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00:10The End
00:39The End
01:02August the 17th, 1943. A bomber's station somewhere in England.
01:08We've got to knock out Pienamunde tonight. And if not tonight, tomorrow night. And if not tomorrow night, the night
01:16after.
01:17Pienamunde is on the edge of the map up there. And here on the blackboard, you will see an enlarged
01:23sketch.
01:24We shall be using the Master Bomber technique for the first time. The Master Bomber himself will be sitting over
01:30the target and will direct the main force onto the aiming point.
01:35Foretop to all crews. Foretop to all crews. Begin bombing on the red markers. They are accurate. They are accurate.
01:44Bomb on the red markers.
01:50Main force bombing has just started, skipper.
01:59Hi there, skipper. They're flying in the main stream. One's coming at us now.
02:13Hello, skipper. Green markers are falling quite a bit out.
02:17OK, we'll rub the red and put them right. Here we go.
02:22Steady. Right. Steady. Left, left. Steady. Steady. Steady. Steady. Steady. Steady. Bomb's gone.
02:29Steady. Fortop to all ravens and crows. Bomb the red markers which have just fallen. Ignore all others and bomb
02:38on the reds.
02:45Pienamunde. Why Pienamunde? What used to be here?
02:49Aerial photographs showed a large experimental station with a puzzling layout.
02:53And in it, a tiny, blurred speck. An aircraft on a tilted ramp.
02:58From secret agents, we learned the whole plan of Pienamunde.
03:01The home of the V-1.
03:04The war was entering a new phase.
03:07Since the 1920s, the Germans have been experimenting with new forms of propulsion, mainly the rockets.
03:13First on the ground, then in the air.
03:17They had persevered through the years with many failures, many freaks and misfires.
03:21But a slowly amounting history of success.
03:27Once the rocket had been proved, they began fitting it to conventional aircraft as a booster at takeoff.
03:33First to gliders.
03:41Then to their piston-engined warplanes.
03:54Then to small pilotless flying machines, glider bombs, and anti-aircraft missiles.
04:00Then, by 1943, the V-1.
04:03Driven not by rocket, but by pulsed jet.
04:06On June the 13th, 1944, the first V-1 was fired on London.
04:30In England, we can see them coming on our radar tubes.
04:33They cross our screens in a ruthless-looking line, straighter than any piloted aircraft flies.
04:38They seem to do nearly 400 miles an hour.
04:42We have to plot them very quickly, or there won't be a hope of shooting them down before they reach
04:46the coast, or even the city itself.
04:48They come one after another, night and day, hundreds of them.
04:54Our fastest fighters, stripped-down tempests, typhoons, and spitfires, can hardly catch them.
05:00And everyone that gets through can lay waste a street.
05:04And everyone that gets through can lay waste a street.
05:48Can I see you later?
05:55Alright, watch that cover there...
05:57It won't break!
05:59That's it!
06:01That's it!
06:14There are new weapons to face and new weapons to make and handle.
06:21The turbojet pioneered by Frank Whittle is coming into service.
06:26I had the idea in 1929, but it wasn't until 1937 that we had an engine on the testbed.
06:32We had many disappointments in the early days, partly because, being a gas turbine, it was an entirely different kind
06:38of engine from any previous one, and partly because we had so little money.
06:43But after the outbreak of war, work speeded up a lot, and we had our first successful flight test at
06:48Cranwell in May of 1941.
06:51In 1942, the trials of the Gloucester Whittle E-28 were continued at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough.
07:01While the Germans fire their pilotless machines, we've been putting a sharper edge of power and speed into our pilots'
07:08hands.
07:17From this has been born the twin-jet meteor.
07:20The first squadron is in action by the summer of 1944.
07:28And in July 1944, we re-plan our defences.
07:32Anti-aircraft guns are moved to the south coast, and the balloon barrage is strengthened around London.
07:38This leaves all the sky above Kent and Surrey, and over the channel, free for our fighters.
07:45Now the battle has reached its peak, its testing point.
07:51July the 15th.
07:53Flying bombs are being launched at a rate of 100 a day, over half of which are getting through to
07:58London.
07:59Already, 3,000 people have been killed, and 10,000 seriously injured.
08:04The attacks continue.
08:30The attack on the other side, over half of which are getting through to London.
