The Color of War Episode 6 Anchors Aweigh
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00:0060 years after the Second World War, unique colour film has been discovered in archives
00:14around the world.
00:20With the personal letters and diaries of ordinary British people, it provides a new look at
00:28the conflict that shaped our century.
00:33Now, the diarists, amateur filmmakers and those captured on film reflect and remember.
00:48The nightmares were coming and I was in the water again, keeping myself clear, coming
00:57up in the sea, red with blood.
01:09Such a horrifying thing from beginning to end.
01:15We didn't want a war.
01:19People had no idea what it would mean.
01:24It turns men who could be civilised, decent people, into beasts.
01:28It is necessary for people to become beasts in order to fight a war.
01:35It is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition.
01:41This is a war of the unknown warrior.
02:11Just moments after the announcement of war, sirens began to sound across London.
02:29Gwyneth Thomas was working at Highgate Hospital.
02:32When war broke out, she decided to keep a diary.
02:36Every evening, she would sit down to describe the events of the day.
02:41Then the warning came.
02:45One of the consultants had come up to my ward with gas masks and tell me to make every patient
02:52put them on.
02:53I couldn't.
02:54The patients couldn't breathe.
02:59Now they were terrified of crying and pleading not to put them on.
03:07Well, I didn't make them put them on.
03:13We were given the option that we could get out of London as soon as the war broke out.
03:22I don't think any more than two nurses went home.
03:26No, we stayed here and helped.
03:39Hugh Bone, from Upminster in Essex, had been a pacifist before the war.
03:44But in October 1939, he decided to volunteer.
03:49I felt it was right.
03:50I felt we had to do it.
03:52I was doing the right thing, the only thing I could do.
03:56Because I was the sort of person I am, I could not stand aside.
04:00It might be wicked, it might be awful, but I couldn't stand aside and pretend that I
04:03was any different or better or anything else.
04:05I got to be in.
04:10When you're trained to use a bayonet, you're trained to shout and swear and rush at the
04:16thing and put all you've got into shoving your bayonet through this sack.
04:21Thrust it forward, pull it out, stamp the body on the ground.
04:27You're taught to go mad.
04:29You only fight if you're mad.
04:31If you're off your head and angry and shouting and doing things you wouldn't normally do,
04:35you have to become a beast.
04:40Coal miner's son, Ken Oakley, was 18 when he joined up in January 1940.
04:47Some of the things that we were asked to do were crazy, no doubt about that.
04:55The end thing was that we couldn't allow Hitler to carry on as he had, otherwise we would
05:02all be under the thumb.
05:05If you're faced with a fight, what can you do?
05:09If I was faced with a man who was attacking my wife or my children and I had a gun in
05:14my hands, I would shoot them.
05:17I would have no hesitation.
05:21Before the war, Malcolm and Jenny Sisson had worked for the Provincial Insurance Company
05:26in Kendal, Cumbria.
05:29We couldn't afford to get married with the wages we were getting in the insurance company.
05:36You were sort of trying to save up and then the war came and you earned more than you
05:41were.
05:42I did, really.
05:43Although that wasn't a lot either, but just enough then.
05:49When Malcolm joined the RAF, they were able to get married, at St Peter's Church, Heversham.
05:58Jenny's great-aunt, Mabel, filmed it, in colour.
06:03Oh, now then, isn't that nice?
06:07Seeing this film again, after nearly 60 years.
06:10Oh, yes, look at the roses.
06:13And there, there's your dad.
06:15Yes, our little bridesmaid.
06:17And there's Jim.
06:19Oh, yes.
06:21That's a nice shot of those two, isn't it?
06:24Gene, you can hardly believe she's a granny now.
06:30It's not a job you had to get flowers.
06:33Things were very scarce in wartime.
06:35Everything was rationed almost.
06:38I made my own wedding dress.
06:40Rationed almost.
06:42I made my own wedding dress.
06:44My mother helped.
06:47She did all the little button holes on the sleeves.
06:52And then afterwards, I loaned it to two friends.
06:56And they both were married in the same dress.
07:00Here we are, ready for going away on that honeymoon.
07:04My teeth show proud, don't they?
07:07Well, we look very happy, eh?
07:09Oh, yes.
