The World at War Episode 04 - Alone (May 1940 - May 1941)
Transcript
00:00May the 26th, 1940.
00:27Along 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.
00:48On the Dunkirk beaches, nearly half a million men, British and French, face surrender, or
00:54the slim chance of rescue by ships from England.
01:55And they came down in a sort of a V-shape to a crocodile semi-single file as they got
02:01near the water's edge.
02:03Of course, many of these soldiers were going out up to their necks in water and climbing
02:08into, say, minesweepers that could get in nearly as close as that.
02:11Others, of course, on the beach were embarking in the small boats, but there didn't seem
02:15to be any panic or worry at all.
02:18One came across lots of these small boats, many of them with perhaps even a dozen or
02:23so soldiers on board, heading back for England resolutely.
02:28One quite often offered to take their crews of soldiers off them so they could go back
02:33for another load, and they said, no fear, we've got our 12 pongos and we're going back
02:37to England with them.
02:38You go and get your own.
02:41The beach was, well, you could say thousands of men being on Margate Beach on a bank holiday.
02:48The troops was in a pretty bad state.
02:50They were in a bad way.
02:52There was one man's special, I shall always remember.
02:55He came on board, he'd had his teeth blown out, and he was holding a rifle with a fixed
03:00bayonet, and we had to take all the arms away from him.
03:03We couldn't shift this gun out of this man's, this rifle out of this man's hands.
03:07His hands was actually gripped this, and they was fixture.
03:10Our chap was on a beach and then he gets aboard a ship and he thinks he's safe, but they really
03:16did think this.
03:17They said, whoa, England, home of beauty, let us get there, boy.
03:22We were most impressed.
03:23They were very tired and most of them just slumped down and went to sleep then.
03:30Our job was to stop enemy aircraft getting at those troops, because believe me, if enemy
03:34aircraft had got superiority of the air at Dunkirk, they would have massacred those fellows
03:39on the beach.
03:40Nothing could have been done.
03:41They had no guns, they had no anti-aircraft, and German bombers and German dive bombers,
03:48the Stukas, would have just murdered them, and we couldn't have got those troops off.
03:53Another thing the Germans tried to do, of course, was to sink the ships.
03:57They knew that the fellows would not be, couldn't swim out to England, therefore they had to
04:01try and get on the ships, and if they could sink these ships, then the British army would
04:04have been trapped.
04:12The RAF tried to keep the German air force away from the beaches, but six destroyers
04:16and over 200 craft were sunk.
04:23Fighter Command lost nearly half its strength in the French campaign, a hundred planes in
04:28the Dunkirk operations alone.
04:39Dunkirk was a major defeat, but the inspired efforts of the Royal Navy and the little ships
04:45saved 330,000 British and French troops.
04:51For a week the weather was fine, and the German army was held off.
04:56I really and truly don't think they thought they'd ever get them off, that's my opinion,
05:00but it was an act of God that they did.
05:03The weather was good, the sea was like a mill pond, and this was a great help to everybody.
05:09If it'd been rough water, you'd have never got them off of Dunkirk, because when those
05:13rollers go up that beach, they go.
05:17Any moment a breakthrough by the German army could have stopped the whole operation.
05:22I don't think, despite the valiant endeavours of the British and French troops who were
05:28keeping the Germans back, that they could have stopped the might of the German armour
05:33getting through if Hitler had so wanted to do it.
05:38What was left of Dunkirk surrendered on June the 4th.
05:42Thousands of troops could not be rescued.
05:46A fortnight later, France stopped fighting, and the British Prime Minister Churchill broadcast
05:52to the world.
05:54What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over.
05:59The Battle of Britain is about to begin.
06:03Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
06:09If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed, and the life of the world may move
06:15forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
06:20But if we fail, then the whole world will sink into the abyss of a new dark age.
06:29Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if the British
06:37Empire and its commonwealths last for a thousand years, men will still say,
06:46This was their final hour.
07:04Britain prepared to face immediate invasion.
07:07A new evacuation of children began from the south and east coast areas where a German
07:11landing might be expected.
07:17Some parents sent their children overseas to safety, but this was stopped in September
07:21when a U-boat sank a British liner with 90 children on board.
07:33The Guard Against Invasion, over a million men, not required by the regular forces, volunteered
07:37to form the Home Guard.
07:51They drilled with broomsticks because there were no rifles to spare, and rehearsed bloodthirsty
07:56defences against a German attack.
08:19The regular army's training seems to have impressed the newsreels.
08:24The one-time footsloggers have turned kickstarter pushers.
08:27Shanks' pony has given way to a spanking motorbike.