08:37Roger, 4-4, you're clear to taxi. Runway 2-5, Queenie Nanho, 1-0-1-2.
08:424-4.
08:454-4, take off.
08:474-4, you're clear to go.
08:484-4.
08:534-4, back.
08:544-4, back.
08:554-4, back.
08:564-4, back.
09:014-4, back.
09:045-4, back.
09:065-4, back.
09:085-5, back.
09:175-4, back.
09:205-4, back.
09:253-4, back.
09:296-4, back.
09:328-6, back.
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13:02THE END
13:24Here is the news, read by Frederick Griswold.
13:27British troops in France are moving forward on the heels of a German withdrawal.
13:32Our correspondent Howard Marshall says that our troops were pressing forward all this morning
13:37and that the hinge of the German line is smashed.
13:42Every campaign is cratered with separate battles.
13:46And in the campaign of the West, the widest craters mark Falaise and Caen.
13:53Among these ruined homes, a German army was broken.
13:56And because of this, the Allied armies can drive into the heart of France.
14:00The first Canadian, the second British, the first and third American for fighting French.
14:11August the 7th.
14:13Von Kluger makes a last desperate counterattack against the center of the Allied line.
14:18The remains of six panzer divisions are thrown into battle on a plan provided personally by the Führer.
14:24But the Luftwaffe is no longer there to support them.
14:42Only Allied aircraft attend this battle.
14:45Mainly rocket-firing typhoons of the Royal Air Force.
14:49Patrolling the battlefront, they are on direct call from our leading ground forces.
15:00We laid on this drill specially for the breakout.
15:03We have RAF officers in radio-equipped tanks with the armoured spearheads.
15:06And they just whistle the fighters down wherever they're wanted.
15:52They came down in hundreds.
15:55And we could do nothing against them.
15:57We were forced to give up the little ground we had gained.
16:01Out of 400 tanks, more than half lie burning in the battlefield.
16:06The German grip on France is now unclenched.
16:10After four years, the Allies are driving north again.
16:15The Blitzkrieg has failed.
16:17The V1 has failed.
16:20The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:23And the price of failure is written all along the road to Paris.
16:30The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:39The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:41The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:42The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:45The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:45The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:46The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:47The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:47The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:48The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:49The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:50The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:53The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
16:55The Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht have failed.
17:08THE END
17:26All day today, broadcasts on the Paris wavelength have been describing how General Leclerc's French Armoured Division has arrived in
17:33the capital,
17:34linked up with the forces of the interior and is taking part in the mopping up of the German units
17:40still resisting.
17:41First detachments of the division got into Paris yesterday.
17:50By this morning, the division was arriving in strength and getting a delirious reception.
17:55As the main units passed through the city, the bells rang out in welcome.
18:06THE END
18:31This is the BBC Home Service.
18:33Good morning, everybody. Here is the first news for today, Sunday, September the 3rd, read by Frederick Allen.
18:40The fifth anniversary of our entry into the war opens with more news of German defeats in the West, East
18:47and South.
18:48The Belgian frontier has now been crossed by two Allied spearheads.
18:52The battle of France is over, but the enemy still holds the low countries and the coastline facing us across
18:59the narrow sea.
19:00Summer is running out, but the VEF are back in Belgium saying, as they've always said, it'll all be over
19:08by Christmas.
19:18September begins in Brussels.
19:20Another capital is freed, another procession winds happily through the roaring streets.
19:27The façade of victory brightens a few kilometres of cobbled road for the men who are going north.
19:34Northward lies winter in the contested fields of Holland and on the German frontier.
19:47In September, we mop up the bombed and isolated German garrisons in the Channel ports.
19:53Boulogne, the Havre, Calais, Antwerp.
19:57All our effort now is bent towards pushing the Germans back the way they came in 1940.
20:03We want to finish the job in Germany before the end of the year.
20:17In September, our losses are very heavy.
20:19But those who think that Germany is finished know little about us.
20:24It is bitter to lose the fruits of war after all this while.
20:27But bitterness will make good fighters of those of us who are left.
20:35In September, the last flying bombsites are overrun.
20:38The V-1 bombardment is all but over.
20:41And the skies above the Channel seem safe again.
20:52Luftflotter 3 has gone.
20:55Luftflotter 3 has gone.
20:55Its charge remains mark a year of ruin.