07:11We're just as, we're still...
07:14Just as much in love as ever, I think.
07:17When we first met.
07:20After all these years.
07:28Mary Bloomfield was living in Graysford Avenue, Coventry.
07:32She wrote in her diary almost every day.
07:36On the 8th of June, 1940,
07:39she set down her fears of a German invasion.
07:44News has been coming in of parachutists
07:46dressed as clergymen landing in Norway.
07:49Women are particularly afraid,
07:51as we hear that if you're young and healthy,
07:53you might be shipped to Germany to a baby farm to be mated to Germans.
07:57We've all decided we ought to have a pile of hand grenades
08:02in the bedroom near the window
08:05in case the Germans and their tanks come up our street.
08:12I was just 25.
08:15And you wondered what you'd do if these soldiers suddenly came.
08:21Whether you were frightened of them, or what would happen.
08:25And what you'd do to defend yourself and your home.
08:30And so I thought that day,
08:32I thought the direct approach wouldn't get you anywhere.
08:35So you'd have to put a false face on and pretend to be sociable.
08:40And that's what I thought I'd do.
08:42You poor boy, you look very tired.
08:44Come and sit down, I'll make you a nice cup of tea.
08:47And then I would put something in it, you see,
08:49and then you'd go to sleep and you wouldn't wake up.
08:52But of course I had not faced the fact
08:56that the Germans, other Germans, would arrive to look for him
09:00and they'd want to know how he died.
09:03And then of course, I don't know what my fate would have been.
09:07I don't know what would have happened.
09:09I hadn't got any poison, by the way.
09:11Just if we'd put in the water softener or something.
09:22When the homeland is in danger and there's trouble in the air
09:26We forget our little squabbles and its trespasses beware
09:30In the summer of 1940, 17-year-old choirboy Norris Leedle
09:35joined the Lincolnshire Home Guard.
09:39His platoon was filmed in colour
09:42by local amateur cameraman Vernon Clark.
09:46That's my squad.
09:49There I am.
09:52Three down from the front.
10:00I was 17 and they was asking for recruits
10:04and I thought, well, why not?
10:07Why not?
10:09I think it was only true to your country to do your bit.
10:17This was the practice of the grenade throwing.
10:21The first hand grenade I got in my hand I was terrified.
10:26It was very scary to think that you'd got that in your hand
10:29and it could go off any time.
10:32Because only a few weeks before
10:35the chap was in the dugout, he dropped it
10:40and there was no time to run out.
10:42It blew into pieces.
10:46If the Germans did get across, you wonder what happened.
10:51I don't think we should have done much good.
10:55For families separated by war, radio broadcasts,
10:59especially Churchill's speeches and the nightly news,
11:02lifted morale.
11:06At nine o'clock every night,
11:08the Primes of Big Ben preceded the nine o'clock news
11:13and we two thought of each other at nine o'clock.
11:18We thought of each other at nine o'clock.
11:22We thought of each other at nine o'clock.
11:24While that was happening, it was our special sort of time.
11:28Well, we were linked in spirit then.
11:33And then Churchill, we all had faith in Churchill, didn't we?
11:37Winston Churchill.
11:39Yes.
11:42He was the right man, in the right place, at the right time.
11:51We felt that he would bring us through somehow.
11:58Our Churchill, we worshipped him.
12:01There was no man anywhere as big as Churchill
12:05and he'd had a rough time getting to where he got.
12:12She used to come over on the radio...
12:16She used to come over on the radio and encourage us.
12:21We will fight them on the beaches.
12:23We will fight them in the air.
12:26We will not be defeated.
12:29And, oh, he was wonderful.
12:44Throughout the summer, Nurse Gwyneth Thomas watched
12:48as the fighter pilots of the RAF fought in the skies above.
12:53We just stood there and certainly did not believe
12:58that they would drop on us.
13:00We couldn't believe it would happen.
13:02And I watched our boys in the sky
13:06and the Germans came through and they were fighting.
13:11It was just as though you were watching a football match.
13:14And we were saying,
13:15that's right, boys, go on, blow them up.
13:21And then we were likely to be dead the next minute.
13:31The Battle of Britain was won,
13:34but Hitler's bombers began to wreak havoc on British cities.
13:38I was absolutely petrified.