08:30The left-right, left-right blokes have got both feet off the ground at the same time.
08:33They're part of Britain's mighty mobile Mounties, all keen welcomers of Adolf when he drops
08:38in for a cup of tea and a cream bun.
08:41A battalion of infantry on wheels is at exercise, a swift-moving striking force that would do
08:46the enemy a bit of no good, and they learn to take the rough with the smooth under conditions
08:50they might meet with on active service.
08:53Up and down they go, but unlike the Huns, they're always on the level.
09:00The army had brought back their rifles from Dunkirk, but almost everything else had been
09:04abandoned in France.
09:06In June, the only fully equipped division in Britain was Canadian.
09:11I remember in June, going down to the south-east corner of Britain, where General Thorne was
09:17in command, that's to say Kent, sorry, Sussex, that sort of area, certainly a possible landing
09:23area for the Germans if they were going to attempt it.
09:26And I remember sending a memorandum to Winston, which must be somewhere in his paper, which
09:30I remember right, I said something like this, that the troops were of a very good heart
09:34and that they were very well trained and so forth, but of course, there is no anti-tank
09:40weapon of any kind, no anti-tank gun, and no tanks.
09:46That was an area where if the Germans were going to land, they might very well be expected
09:50to land.
09:51That was the state of the government.
09:52It was mere.
09:53The King practised marksmanship and rejoiced that Britain stood alone with no more allies
09:57to pamper.
09:59The head of fighter commands, Sir Hugh Dowding, agreed.
10:02He had lost too many planes helping the French.
10:07Station names and signposts were removed to baffle invading Germans.
10:11The effect was to baffle British travellers.
10:15Anti-tank barriers made sure the Germans wouldn't have an easy passage if they advanced
10:19along the railways.
10:25In the invasion areas, the countryside disappeared under coils of barbed wire.
10:30The beaches too were wired to below low water mark.
10:34J.B. Priestley remembers a visit to the seaside.
10:38I went down one hot summer day, late summer, to one of the seaside resorts on the coast.
10:49The last time I visited it, it was packed out with beaches, absolutely cramped, and
10:53all the fun of the fair going on.
10:56Then to see it in this strange, bright, empty day, the beaches deserted, a lot of barbed
11:04wire all over the place, I felt then that, in a way, this was a kind of symbol of what
11:11people felt, and that they were ready to abandon this for the time being in order to get on
11:19with the war.
11:23Churchill was everywhere.
11:24No longer a suspect politician, but the living embodiment of the British will to resist.
11:29It was a situation he seemed to revel in, describing for colleagues a vivid picture
11:34of himself leading a last man defence of a devastated Whitehall.
11:39Immediately Churchill became Prime Minister, the pace in Whitehall changed.
11:44People started not merely to think fast, but to act fast.
11:48Distinguished civil servants could be seen running down the passages.
11:52Churchill himself was physically very energetic.
11:54He would suddenly make the most extraordinary and energetic sorties.
11:58He would inspect troops, marching at great speed down the ranks and outpacing all the
12:02younger men who were following him.
12:04I remember one evening, he said that he was going to inspect some new works, and although
12:09he was 65 years old, he vaulted over a brick wall and landed feet first in a pool of liquid
12:17cement.
12:18And with an impertinence, which in retrospect, I'm surprised at, I said to him, well, I think
12:22you've met your water low, because he was stuck in the cement.
12:26And he turned to me and said, how dare you?
12:28Anyhow, my Blenheim.
12:29In the arms factories, men and women worked long hours to fill the gaps in British defences.
12:39Production reached a peak in June, then fell as workers tired.
12:43But the spurt lasted through the critical time.
12:48Production of fighter planes doubled.
12:49A hundred new Spitfires and Hurricanes a week replenished Dowding's forces.
12:54The new Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook, took care to make ordinary people
12:59feel part of the production battle.
13:01My father was a master of propaganda.
13:05There was a Pots and Pans, where everyone was asked to give up pots and pans and railings.
13:11Stanley Baldwin didn't give up his gates, but most people gave up everything they could
13:15in the way of metal.
13:17The pilots and we all knew that you couldn't make aircraft out of pots and pans, but it
13:21was good stuff.
13:22It brought the people to realise that it was a desperate situation.
13:25The response to the Pots and Pans was tremendous.
13:28They had piles and piles of Pots and Pans, not knowing what to do with them.
13:32But as I say, he was a great propagandist.
13:35But where was the German invasion?
13:39In June 1940, Hitler had not begun to think about invading Britain.
13:48He was busy celebrating his French victory and expected Britain, like France, to make
13:52peace.
