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00:10The End
00:41The End
01:16The fifth winter of war.
01:19In Britain, we wait upon the news from Europe.
01:33As our forces close in on Germany, the war correspondents go with them.
01:38Their reports are our story of the cold dawn.
01:45Ronald Walker writes for the News Chronicle.
01:50One of his assignments is to report the RAF strikes against enemy shipping along the Norwegian coast.
02:00Often I attend the briefings, listening to the crews being given their final instructions for a new strike.
02:06That is the beginning of the story.
02:08The end, you read in the communiques in the simple sentence,
02:12bow fighters and mosquitoes have sunk enemy merchant ships off the Norwegian coast.
02:17There, summed up, is the story of the operations of the squadrons
02:21which have continually hounded enemy ships moving along the Norwegian coast.
02:29These ships carry back to German factories, precious iron ore and minerals from Norwegian mines,
02:36fish oil and other supplies for Germany's ravenous war industries.
02:40The shortest distance between the coasts of Britain and Norway is between 300 and 400 miles.
02:47To find their targets, our aircraft, the historic bows and mozzies have to fly there and back over hundreds of
02:55miles of open sea.
03:03They have to carry the maximum amount of fuel, which reduces their offensive load of rockets, bombs and ammunition.
03:10They have to battle with the hazards of long overseas crossings before they even start to search for ships.
03:16And they have to brave the most appalling weather, weather in which no sensible bird would fly.
03:22All the odds are loaded in favour of the enemy.
03:24Their ships steam close into the coast of German-occupied Norway.
03:28But these strike aircraft of coastal command spread a trail of havoc down the long length of the Norwegian coast.
03:35winds up the sea, and the army on the coast.�.
03:54If it's
03:55the drain, the ocean, will build a few miles of refugees. Let's call
03:55there, it was a force in the fire. The wind.
03:55The wind.
03:56The wind.
03:58The wind.
04:11The RAF crews, led by Norwegian pilots of the Banff wing, track down the ships.
04:18Even in the shelter of the fjords, the enemy finds no comfort.
04:22Camera gun films tell the true story of these battles.
04:25The spiky lines are caused by intense cold.
05:08Tonight's communique will say again, coastal command attack enemy ships off Norway.
05:13Another blow has been struck against Germany's war production.
05:23Other reports come in from other battles to build up the front page jigsaw of the war.
05:34From the Western Front comes news of the Ardennes.
05:38Exchange Telegraph, London, from Gilling, 16th of December.
05:42On the northern sector of the Allied Front, weather conditions today are extremely bad.
05:47A thick carpet of snow covers the whole terrain.
05:50Our airfields are snowbound and the Allied tactical air forces are almost completely grounded.
05:56But these conditions, so unfavourable to the Allies, are just what the Germans appear to have been wanting.
06:02For this morning, the enemy launched a full-scale attack in the Ardennes sector.
06:06Under cover of a heavy barrage, von Rundstedt is throwing in a formidable mass of armour.
06:10Spearheads of the German armies are already reported to have penetrated nearly 20 miles.
06:24.
06:34December 20th.
06:36So serious is the situation that Eisenhower has given Montgomery command of all Allied troops north of the breakthrough
06:43and Allied bomber forces are called in to pound the enemy.
06:47RAF Lancasters, using the newest radar device, rained down thousands of tons of high explosive on the enemy forces.
06:59British troops are also taking part in the counteroffensive and the tide has now definitely turned in the Allies' favour.
07:14New Year's Day.
07:15The Luftwaffe is making a desperate bid to destroy the Allied tactical air forces,
07:20which are concentrated on airfields in Belgium and Holland.
07:24A scratch collection of over 800 aircraft has taken off from German airfields in the early morning.
07:39They are coming over the Allied aerodromes, dropping their high explosives and firebombs among the Spitfires and Tiffies,
07:45setting many of them ablaze.
08:02The AGAC defences are taking a heavy toll of the enemy planes as they come diving in,
08:07and many more of the raiders are being pounced on by our fighters.
08:17Although nearly 200 of our planes have been destroyed or damaged on the ground,
08:22German losses are disastrously heavy.
08:29The front in Europe is a frozen ring around which enormous armies face each other and wait for the thaw.
08:38In Italy, our 17 divisions face Kessel Rings 27.
08:45Here is the New Year report from the Apennines.
08:55Hello, BBC. This is Godfrey Talbot reporting from Italy.
08:58This is my dispatch number 189 from the Italian Front.
09:02Our supply roads over the mountain passes here in Italy are in the grip of winter ice.
09:08A desperate winter holds up all major operations against an out-fought but still stubborn enemy,
09:14cunningly entrenched and still strong.
09:17Our forward airfields, our aircraft, are clogged with snow.
09:21The iron weather gives a last respite to the Germans.
09:27But there is more than Italy in this theatre of war.