13:43I shook from head to foot.
13:47And we thought, well, the best thing to do,
13:50I thought, I'll get under my bed.
13:52And then I looked up and saw springs.
13:55I thought, oh, no, I'm not having those through me.
13:58So I went back on to the bank in the corridor.
14:02At the end of every raid, Gwyneth would return to her diary.
14:0826th of September.
14:11Thank God we're still here.
14:15Nearer and nearer they've seen to come.
14:19Three firemen were badly hit.
14:22Two were stationed at this hospital up to a month ago.
14:25Three firemen were badly hit.
14:28Two were stationed at this hospital up to a month ago.
14:32Bill, as everyone knows him, he was one.
14:37Gives you a cold feeling inside when someone you know has been hit.
14:41Now we are beginning to see the results of Hitler's madness.
14:47My diary was always in my bedroom.
14:51I'd come off duty, get to my bedroom,
14:54and I'd write what I had been through.
14:58Writing is my therapy.
15:01If ever I get distressed about anything, I put it on paper.
15:06Whenever I get distressed about anything, I put it on paper.
15:15When people say, were you frightened?
15:18We were in a peculiar state of shock.
15:26You just did things automatically.
15:31You got so used to it.
15:33Wherever you went, you'd go down a street that you knew.
15:39It was just rows of houses and there was nothing there.
15:45I saw a whole street go.
15:49I mean, most of the people were killed.
15:52I just happened to look out of the window when that particular bomb dropped.
15:57I mean, the only thing I ever hoped for at any time
16:03was that I wouldn't be buried alive.
16:13I don't know how we did it. Don't ask me how we went through it. I don't know.
16:26It was a beautiful pain.
16:30I doubt if you'll find an expert for a pilot anywhere in the world
16:34at the very mention of the name.
16:38His eyes will not take on a glazed look,
16:41and you'll go back into dreamland.
16:44It was a lovely aircraft to fly.
16:57After the Battle of Britain,
16:59I would say every teenager in the United Kingdom
17:03wanted to be a Spitfire pilot.
17:05Every single teenager, bar none.
17:11As soon as he was 17, Keith Lee from Liverpool rushed to join the RAF.
17:18I went and presented myself to the flight sergeant.
17:22He didn't exactly look at me like I was God's gift to the RAF,
17:26but he did send me for a medical and a selection board.
17:33For his training, Keith was sent to the United States of America.
17:38Mopping up soda pop rickies
17:41To our heart's delight
17:44Dancing to Swing A Rook wickies
17:47Jukebox Saturday night
17:51Oh, there's me, sitting in the deck chair.
17:54As ever, very self-conscious.
17:58And you can see us barking about in the garden.
18:05Keith and his fellow RAF pilots
18:07spent their weekends with a surrogate family,
18:10Mr and Mrs Hall from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
18:14They filmed the British boys in colour.
18:18It was another world opening up.
18:22After war-torn England, with rationing and blackouts,
18:27I mean, there was a great big world opening up for us.
18:32We were given almost daily lectures on decorum and behaviour.
18:37Things like, say, whistling at young ladies,
18:40that was a capital offence.
18:42You sort of didn't do that at all.
18:45Oh, dear.
18:47On the right hand, there's me,
18:49and I keep trying to duck out of the way.
18:55I don't think I had the stuff that film stars were made of.
19:16As a 16-year-old, Dawn Gould was swept away
19:20by the good looks and glamour of the GIs who flooded into Britain.
19:26Every day, she would settle down to write in her diary.
19:31Went to the Bellevue last night.
19:33Hawks and Freemans is now being made into a club for Yanks.
19:37Cool.
19:38Harry Berman brought me some records.
19:41Glenn Miller in the mood.
19:43Harry James, you made me lonely.
19:45Woodchopper's Ball.
19:47We did a good conga.
19:49And jitterbug.
19:52Oh, Mama.
19:53Snake Hips.
19:56Snake Hips was a Latin American sailor.
20:00Oh, he was the most wonderful dancer.
20:05When you got a good partner, everybody in the ballroom
20:08would come and stand around you in a big circle,
20:11and you'd get more and more frenzied.
20:13It would be wonderful.