13:54Berlin gave him a hero's welcome when he returned there on July the 6th, with Admiral
13:57Raeder and his other commanders-in-chief.
14:00Only the German navy seemed to have plans for an invasion.
14:04By the time Hitler began to take an interest in them, the army had its own plans and was
14:08critical of the navy's.
14:13Both looked to Goering, the Luftwaffe chief, to win control of the air, vital for an invasion.
14:18And Goering believed the Luftwaffe on its own could knock out Britain.
14:23Disputes between the services went on for months.
14:28The army at first wanted to land 40 divisions on a wide front between Ramsgate and Lime
14:32Bay and press on to a line from Malden in Essex to the Severn estuary, sealing off London.
14:38This was later scaled down to a landing by nine divisions between Folkestone and Brighton,
14:43supported by two airborne divisions, about 200,000 men in all.
14:48By September, Britain had overcome her earlier weakness and had 16 divisions available in
14:52the south-east.
14:59An invasion fleet drawn from all parts of Germany was assembled in northern ports.
15:06Landing craft were built and boats converted to carry troops and amphibious tanks.
15:14The army thought the fleet too small.
15:16The navy thought even that size fleet difficult to protect.
15:20Both agreed that air supremacy was vital.
15:23The invasion, codenamed Operation Sea Lion, was set for mid-September.
15:26The plans did not impress the Luftwaffe, on whom everything depended.
15:30In my opinion, the plan was not serious, especially the navy didn't want to have the responsibility.
15:42And the navy has asked the air force first of all to establish the absolute air superiority
15:51over the invasion area.
15:55And the preparation the navy did, they were not very convincing.
15:59Also our preparation, my wing especially, was destinated to be one of the two wings
16:06to be transferred to England.
16:09And our preparations were about ridiculous.
16:13The air force was not trained and prepared to conduct an independent air war over England.
16:33As the invasion fleet assembled, the Luftwaffe's first targets were merchant convoys and harbours,
16:38particularly in the narrow seas of the Channel.
16:42Dover became known as Hellfire Corner.
16:45There was always something for the newsreel camera or the news reporter, for instance
16:49Charles Gardner of the BBC.
16:52Well, now the Germans are dive-bombing a convoy out into the sea.
16:58There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
17:00There's one going down on his target now.
17:02No, he missed the ships.
17:05He hasn't hit a single ship.
17:06There are about ten ships in the convoy, but he hasn't hit a single one.
17:11Here they come, they come in absolutely deep dive.
17:13You can see their bombs actually leave the machines and come into water.
17:16You can hear our own guns going like anything now.
17:19There's a fight going on.
17:20You can hear the little rattles of machine gun bullets.
17:23That was a bomb, as you may imagine.
17:26There's another bomb dropping.
17:30Yes, it's dropped.
17:31Oh, he missed the convoy.
17:32No, they haven't hit the convoy in all this.
17:36Yes, oh, we just hit a Messerschmitt.
17:38Oh, that was beautiful.
17:39He's coming right down now.
17:40I think definitely that's what that first caught him.
17:44Absolute deep dive.
17:45Let's move round so I can watch him a bit more.
17:47Here he comes.
17:49He's going flat into the sea and there he goes, mad.
17:52Oh, boy, I've never seen anything so good as this.
17:55The RAF fighters have really got these boys dead.
18:01The convoy system was disrupted and harbours like Dover were badly hit.
18:06While the town suffered casualties,
18:08Dowding had not yet been forced to commit his full fighter strength.
18:12The unique thing about Fighter Command
18:14was that when war broke out in September 1939,
18:18we had there a system covering the entire country for air defence.
18:24And that system was based on a radar,
18:27or as we used to call it in those days, RDF.
18:30And we had this chain of radar stations around the coast
18:33and they were looking out up to 100 miles
18:36and they were feeding on land lines
18:38all the information to the headquarters of Fighter Command.
18:42Now, radar really won the Battle of Britain
18:45because without it we would have been doing standing patrols
18:49and with a limited number of aircraft and a limited number of pilots,
18:53you couldn't have done it.
18:55As it was, we could wait on the ground
18:58and then radar would watch and through the various controls
19:03we would be told to take off at a time
19:06when the Germans were massing over Calais or over Abbeel.
19:10And so therefore, we wasted no petrol, no time, no energy.
19:15In fact, we could sleep in between patrols
19:19and then we'd take off and we would be directed
19:22towards the German formation given height, distance
19:26and their numbers, which is very important.
19:30On August 13th, Goering changed his tactics.
19:34He ordered an attack against radar stations and fighter airfields
19:37which Fighter Command was bound to defend.