09:31In another part of the Southeastern Front, the war is already on the move again.
09:35The Russians are attacking Budapest and the enemy is being forced out of the Balkans.
09:42With savage thoroughness, the Germans are smashing everything as they withdraw.
09:47Ever since their advancing tide was turned in the desert of Egypt, it has been the same.
09:52Ever since North Africa, Sicily, Naples, Casino, always their demolitions have been a weapon of war.
09:58And so it is now. Only ruins are left in their wake as they retreat.
10:06Conditions are still appalling. As winter drags towards the spring of 1945, snow turns to mud.
10:13Seas of deep black mud that tug at the retreating German divisions as men and machines frantically plow and claw
10:20their way out.
10:21And then, as the enemy flounder in the floods of the Great Thor,
10:25the aircraft of the Russians and our Balkan Air Force move to a crescendo of remorseless hammering.
10:33The Arabs are still there.
10:38What's going on?
10:48The Arabs are still there.
10:49Improving weather over there means an intensification of the air war.
10:53Means new hope for Yugoslavia. New soaring spirits in those resistance groups
10:58who wear the badge of the Red Star.
11:00men and women who have been fighting behind the lines for years.
11:04Now Yugoslavia's southern flank is safe.
11:08The Allies have returned to Greece.
11:15Press Collect to Daily Telegraph London from Marsland Gander.
11:30Land forces Adriatic Thursday, stop.
11:32British troops back in Greece, stop.
11:35First landing craft with seaborne troops arrived, found usual routine invasion reversed.
11:41Airfield already operating, supplies being landed, stop.
11:45As vanguard liberating forces sweeps Athens wards, hurrying retreating Germans,
11:51more, more supplies pouring by sea air into stricken, terrorized countries, stop.
11:56Containers drop-deck's air make glorious, joyful spectacle.
12:01Parachutes many colours billowing against azure sky, stop.
12:06Ill-fed children, saddest sight.
12:09Seem dazed, handling sweets probably never seen before, stop.
12:26Spitfire, harbingers of hope, also flying into Balkans.
12:30Landing specially prepared airstrips, stop.
12:42Greek and Yugoslav squadrons, thus newly equipped latest fighters,
12:47joining Hunt harassed Germans, who trying desperately pull out, stop.
12:52German main escape route threatened, both bipartisan guerrilla tactics and air attack, stop.
12:57German's long occupation, suffering Balkans, almost over, stop, ends, Marsland, Gander.
13:17Now spring has come to Italy.
13:20Moving together, the Allied 8th and 5th Armies are pounding their way northward again,
13:24from the mountains to the cities of the Lombardy Plain.
13:28The enemy's long-sustained resistance is cracking.
13:32British troops join forces with the Italian partisans of the north.
13:49The ring draws tight round Germany, and our bombers fly against a shrinking target.
13:55This is Leonard Moseley, reporting for the Daily Express.
13:58When the time came for me to go on my first raid against Germany with the RAF,
14:03we'd gone into what you might call the sausage machine phase of the air war over Europe.
14:15The air war had become a business, grim and dangerous, but still a business.
14:20Britain was now a colossal flying corporation, dropping defeat upon the enemy by mass production methods.
14:27For the Lancaster cruise, flying against Germany, it was no longer fun or adventure.
14:33The squadron leader I was to fly with said,
14:35Do you mean to tell me you don't have to come on this trip? You must be mad.
14:40As our plane throbbed towards the target, I looked at the young faces of the crew.
14:45They were brave men.
14:47They were fighting willingly for their country, and all of them subsequently died for it.
14:52But the expressions they wore had no zest in them.
14:55You sensed that the reckless, devil-may-care, wiz-o-show-old-boy era had gone forever.
15:01These flyers were still heroes, but now they were part of a deadly machine.
15:07The flak began to come up.
15:10The plane rocked violently as one of them burst near us.
15:14Suddenly, I at least felt not part of a machine, but very much alone.
15:37Well, we got back that time, but then they were transferred to daylight raids.
15:42And four, five, and sometimes six times in a week, they were off on their brave and thriving business.
15:49But one day, instead of being salesmen, they bought something instead from a flak shell along the Rhine.
15:57And that time, they didn't come back.
16:24Our bombardment goes on, deeper and deeper into Germany.
16:28Until the enemy can hardly work or move or fight.
16:33We met.
16:46It's a great topic.
16:46It was a great boss that was around the • The
16:46have to find even better.
16:48It has to understand that the closer.
16:54Well, you can move the motherboard inside.
17:01One day, will.
17:14The RAF and American Air Force both ride the German sky in daylight now.
17:19And now we've just one priority target, oil.
17:22First, we flatten the oil fields at Ploesti.
17:25Then we turn the heat on the synthetic oil plants in Germany itself.