21:01But there are signs among this captured wreckage of some more sinister business not yet discharged.
21:12By September the 8th, our second retaliation weapon is ready.
21:16It has a range of 200 miles, so we can fire from Holland or even Germany against England.
21:36Not every launching is successful.
21:38But where the V-1 has failed, the V-2 may succeed.
21:42It is very simple.
21:44Just an enormous rocket full of explosive.
21:46It shoots up into the stratosphere and falls faster than sound.
21:50There is no defense against it.
22:06Eisenhower and Montgomery decide to strike at once across the rivers of Holland.
22:10To outflank the Siegfried Line and break through into North Germany.
22:22The essential pattern of the plan is the laying of a carpet of airborne troops across the waterways.
22:27The 82nd and 101st American Parachute Divisions will be dropped at Nijmegen and Grave to hold the bridges over the
22:33Waal and Mars.
22:35The British 1st Airborne Division will land further north at Arnhem and form a bridgehead across the Rhine.
22:39Armoured columns will fight their way up from the south and drive across these bridges into Germany.
22:45The code name will be marked. The operation will begin on September 17th.
23:17The American Parachute Divisions will be marked by the V-2.
23:17My name is Stanley Maxted.
23:19And I'm here to report for the V-2.
23:21This is my first glider operation.
23:33I don't like gliders much until they get off the ground.
23:38When this crowd's airborne and rendezvoused, it'll look like the geese flying south in the fall at home.
23:57Well, we're airborne anyway, and now for a few hours of just waiting.
24:05We're being joined by streams of others. I bet the people below are making some wild guesses.
24:12That must be the Dutch coast over there.
24:32I guess it's time we were getting ready.
24:36The pilot seems to be all set. So is everyone else.
24:43One of our men tells me, it's after you get down you have to stir your stumps.
24:48After he lands, he'll be a fighting soldier.
24:51There's a complete absence of hurry. Yes, we're close.
25:00There they go. Those boys are the cream of the elite.
25:04They'll have to take the brunt of it while we get our gliders down and our jeeps out.
25:09How will we ever find a place to land in that mess?
25:12Well, here we go.
25:21Here comes some more.
25:22They're pretty vulnerable till they hit the deck, but the German fire's rather wild and we've got off lightly here.
25:29The next batch seems to have found their dropping zone.
25:44Jerry's letting them have it harder than he did us.
25:55They hit a few too, but most of the glider casualties were from crashing into each other on this close
26:01-packed parking ground.
26:04There's the last of this morning's drop.
26:07But we've had to land almost ten miles from our objectives and the men are pressing through along all three
26:12available roads to get to the bridge and hold it.
26:17The thing has been getting tougher all the time.
26:20The men have been fighting like the red devils the Germans call them, but something has gone wrong.
26:27It's three days now. I can't get to the bridge and I know things aren't going well there.
26:33We expected the second army twenty-four hours ago.
26:35We're short of ammunition. The Germans have cut us off from water and we need supplies.
26:40And glory be, there they come.
26:52But they didn't make it, and the supplies all went to the enemy.
26:57It doesn't seem anywhere to go anymore.
27:00The Germans are all around us and the cannon, mortar, machine gun and rifle fire comes through the blasted trees
27:05from all around us and pounds right down on top of us.
27:12September the 25th. The Battle of Arnhem is ending. The landing has failed. Of the ten thousand men of the
27:21British Airborne Division, six thousand have been taken prisoner and over a thousand have died.
27:28We have secured the bridge heads at Nijmegen and Grau, and our armoured columns have crossed two of the three
27:34rivers, but too late to save the Arnhem garrison.
27:39September ends with the liberation of Holland and the knowledge that it won't be over by Christmas after all.
27:47Behind the cheering and the smiles lie thoughts of the third river that has not been crossed.
27:52Of Germany standing undefeated beyond the Rhine, and of unknown weapons waiting to be launched.
28:00Of the ghosts of Arnhem, and of another winter of war.
28:26The ghosts of Arnhem, and of another winter of war.
28:36Brunash of Arnhem, and of another winter of war.
28:38The
28:38Brunash of Arnhem.
28:43Brunash of Arnhem.
28:44Brunash of Arnhem.
28:47Brunash of Arnhem.
28:49Brunash of Arnhem.
28:53THE END
29:25THE END