19:43While German bombers blitzed airfields
19:45that defended London and south-eastern England,
19:47their escorting fighters would deal with the British fighters
19:50that came up to attack the bombers.
19:57GERMAN BOMBERS
20:13Fighting over England put the Luftwaffe at a disadvantage.
20:17It was expected but not equipped to win a decisive battle alone.
20:22The German bombers were not designed to carry a heavy enough bomb load.
20:26The German fighters carried only enough fuel
20:29to stay over England for half an hour,
20:31whereas the British fighters, close to their bases,
20:34could land and refuel quickly enough to rejoin the battle.
20:40Our range was very, very limited
20:42and we could only cover a small part of the British islands,
20:46including London.
20:49But over London, as an example,
20:51we could only stay for ten minutes to come back to our bases.
20:57So this limited range of our fighters in the escort
21:02has been perhaps the main point
21:10which avoided an effective air offensive against Britain.
21:19Luftwaffe intelligence misled its pilots
21:21about the damage done to British airfields in the first assault.
21:24They claimed eight had been virtually destroyed.
21:27In fact, none had been knocked out,
21:29and those damaged were quickly patched up again.
21:32The German pilots, faced by resistance they hadn't expected,
21:36became pessimistic about winning the battle.
21:38We fighting crews were convinced that we couldn't win the battle
21:44and we couldn't force England to surrender
21:48by attacking without any operation from the part of the army or the navy.
21:56Therefore, we were asking that the high command
22:00should order the invasion, the sea line.
22:06A mere 1,400 British fighter pilots and their ground crews
22:09stood between Britain and invasion.
22:12Their responsibility was great, too great perhaps to bear thinking about.
22:17The pace they showed the world was dashing and carefree.
22:20I think they took the situation not the least bit seriously
22:25from the point of view of their lives generally,
22:27and fellows would just kick a ball around or lie around.
22:31Some would sleep, read paperbacks, listen to the radio,
22:37and that was our life.
22:43I wanted to shoot an airplane down, but I didn't want to shoot a German down.
22:48I really did not.
22:50We did hear stories of Germans shooting our fellows in parachutes,
22:55and we used to think that was pretty horrible,
22:58but we weren't sure whether it was true or not.
23:01I know I had an experience of a German air crew getting draped over my own wing.
23:07He bailed out of a bomber and got caught on my wing with his parachute,
23:12and I was jolly careful to get him off as easily and as quickly as I could
23:17by yawing the airplane and shaking him off.
23:20I'd say there was no chivalry at all.
23:22Between the German Air Force and the British, I'd say absolutely none.
23:25Not as far as I was concerned. I hated them.
23:27They were trying to do something to us.
23:29They were trying to enslave us.
23:37Airplanes taking off
23:55The climax of the battle came at the end of August
23:57and in the first week in September.
23:59Upon the result depended Hitler's decision to launch his invasion.
24:03But the air battle itself was between a comparative handful of individuals on either side.
24:19The fights were rather extraordinary in a way,
24:22because although there were a lot of aircraft about,
24:24suddenly when you were fighting a particular man, the sky became empty.
24:34I don't think anyone ever considered that he would be killed.
24:38Death was something which was just put at the back of your mind.
24:42If it was not, then you'd have just got the jitters about it and been very worried.
24:47If a fellow did go missing, it was just, poor old so-and-so, he's had it, and that was that.
24:56Inwardly, of course, you'd feel it tremendously if you lost a pal.
25:01But you didn't dwell on the subject of death at all.
25:05Sometimes you could tell if a fellow was going to get killed, yes, you could.
25:08You'd sort of lost it, you know.
25:12My greatest friend was killed.
25:14He was shooting down, or shooting at a Messerschmitt,
25:16and there was another Messerschmitt hit him from behind,
25:18and that was all, I was shouting at him, and you couldn't do anything.
25:21And you saw him go in.
25:23That affected you, but you had to get on with it.
25:26Your friends affected you deeply.
25:28Your friends affected you deeply.
25:30Terrible, but you couldn't help it.
25:36In the last week of August and the first week of September,
25:39103 of Fighter Command's pilots died.
25:43128 were seriously wounded.
25:48Six key airfields in the south-east were put out of action for days at a time.
25:52Against the fire of German fighters and bombers,
25:55Britain was now losing fighters even faster than Germany,
25:58nearly 500 in two weeks.
26:02The last week in August, the first week in September,
26:05those two weeks were the worst for us,
26:08because by that last week in August,
26:11the Germans had been pounding the airfields mercilessly,
26:15and the 31st of August was probably our worst day.