20:14And where I was such a tall girl,
20:16I often used to have my partner jump up into my arms
20:19instead of me into his.
20:20I used to do it the other way round.
20:22And I always carried them off the floor afterwards
20:25and deposited them on a chair.
20:34He was a famous trumpet man from our Chicago way.
20:37He had a boogie style that no one else could play.
20:40Well, of course, not counting the accent,
20:43which we all knew from the films,
20:45I think it was their manners.
20:46They were so polite.
20:48They called everybody ma'am, and they'd say,
20:50excuse me, ma'am, and pardon me, ma'am,
20:53and the things that we weren't used to.
20:57The English boys had very, very rough cloth,
21:00and sometimes it was impregnated with anti-gas material,
21:03and it smelled awful, sulphury.
21:06And with the Americans,
21:08they had this very good quality cloth,
21:10and you could feel the difference.
21:12And they had the advantage of the aftershave lotion,
21:16lovely white teeth, beautiful uniforms.
21:19And, of course, our boys then did get a bit jealous,
21:22but you can understand it why.
21:26There was a little bit of animosity.
21:33They had a lot more money than we had.
21:35Our wages weren't very high.
21:38And they weren't frightened about flashing it, you know,
21:41to entice, which, you know,
21:45used to make you feel a little bit uncomfortable.
21:51We never came much into contact
21:53with the American families, forces, did we?
21:57No.
21:58But, yes, I think there would be a tendency
22:02to ease moral standards at that time.
22:09I think it was definitely the American mentality.
22:12You're either cheap and easy,
22:14or you're the girl next door,
22:15or the girl his sister goes to school with, you know.
22:19They just got that mentality
22:21that there's good girls and bad girls,
22:23which is really pretty good.
22:25Of course, it wasn't the mentality
22:27that there's good girls and bad girls,
22:29which is really pretty good.
22:31Of course, it won't be like it now.
22:32They're all at it, aren't they?
22:38Well, you tended to wait till you were married
22:46to have full intimacy, didn't you?
22:52Yes.
22:54We did.
22:55Yes.
23:09In July 1943, 22-year-old Abel Seaman Ken Oakley
23:15wrote of his experience during the invasion of Sicily.
23:20Reading through it, I wondered how the heck I coped
23:24with a lot of the things that are written there.
23:28And it was very difficult.
23:34And I was just a boy from a village.
23:38And I joined the Navy
23:41and learned how to cope with all that
23:46and managed to get through it.
23:49And managed to get through it.
24:12At last, the order came.
24:15Lower boats!
24:16We were away.
24:18We were far from enemy machine guns passing over them.
24:21Ta-ta-ta!
24:22Our brain guns began to speak.
24:25Then crunch!
24:26Down door!
24:27And we were there.
24:33A sapper began to cry, plead, and cling to the floorboards,
24:38swearing he couldn't move.
24:40We left him.
24:42His nerve was gone.
24:44The shrill whine of bullets speeded us on.
24:48Then it came.
24:56That was...
24:58Bang!
25:01And then I was...
25:04in the water,
25:06dragged down,
25:09someone clutching my feet,
25:11trying to hold on to me.
25:14I couldn't get up.
25:17I finally kicked myself clear
25:21and rose to the surface
25:24amid a sea
25:27full of blood,
25:33arms, legs,
25:36men's insides.
25:39I'll never, ever eat tripe again
25:43because that is what a man's flesh is like
25:47when he's blown out of it.
25:54And I finally, after a lot of struggling,
25:59got to the beach where I collapsed.
26:03I came to, hearing a voice,
26:07Oh, my God, help me, save me.
26:11Oh, my God, help me, save me.
26:16I looked and went to the gangplank.
26:20And on the gangplank was the captain, Fadre,
26:25who I'd been speaking to on the landing craft.
26:29His legs were gone, and he was crying out for help.
26:35His God sent me along,
26:38and I carried him down the gangplank
26:41where I collapsed on the beach.
26:44And then I left him for medical aid,
26:48carried on to do my job.
26:57A few days later, it came back to me,
27:00what had happened on the beach.
27:03The nightmares were coming,
27:06and I was in the water again,
27:09kicking myself clear,
27:12coming up in the sea, red with blood.
27:25During the day, I could cast it out of my mind
27:28with things to do.
