was for them and he was against the common enemy.
42:03But sometimes he got a mixed reception.
42:09I can remember just off of Green Street, an avenue there, where Churchill came down there.
42:15And there was a devil of a great crater as big as this pub.
42:18And there were crowds of women there trying to get out their bits and pieces out of the shattered houses.
42:24And Churchill, after having a look round, he said,
42:28We can take it.
42:29And the women told him what they could take, in no unmistakable manner, you believe me.
42:34And they said that we're the ones that have taken it, mister.
42:38You're out of the way.
42:39December the 29th, 1940.
42:53German planes scattering incendiary bombs set the city of London ablaze.
42:59There were 1,500 fires in and around the city.
43:03St. Paul's Cathedral was surrounded by fire.
43:06You could see the fire, London.
43:14You could stay 60 miles away.
43:16You couldn't see the fire.
43:24That night when the fires were burning, I was in a shelter and it was burning above me.
43:28And we all had to get out.
43:30And we were, wasn't panicking a bit.
43:32And we had to run from the middle of the turn to the top of the commercial road in the factory.
43:38They had the shelter down below in the basement.
43:40And as we were running along, it was all fires all burning.
43:44I could feel the hot on the floor.
43:46The paddles were hot.
43:48And when we got into the shelter, we stood all night sleeping on each other's shoulders.
43:52I stood all night sleeping on somebody else's shoulder.
43:54Eventually, we used so much water, we'd run out of it.
44:06And there we stood, letting the fires burn.
44:10And we couldn't do nothing about it.
44:11The heart of the city of London was destroyed, but St. Paul's survived.
44:28Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, Swansea, Liverpool and many more shared London's ordeal.
44:33All were within reach of the German air force with bases in France and the Low Countries.
44:38It was more difficult for British bombers to reach German cities.
44:42The government looked anxiously round for some other way of carrying the war to the enemy.
44:47We decided the only place where we could fight them was the desert, North African desert, the Middle East theater generally.
44:58There was nowhere else.
44:59We couldn't hope to make a landing in France in any foreseeable future.
45:05Therefore, couldn't injure the Germans that way.
45:07So the two alternatives, the two possibles were bombing.
45:10They weren't alternatives.
45:11Two possibles were bombing and fighting in the Middle East.
45:16And that is why, from those very early days, we began to push, agitate, ask for more armor in the Middle East.
45:26We had to take the armor out of the line here, out of the defense of Britain.
45:30There was no other way of doing it.
45:34On December the 10th, 1940, two Commonwealth divisions of General Wavell's command attacked the big Italian army in North Africa.
45:42Slightly to their own surprise, they advanced with great speed.
45:51Fortress after fortress was taken.
45:53A hundred thousand prisoners were captured.
45:55Now there seemed to be a chance to get to the main enemy, Germany, through Yugoslavia and Greece.
46:03We did think that if it were possible to bring certain Balkan countries into conflict with Hitler,
46:14that the consequences of that might be really unforeseeable.
46:20Couldn't tell what the result could be.
46:22The view of the war cabinet and the defense committee at home was that we should,
46:29if the Greeks were going to defend themselves against the Germans,
46:32we should bring them what help we could.
46:34And Dildon and I were sent out, after Wavell's victories, to Cairo, to look into this business.
46:42Well, when we got there, Wavell said,
46:44Now, I hope you won't mind what I'm going to say.
46:47I didn't think I ought to waste time.
46:50And I'd begun the movement of troops and the concentration to enable us to go to Greece.
46:55The Commonwealth landing in Greece was meant to forestall a German attack.
47:00To many Greeks, it seemed likely to hasten it.
47:02They had held their own against the Italians,
47:06but when the Germans attacked on April the 6th, 1941,
47:09Greece was overwhelmed in three weeks.
47:12So was Yugoslavia, which had joined their allies.
47:1550,000 Commonwealth troops were evacuated.