26:21Fighter Command was very nearly on its knees,
26:24and Dowding was very conscious of that,
26:26and this was what was worrying him,
26:28this constant pounding of the airfields,
26:30and he was wondering how much longer he could hold out.
26:34When I say he, I mean Fighter Command,
26:36because he was still having to face that big problem
26:39of denying the Germans air superiority,
26:42and yet here they were knocking the airfields to pieces
26:45with the threat of knocking out Fighter Command.
26:47On the 6th of September, the King and Queen visited Fighter Command,
26:51and there were quite a few people who commented
26:54on how tired Dowding appeared to be.
26:57The day after, the 7th of September,
27:01when an invasion alert was issued, invasion imminent,
27:07and all that day, things were remarkably quiet,
27:10and all of us were beginning to wonder
27:12what the devil was going to happen next.
27:14And then late afternoon, the Germans launched.
27:18What many of the pilots who, in the air,
27:21having to face this onslaught,
27:23found to be just about the heaviest attack they'd ever known.
27:27And then came what Dowding later described as the miracle.
27:31The attack didn't go to the airfields.
27:34It went to London, and the airfields were spared.
27:37Five minutes to five, the Sarienge went,
27:41walking out onto the veranda, my veranda,
27:44looking down the river.
27:46The sky was full of planes.
27:48Within a couple of minutes,
27:51the bombs started dropping in the middle of the war dock,
27:54and I could watch them.
27:56And that's how it went on for an unconsiderable time.
27:59On that first Saturday, they practically obliterated
28:03from the Silvertown Way to Silvertown.
28:06As a matter of fact, the whole of Tidal Basin Custom House,
28:10right up to Silvertown, was obliterated.
28:12Make no mistake about it.
28:15If it had continued that type of bombing in the daylight,
28:19we'd be resenting everything of consequence.
28:23Shipyards, gasworks, oil firms,
28:28everything of consequence.
28:31Nearly all the bombs were dropping in the proper target area.
28:36That night, 250 bombers returned,
28:39the burning docks and warehouses an unmistakable marker.
28:42But Goering's change of tactics relieved the pressure.
28:50Fighter Command regrouped.
28:52London burned.
29:13After the raid on September the 7th,
29:15many rescue workers and firemen worked 40 hours nonstop.
29:19Most of us had the wind up to start with, one of them said.
29:22But you looked around and saw the rest doing their job.
29:42On September the 15th, the Luftwaffe mounted another major daylight attack,
29:46expecting no opposition.
29:48But this time, the Spitfires and Hurricanes were waiting for them.
30:12Fire in the hole!
30:42Fire in the hole!
30:52On that day, September the 15th, 56 German planes were shot down.
30:58Britain had retained command of the air by day.
31:05The Royal Air Force had won the Battle of Britain.
31:13September, 1940.
31:16Now there were no more daylight raids,
31:18and there could be no invasion before the spring.
31:21But Britain's cities became targets for the night bomber.
31:25For 76 nights in succession, London was bombed.
31:29Cueing for shelter at dusk became an orderly ritual.
31:33The evening alert, the dawn alarm,
31:35and the morning alarm were the most important.
31:38Cueing for shelter at dusk became an orderly ritual.
31:41The evening alert, the dawn all clear,
31:44part of Londoners' lives.
32:09Cueing for shelter at dusk became an orderly ritual.
32:13Part of Londoners' lives.
32:38Cueing for shelter at dusk became an orderly ritual.
32:41Part of Londoners' lives.
32:43Cueing for shelter at dusk became an orderly ritual.
32:46Part of Londoners' lives.
32:48I used to hear the planes come over at night time,
32:51and they were, in my opinion, trying to break the backs of the houses.
32:55I used to listen and shudder.
32:57The next one's mine. They'd have a stick with, say, six bombs.
33:00One, two, three, four.
33:02This is mine. No, over the next one they'd go.
33:05Miss my house.
33:06And that used to go on all night.
33:08Well, about ten, I said to my wife and my in-laws,
33:11well, I'll be off now,
33:13and I just walked out the door,
33:15lovely big three-floor houses they were,
33:17and I just walked up Approach Road,
33:19about 20 yards from the church, which was our post,
33:23and suddenly there was a...
33:25Nothing. I heard nothing.
33:28And I've talked to this to people afterwards,
33:31and the bomb that hit them, they never heard.
33:33Now, I wonder if the people who are sitting here now had that same experience.
33:37The bomb that hit you, you never heard.
33:40And I fell flat on my face.
33:42I picked myself up, I turned round,
33:44all I could see was just a grey curtain hanging down in the middle of a wide road,
33:48about twice as wide as this pub.