27:31But at night, when I put my head down to sleep,
27:36then it would come back to me.
27:41Later, I was able to purchase a notebook,
27:45and in the notebook, I wrote it out,
27:48a full account of what had happened.
27:51And in the notebook, I wrote it out,
27:54a full account of what had happened.
27:57And then my head settled,
28:00and I was able to temporarily forget
28:04all the traumatic things that had happened on the beach in Sicily.
28:19In May 1943, Harry Porter,
28:23of the 8th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Belfast Regiment,
28:26arrived in India.
28:29We were six weeks on board ship,
28:32and we got off the ship in Bombay,
28:35and were allowed a couple of days' leave,
28:38and I was walking up one of the main shopping centres,
28:41and there was a firm called Eastman Kodak,
28:44and I'd never heard of them.
28:46I looked in the window, just arrived from America,
28:49a nice little camera, about eight inches by four inches,
28:53and a lot of coloured film, which I didn't even know existed.
28:59Harry bought the camera and the colour film
29:02before he and his regiment embarked
29:05on the 1,500-mile drive to Burma.
29:14Unfortunately, as soon as we got to the edge of the Burma border,
29:18and the exit came out, no cameras allowed east of the Burma border.
29:22But I said to myself,
29:24well, I've gotten a camera, may as well keep it.
29:27So gradually I got enough courage to bring my camera out
29:30now and again, which I did.
29:34It was decreed that we should learn
29:37the art of self-defence and silent killing,
29:40and this is me taking a dagger off one of the boys.
29:49EXPLOSIONS
29:53Our immediate programme was the Japanese in front of us.
29:57We were amazed when we blew the tops off their bunkers
30:01and dugouts that they didn't surrender
30:04the way any sensible soldier might have done.
30:07But they committed hara-kiri.
30:10But we didn't have any great hatred for them.
30:14We were doing a job the way we were.
30:16The hatred came after the war when the stories came out.
30:19EXPLOSIONS
30:27I'd say our trouble in Burma was the three M's.
30:31Morale, malaria,
30:34and the third one was the monsoon.
30:38We fought the monsoons as much as we could,
30:42but we quickly realised with our heavy equipment
30:45you couldn't move it during the monsoon
30:48because everything turned to mud.
30:52Everything was damp, clothes, food, the lot.
31:00Near Banbridge Town in the county town
31:03Near Banbridge Town in the county town
31:09In our three and a half years in Burma
31:11we only saw one concert party.
31:14We had to make up our own amusements
31:16and these are the boys dressed up.
31:18Where they got the clothes from I didn't ask any question.
31:24It was childish looking at it now,
31:27but to us it was great fun, we laughed our heads off.
31:30I hadn't seen a girl for what, over three years?
31:35You can understand that any diversion was very welcome.
31:40LAUGHS
31:56At the age of 26,
31:58novelist Moira MacLeod was with naval staff
32:01planning the invasion of Europe.
32:05She kept a secret diary.
32:09Sunday afternoon was still and breathless.
32:14Strict bans were in force.
32:17No conversations with civilians,
32:19no private telephone calls
32:21and all naval personnel confined to their places of duty.
32:27We knew that D-Day was coming, but nobody knew when.
32:33The sea was absolutely chock-a-block.
32:36Torbay was jammed with craft.
32:39You could almost walk from one to the other.
32:42It was the most exciting thing.
32:48Just three weeks before D-Day,
32:51Dawn Gould had become engaged to a GI.
32:58His name was Stuart, he was in the American First Division.
33:02He was so dark and handsome,
33:04I really, I really was thrilled to bits.
33:08They'd been shut in their barracks for several days,
33:11nobody was allowed out at all.
33:13So I went out there with someone in a jeep
33:16and saw him out there and said goodbye to him.
33:25Didn't get right close to him,
33:27I just waved to him and said goodbye through the barbed wire, you know.
33:32Then it began to be rather pathetic,
33:36because they kept giving me envelopes and saying,
33:42will you please post this?
33:44This is for my family, you know,
33:47and what about, this is the money for the stamps.
33:50And it began to be very moving.
33:55On HMS Glenern,
33:57Lieutenant Hugh Bone was ready for his first action.
34:03In a sense, we were expectant, we were looking forward.