17:28This is all the Germans have got left to drive their tanks and fly their airplanes.
17:33And once that's gone, they can't drive or fly anymore.
18:15The Luftwaffe have around 1,500 fighters still in action.
18:18And although they're short of replacements and gas and good crews, they go on fighting to the end.
18:23And so do we.
18:59And so do we.
19:40In spite of all losses, the air battle of Germany is won.
19:45For the past five years, the wreckage of our planes has littered the broad fields of the Reich.
19:51But the airmen who have died have destroyed the enemy's last hopes.
20:01From Kiel to Stuttgart, from Aachen to Berlin, no part of Germany has escaped our onslaught.
20:08The war machine that was built to conquer the world has been bombed to ruins.
20:12And among the ruins, a despairing but unbroken people prepare for the last attack.
20:25We shall not forget these months, handing in the uniforms of our men who have been killed to be given
20:32to others who will be killed soon.
20:34The English have a poem which says,
20:37Thought shall be the harder, heart the keener, courage the greater, as all might lessons.
20:44The English understood that in 1940 and now we understand it.
20:49We have chosen war and we will not stop.
20:52We still have our old men, our boys and our own hands to defend the fatherland.
20:58The English either way of being led by
21:48Now only one river lies between us and victory.
21:52On March the 24th, 1945, British and American divisions prepare for the Rhine crossing.
22:00Winford Vaughan-Thomas reporting.
22:02Monty's plan called for a tremendous ground assault and an airdrop to consolidate the bridgehead.
22:08I was on the ground, and I remember looking up to see the whole sky filled with the squadrons going
22:14over.
22:15And don't think the Germans were down and out yet by any means.
22:18Their ground defences opened up, there was plenty of flack, and we had to pay a price for our crossing.
22:30As down below we plunged through the swirling waters of the Rhine in our assault craft,
22:35I can tell you it was more than comforting to see the last great airdrop of the war in full
22:40swing overhead.
22:42The landing ground wasn't exactly ideal.
22:45It was bumpy, with dense woodland in places that made the parachute drop hard,
22:49and there was scrubbed to worry the gliders.
23:03But at this stage of the war, the airborne troops had had a fantastic amount of hard experience behind them.
23:10They had the added satisfaction that at last they were fighting on German soil.
23:23The opposition cracked, and now all Germany was before them.
23:29Richard Dimbleby went with them to see the last stages.
23:32So now, come in Richard Dimbleby.
23:35Thus, we entered Germany, pushing against a retreating but fighting enemy.
23:41They were close at hand, the Germans.
23:43They had to be blown out of houses and ditches.
23:46Tricky, dangerous work.
23:53We thought we were getting near the end, but no one was sure.
23:57As long as Germany fights on, there's work for our soldiers and airmen together.
24:17So now, come in, can I see the end?
24:20It's about the end of the war, I've lost my strength.
24:22I've lost my strength.
24:22It's about the end of the war.
24:27I love the enduring whizzer.
24:28It's about the end of the war.
24:29I love the北 and the Dodgers will continue to expository now.
24:34I am not sure, but I am the mostampus.
24:43Now, it's ending. Surrender. A hamlet here, a strong point there.
24:59The crust of Germany cracking and peeling.
25:01Not that we've stopped fighting, nor have they, but they are giving up.
25:06First the juniors, then the seniors, and suddenly we're through them and out the other side to the Russians from
25:12the east.
25:13We and the Russians have joined hands, and there's nothing left for Germany.
25:19The last communique is in from Europe. Now all, from east to west, speak with one voice on the day
25:26of victory.
25:43In every language of man, the headlines ring the changes, like bells sounding across the world that peace has come.
25:59But for millions in Europe, peace has come too late.
26:03Every man keeps a private memory of war, and mine is this.
26:08The concentration camp of Belsen. The proud command of a man called Kramer.
26:14Belsen. A place of agony with the stench of death.
26:21Trust me.
26:28Yes!
26:37I've kept in line with the front.
26:38There's still suffered.
26:38That's food!
26:42It's hollow!
26:44Not enough!
26:45Yes!
26:49Then thebabies are one of the places.
26:49Let's go.
27:24Some things we could not see from the air, but others we have seen and have destroyed. No more V
27:33-weapons will be launched against England. After nearly six years of war, the sky is clean again.
27:41Cratered runways of German airfields are lifeless as the moon. In 1939, Luftwaffe was a new and shining weapon in
27:50the hands of the German High Command.
27:51In 1940, the whole world was threatened by the swastika, the stuka and the bomb. In 1945, the Luftwaffe is
28:02a memory in a silent hangar.
28:04The cold dawn has broken. Adolf Hitler is dead. Reich Marshal Goering a prisoner.
28:28When they started their war, Goering promised the Germans, no enemy plane will fly over Reich territory.
28:36But a great deal has happened since then.
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