33:51It was just a brownish-grey curtain hanging there.
33:54¶¶ ¶¶
34:25No matter what shelter you went in,
34:27there was always someone there
34:30who would provide the entertainment
34:32to sort of take away the strain.
34:36The underground stations, it was decided,
34:38must not be used as shelters.
34:41But people simply took them over,
34:43and the authorities had to accept the fact.
34:46Well, we was all singing, we was all happy,
34:49just like there was no war at all.
34:51There was a canteen there, and I used to sing as well
34:53for the people and cheer all the people up when the bombs was going.
34:56Until one night, it was very bad,
34:58and I was just under the seat and praying for the big guns to start.
35:01¶¶ ¶¶
35:05I was talking to a gunnery sergeant
35:07who had actually been stationed in Hyde Park,
35:10and he told us without hesitation,
35:13and he cried when he told us, he said,
35:15¶¶ Believe me, when we was sent into London,
35:18¶¶ we simply elevated our guns to its maximum and fired,
35:21¶¶ and we knew that every shell we was pumping up
35:23¶¶ had no chance of hitting a plane.
35:25¶¶ But he said, ¶¶ By God, don't tell me he didn't give you courage.
35:28¶¶ And there's not a person sitting around this table, I think,
35:31¶¶ can say that he didn't.
35:33¶¶ Once they heard those guns, one said, ¶¶ Good, we've got them now.
35:36¶¶ But they only knew that it was the morale,
35:39¶¶ and that's all it did to them.
35:41¶¶ But the bombs themselves, I mean, they just had to come down.
35:43¶¶ They'd like to stop them.
35:45¶¶
35:52¶¶
35:55¶¶
35:57¶¶ The 76 mornings, rescue squads dug through rubble
36:00¶¶ searching for survivors.
36:02¶¶ A bomb dropped on a block of flats, about four storeys,
36:06¶¶ and it took the whole front out.
36:09¶¶ And they said, ¶¶ There's an old chap up there,
36:11¶¶ he won't go in the shelter.
36:13¶¶ So we go up, and when we got up there,
36:15¶¶ there's an old chap there, snoring his head off,
36:17¶¶ about 20 empty bottles round his bed,
36:19¶¶ and he's really out in the street,
36:21¶¶ and he never woke up then.
36:28¶¶ We saw this dear old lady sort of staggering around,
36:31¶¶ and we said, ¶¶ Come on, you'll have to come out.
36:33¶¶ And she came out, and all she got on was just half of a,
36:36¶¶ well, should have been a nightdress.
36:39¶¶ And I said, ¶¶ No, you'll have to put something on,
36:41¶¶ make yourself a bit decent.
36:43¶¶ She was about 80, she was completely in a daze.
36:46¶¶ So she said, ¶¶ Oh, I'll go in and get something.
36:48¶¶ And she came out and she got her hat on.
36:57People somehow got to work through a nightmare of upended buses,
37:01cratered roads, bombed railways.
37:04London calling in the overseas service...
37:06Radio reporters told America and the world that London could take it.
37:11The spirit of Londoners won sympathy and help,
37:14but the United States remained neutral.
37:18While Britain stood alone from September 1940 to May 1941,
37:2240,000 people were killed in raids, half of them Londoners.
37:28Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless,
37:31eating, living, sleeping in rest centres.
37:36Clothing and everything else had vanished with their home,
37:39but not morale.
37:41To be clean, you couldn't very well say,
37:43¶¶ Well, I'm going to have a bath today.
37:45¶¶ Cos she was afraid the warning would go halfway through it.
37:49¶¶ So you'd have a bowl of water and have a wash
37:52¶¶ and perhaps get your neck done and run
37:54¶¶ and take all your things in the shelter.
37:56¶¶ Finish your bath perhaps the next day.
37:58¶¶ Never actually have a bath properly.
38:00¶¶ Step in and step out.
38:02You get used to it. You can get used to anything.
38:05It was not an uncommon sight to see.
38:08No windows, but plenty of spirit.
38:12¶¶ Sorry we've got no front door.
38:14¶¶ Don't trouble to knock. Come straight in.
38:16¶¶ And you see these funny little notices put up outside the door.
38:19¶¶ This was the sort of thing that really made you think
38:22¶¶ that there was something in it,
38:24¶¶ and the more you saw it, the more you felt encouraged
38:27¶¶ to be able to go out and you knew that
38:29¶¶ once you'd gone out to go on to a job
38:32¶¶ and your family were left behind,
38:34¶¶ you always felt that somehow,
38:36¶¶ the Joneses or the Smiths up the road,
38:38¶¶ if anything happens at home, they'll look after them.