34:06We boarded our ship,
34:08but there was a delay of 24 hours,
34:12so we had to wait for the next ship to come.
34:15We had to wait for the next ship to come,
34:18and we had to wait for the next ship to come.
34:21But there was a delay of 24 hours, so we stayed on ship.
34:25Well, it was sunny, actually.
34:27I sat in a little boat, moored by our boat,
34:29and went to sleep part of the time.
34:34We all felt, this is it, this is really it.
34:36It was excitement, because your first action is exciting.
34:40My experience was not peculiar to me.
34:42It's only after you know what's involved that you begin to get frightened.
34:52The armada assembled in the channel.
34:57For Hugh Bone and a million other men,
35:00the waiting would soon be over.
35:05It was night.
35:07I think we were all excited.
35:10I didn't detect any sort of...
35:15..anything other than people feeling like me, really.
35:18I went to bed, slept.
35:23On the embarkation ship Arontas was Royal Navy Commando Ken Oakley.
35:29It was just a year since he'd survived the invasion of Sicily.
35:35The senior army officer who gave us the pep talk the night before,
35:40he said,
35:43He said,
35:51He said,
35:57He said,
36:06That is the thing that must be done.
36:09You must capture the beach.
36:13HE WHISTLES
36:18Complete silence fell and an emptiness.
36:21It's very sort of still, very still.
36:25We'd done all we could.
36:29And then we stopped and listened
36:33and we heard in the distance, boom, boom, boom,
36:37the guns beginning to fire over in France.
36:43The greatest seaborne invasion in history had begun.
36:58D-Day.
37:00At 5.30am, Allied warships began to bombard the coast of France.
37:07We got into the boats.
37:09At the pod, we said some prayers.
37:11You sat on a little piece of wood.
37:14There were three rows like this.
37:16You sat one behind the other and kept our heads down.
37:22As we boarded the craft,
37:24we could hear the huge shells that were being fired by the battleships.
37:29There was always firing as they whisked overhead.
37:33Shells weighing about a tonne each.
37:43In a letter to his mother,
37:45Hugh Bone described the horrors of the landings.
37:49By now we could hear the enemy machine guns,
37:52the explosions of enemy mortars on the beach.
37:55We clutched our weapons.
37:58Now was the moment.
38:00Stuff was falling pretty close to us.
38:02People were hit.
38:04Some were dead.
38:06Others struggling to crawl out of the water.
38:09We couldn't help them.
38:11Our job was to push on.
38:14There were some horrible sights.
38:16Men calling out for help.
38:20I wanted to push on.
38:22Men calling out for help.
38:26I wanted to pull a body out of the waves.
38:30But he looked to be dead.
38:32I had no time or duty there.
38:40People were being hit.
38:42The boat next to us, when they opened the ramp,
38:44bullets went straight in.
38:46Our padre was wounded.
38:48Our medical officer was killed.
38:51We'd been given strict instructions
38:53not to give any first aid or help,
38:55because our job was to get across the beach
38:57and onto our target,
38:59leaving the beach for others coming after us to come in.
39:02Leaving the beach for others coming after us to come in.
39:08It was very, very bad when we landed.
39:13When you hear bullets whizzing through the air,
39:16you think, well, I've got to get under some cover.
39:19I've got to do something about this.
39:21I've got to find out where it's coming from.
39:23Can I attack?
39:25Can I reach them with the gun I have?
39:29I realised that we were being shelled
39:31and I couldn't get away from it.
39:33I was suddenly afraid.
39:35The scene was one of devastation.
39:38Bodies everywhere.
39:40Around you, people crying out for help.
39:44You cope with it by saying,
39:46well, nevertheless, I must carry on,
39:48but you become a little more frightened
39:51every time something lands near you.
39:56The provost sergeant was wounded just by me.
39:59He'd been hit on the shoulder and he was very pale
40:01and he talked about a letter to his brother and so on.
40:04But I put my arms around him and put my field dressing on him
40:08and, you know, looked up to him,
40:10Yes, you do.
40:12You learn then to do things that I wouldn't have learned
40:15perhaps other ways.
40:17It would have taken me a long time
40:19to put my arm around anybody, but you just do.