47:19One has to admit that we didn't obtain the objectives we'd hoped for.
47:27We weren't able to conduct, with the help of the Yugoslavs,
47:32any effective campaign in the Balkans.
47:36Turkey, it is true, remained a defensive pad.
47:40But we lost Greece, and lost many men, brave men,
47:44and more were captured.
47:47So in that sense, the Berl-Nushti was much against us.
47:50And it was a depressing time.
47:53No question of that.
47:55By May 1941, Germany and her allies controlled most of continental Europe.
48:02And in North Africa, a small German force under Rommel
48:05had recaptured nearly all the British gains.
48:08The British tried to hold Crete as a naval base.
48:11With complete command of the air,
48:19the Germans attacked Crete with 16,000 parachutists,
48:23the first large-scale airborne assault in the history of warfare.
48:29In spite of heavy losses,
48:31they gained a foothold on a vital airfield, Malimi,
48:34which meant that more troops could be flown in.
48:36Supported by intensive bombing,
48:59the Germans were able to advance against a bigger Commonwealth force.
49:03Once again, air power won the battle.
49:08Commonwealth losses, 13,000 killed, wounded, or captured,
49:11and another evacuation to add to the list of Norway, France, Greece.
49:16The British people wondered how much more they would have to take.
49:21Churchill thought it important that Crete should be held at all cost.
49:25If we lost Crete, we lost our base in the eastern Mediterranean,
49:29our naval base and our air base.
49:30And he kept on telegraphing to Wavell,
49:34saying, surely you can spare just a dozen tanks
49:39for the defence of Malimi airfield,
49:42which was the chief airfield in Crete,
49:44against German paratroops.
49:47And Wavell replied that he had no tanks,
49:49that they were all having their tracks mended,
49:51or having their engines greased,
49:53or something in the delta,
49:55and that he couldn't spare even a dozen.
49:56Well, Crete was lost, and it was a great disaster,
50:01upset everybody in the House of Commons,
50:04upset the country.
50:05It was a low point for us in the war,
50:08in the spring of 1941.
50:10I used to be up until 2.30 in the morning,
50:16broadcasting to America,
50:17and the Dominions, and so on.
50:20And I'd snatch some pretty dicey sort of sleep
50:26in a basement,
50:28in a broadcasting house,
50:29and then come out in the morning.
50:31And then I'd walk around,
50:34and I'd think,
50:35I don't think,
50:37there could be very much more of this,
50:38because everything is going.
50:40On those mornings,
50:42you thought, well, another two weeks of this,
50:44and there'll be nothing around here but rubble.
50:46On May the 10th, 1941,
50:56London suffered its most destructive night raid of the war.
50:59Over 3,000 people were killed or injured.
51:05Hundreds of fires had to be left to burn themselves out.
51:09There seemed no end in sight to the slaughter and destruction.
51:12But although Londoners didn't know,
51:15it was the turning point.
51:18In April 1941,
51:21Hitler assembled all the commanders in France.
51:27And during two hours,
51:31he talked to us
51:33about the part two of the Battle of Britain.
51:38He told us later,
51:44two of us,
51:46namely,
51:47Mulders,
51:48my friend Mulders and myself,
51:51that it has only been
51:53in order to camouflage
51:55the offensive against Russia.
51:59This has been in April 1941.
52:02And the
52:03raid on the 10th of May
52:05can only be considered
52:07as a camouflage
52:08of the
52:09beginning
52:12Russian campaign.
52:19Among the casualties
52:21of the raid on May the 10th
52:22was the House of Commons.
52:25For exactly a year,
52:26a year of disappointment
52:27and defeat,
52:29the Commons had sustained
52:30Churchill in office.
52:31But the important battle
52:33had been won.
52:34Britain had survived.
52:36Now it was Russia's turn.
52:39Now it was Russia's turn.
52:39The End
52:40of the
52:43The End
52:43The End
52:44THE END
53:14THE END
53:44THE END
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