38:43¶¶
38:46Factories went on working by night as well as by day,
38:49but night workers were constantly interrupted by raids.
38:53There was no real defence against German bombing at night.
38:57Fighter Command's helplessness worried its chief, Dowding.
39:01I once went down to Red Hill with him
39:03when bombers were coming over London,
39:05and that was a squadron down there,
39:07commanded by a fellow called Jimmy Little.
39:10And he said to me on the car going down, he said,
39:13you know, Max, I hold my head in my hand
39:16at the horrible thought of all the little people being bombed,
39:19and I cannot do anything about it.
39:22To the relief of the authorities,
39:24Buckingham Palace was bombed as well as East London.
39:27Now it could be seen that King, Queen and people
39:30were all in it together.
39:34King George and Queen Elizabeth won respect
39:36by their tours of the blitzed areas.
39:38They had come to the throne in the shattering circumstance
39:41of the Duke of Windsor's abdication.
39:43Now, for the first time,
39:44they emerged as popular figures in their own right.
39:50Churchill too, with bustling exuberance,
39:52persuaded most political opponents to forget his past.
39:56The average East Londoner couldn't have cared
39:59twopence for Winston Churchill as a man or a politician,
40:02but the man who filled up Chamberlain's place,
40:06he was a leader, no doubt about it, he was a leader,
40:09and I think every time he opened his mouth,
40:11he inspired confidence into the people,
40:13whether they accepted him as a conservative,
40:16but he was there, he was for them,
40:18and he was against the common enemy.
40:23But sometimes he got a mixed reception.
40:26I can remember just off of Green Street,
40:29an avenue there where Churchill came down there,
40:32and there was a devil of a great crater as big as this pub,
40:35and there were crowds of women there
40:37trying to get out their bits and pieces out of the shattered houses,
40:41and Churchill, after having a look round, he said,
40:44we can take it, and the women told him what they could take,
40:48in no unmistakable manner, you believe me,
40:50and they said that we're the ones that are taking it,
40:53mister, you're out of the way.
40:55December the 29th, 1940.
40:58German planes scattering incendiary bombs
41:01set the city of London ablaze.
41:04There were 1,500 fires in and around the city.
41:08St Paul's Cathedral was surrounded by fire.
41:16The fire was so intense,
41:18that the firemen had to leave the city
41:22You could see the fire of London.
41:25You could see 60 miles away, you could see the fire.
41:35That night when the fires were burning,
41:37I was in a shelter and it was burning above me,
41:40and we all had to get out, and we wasn't panicking a bit,
41:43and we had to run from the middle of the turn
41:46to the top of the commercial road in a factory,
41:49where they had the shelter down below in the basement,
41:52and as we were running along, there was all fires, all burning,
41:55I could feel the hot on the floor, the paddles were hot,
41:58and when we got into the shelter,
42:00we stood all night sleeping on each other's shoulders.
42:03I stood all night sleeping on somebody else's shoulder.
42:12Eventually, we used so much water,
42:15we used so much water, we'd run out of it,
42:18and there we stood, letting the fires burn,
42:21and we couldn't do nothing about it.
42:31The heart of the city of London was destroyed,
42:35but St Paul's survived.
42:39Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, Swansea, Liverpool,
42:42and many more shared London's ordeal.
42:45All were within reach of the German Air Force,
42:47with bases in France and the Low Countries.
42:49It was more difficult for British bombers to reach German cities.
42:53The government looked anxiously round
42:55for some other way of carrying the war to the enemy.
42:59We decided the only place where we could fight the enemy
43:03was the desert, North African desert,
43:06out in the Middle East, out of Drunglia.
43:08There was nowhere else.
43:10There was nowhere else to make a landing in France
43:13in any foreseeable future,
43:15and therefore couldn't injure the Germans that way.
43:18So the two alternatives, the two possibles,
43:20were bombing, they weren't alternatives,
43:22two possibles were bombing and fighting in the Middle East.
43:26And that is why, from those very early days,
43:29we began to push, agitate, ask for more armour in the Middle East,
43:35and we had to take the armour out of the line here,
43:38out of the defence of Britain.
43:39There was no other way of doing it.
43:43On December 10, 1940,
43:45two Commonwealth divisions of General Wavell's command
43:48attacked the big Italian army in North Africa.
43:53Slightly to their own surprise, they advanced with great speed.
43:59Fortress after fortress was taken.
44:01100,000 prisoners were captured.
44:03Now there seemed to be a chance to get at the main enemy, Germany,
44:07through Yugoslavia and Greece.
44:10We did think that if it were possible
44:13to bring certain Balkan countries into conflict with Hitler,
44:22that the consequences of that might be really unforeseeable.
44:27Couldn't tell what the result could be.
44:29The view of the War Cabinet and the Defence Committee at home
44:33was that we should,
44:35if the Greeks were going to defend themselves against the Germans,
44:38we should bring them what help we could.
44:41And Dillard and I were sent out after Wavell's victories to Cairo
44:45to look into this business.
44:47Well, when we got there, Wavell said,
44:49now I hope you won't mind what I'm going to say.
44:52I didn't think I ought to waste time,
44:55and I begun the movement of troops and the concentration
44:58to enable us to go to Greece.
45:00The Commonwealth landing in Greece
45:02was meant to forestall a German attack.
45:04To many Greeks it seemed likely to hasten it.
45:07They had held their own against the Italians,
45:10but when the Germans attacked on April 6th, 1941,
45:13Greece was overwhelmed in three weeks.
45:16So was Yugoslavia, which had joined their allies.
45:1950,000 Commonwealth troops were evacuated.
45:23One has to admit that we didn't obtain the objectives we'd hoped for.
45:31We weren't able to conduct, with the help of the Yugoslavs,
45:35any effective campaign in the Balkans.
45:39Turkey, it is true, remained a defensive pad.
45:43But we lost Greece, and lost many men, brave men,
45:47and more were captured.
45:50So in that sense, the Berne sheet was much against us,
45:53and it was at a pressing time, no question of that.
45:58By May 1941, Germany and her allies
46:01controlled most of continental Europe.
46:04And in North Africa, a small German force under Rommel
46:08had recaptured nearly all the British gains.
46:11The British tried to hold Crete as a naval base.
46:20With complete command of the air,
46:22the Germans attacked Crete with 16,000 parachutists.
46:25The first large-scale airborne assault in the history of warfare.
46:30In spite of heavy losses,
46:32they gained a foothold on a vital airfield, Malimi,
46:35which meant that more troops could be flown in.
46:56Supported by intensive bombing,
46:58the Germans were able to advance against a bigger Commonwealth force.
47:03Once again, air power won the battle.
47:06Commonwealth losses, 13,000 killed, wounded or captured,
47:10and another evacuation to add to the list of Norway, France, Greece.
47:14The British people wondered how much more they would have to take.
47:19Churchill thought it important that Crete should be held at all cost.
47:23If we lost Crete, we lost our base in the Eastern Mediterranean,
47:27our naval base and our air base.
47:29And he kept on telegraphing to Wavell, saying,
47:33surely we can spare just a dozen tanks
47:37for the defence of Malimi airfield,
47:40which was the chief airfield in Crete,
47:42against German paratroops.
47:44And Wavell replied that he had no tanks,
47:47that they were all having their tracks mended
47:49or having their engines greased or something in the delta,
47:52and that he couldn't spare even a dozen.
47:55Well, Crete was lost, and it was a great disaster,
47:58upset everybody in the House of Commons, upset the country.
48:02It was a low point for us in the war in the spring of 1941.
48:07I used to be up until 2.30 in the morning,
48:12broadcasting to America and the Dominions and so on.
48:17And I'd snatch some pretty dicey sort of sleep
48:23in a basement broadcasting house,
48:26and then come out in the morning.
48:28And then I'd walk around, and I'd think,
48:31I don't think there can be very much more of this,
48:35because everything is going...
48:37On those mornings, you thought, well, another two weeks of this
48:40and there'll be nothing around here but rubble.
48:47On May 10th, 1941,
48:50London suffered its most destructive night raid of the war.
48:53Over 3,000 people were killed or injured.
48:59Hundreds of fires had to be left to burn themselves out.
49:02There seemed no end in sight to the slaughter and destruction.
49:06But although Londoners didn't know, it was the turning point.
49:10In April 1941,
49:13Hitler assembled all the commanders in France,
49:19and during two hours,
49:24he talked to us about the Part II of the Battle of Britain.
49:33He told us later, two of us,
49:38namely Mulders, my friend Mulders, and myself,
49:42that it has only been in order to camouflage
49:47the offensive against Russia.
49:50This has been in April 1941.
49:53And the raid on the 10th of May
49:57can only be considered as a camouflage
50:01of the beginning Russian campaign.
50:12Among the casualties of the raid on May 10th was the House of Commons.
50:16For exactly a year, a year of disappointment and defeat,
50:20the Commons had sustained Churchill in office.
50:23But the important battle had been won.
50:26Britain had survived.
50:29Now it was Russia's turn.
50:59THE END
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