40:28I was working on the water's edge
40:31and I heard the sound of pipes.
40:35I couldn't believe it.
40:38I couldn't believe it
40:41until I looked to my right
40:44and saw the piper marching along
40:47with his kilt on
40:50and playing as if he was on the plague grounded in London.
41:00Then the whole group of No. 6 Commando
41:05got up in column of threes on the landing craft
41:08and with Lord Lovett and the piper leading them
41:12they marched off the landing craft
41:15through the water, onto the beach
41:19up into the village
41:21with the piper playing ahead of them.
41:24And I could hear the most impressive thing
41:28that you could ever imagine happening.
41:31Incredible.
41:35He had a lot of guts to march along playing the pipes.
41:45He raised the spirits of all of us on the beach that day.
41:52If a piper could play, what did you ever do?
41:56Rubbish.
42:06One of our squaddies was walking out forward with a machine gun
42:11and he saw a bunch of Germans walking back
42:14with their hands behind their head, them taking prisoners.
42:17Only about seven or eight of them.
42:19But he'd just lost his best friend
42:22and he turned the machine gun on and machine gunned the lot.
42:25Now, that was anger and temper.
42:27He wouldn't have done it if he'd thought a bit about it
42:29and waited a bit longer, but in the heat of the moment
42:32that sort of thing could happen.
42:35MUSIC PLAYS
42:40We were all victims of war.
42:52In Weymouth, Dawn Gould was waiting for news
42:55from her American fiancé, Stuart.
43:00I did hear from him a couple of times
43:03and then I had a bunch of my own letters back, all tied together.
43:07It said, deceased, return to sender.
43:10And that's when I wrote to his sisters
43:13and they said that he'd been killed but they didn't know where.
43:19Not being a wife, an official next of kin,
43:23his sisters were his next of kin,
43:25so I didn't write a proper telegram or letter.
43:28I just had all the letters returned.
43:34And I had the souvenirs he'd given me from Sicily and North Africa
43:38and I had a bundle of his letters and that was all I had.
43:44And a couple of photos.
43:53Here is the news.
43:55The end of the war in Europe was officially announced
43:58by Mr Churchill at 3 o'clock this afternoon
44:01in a broadcast from 10 Downing Street.
44:12We were so excited.
44:14London was awake again.
44:17And we kept bumping into each other,
44:20saying, it's over, it's over, it's over.
44:23Oh, thank God, it's over.
44:25Isn't it wonderful to be free?
44:27Isn't it wonderful to be able to go out?
44:32Everybody was saying, well, now our Jack won't get killed,
44:36now our John will be home,
44:38and everyone was saying, thank God they'll all soon be home.
44:43It was like about 20 carnival days all rolled into one.
44:57I had a very, very large white ensign,
45:00which I brought home,
45:02and we flew that outside the house here.
45:06And that was really something.
45:13It's wonderful.
45:18We'd been strung up for so long, we got so used to war,
45:22and we never thought it was going to end.
45:25It was the time when I was 21 till the time I was 27.
45:30Well, that's a lot of your life.
45:36VE Day and VEJ Day, they just didn't happen to me.
45:40This is the odd thing, I've learned more about them
45:43afterwards when I saw it on film,
45:45and it was the people who hadn't fought who celebrated.
45:48The ones who were fighting were still out there,
45:51or dead, or in hospital.
45:56It was like a long horror story, and it was finished.
46:02There was no real joyfulness.
46:04There couldn't be.
46:06Too many people had been killed,
46:08and sons and husbands and friends and neighbours and that.
46:12I mean, it was such a...
46:15Oh, I can't describe it, really.
46:18Such a horrifying thing from beginning to end.
46:25We were pleased we'd beaten Hitler,
46:28but on the other hand, life in this country was very grim,
46:32because the restrictions were tighter after the war
46:35than they'd been through the war.
46:42Well, actually, I had a nervous breakdown.
46:46A lot of people dead.
46:55I did not let myself linger too long
46:58on the bad things that had happened.
47:04I tried to think more of the future,
47:08what it would hold, and what we could do.
47:1860 years on, Churchill's words hold true.
47:24This was no war of chieftains or of princes.
47:28It was a war of peoples and of causes.
47:33A war of unknown warriors.
47:40I don't criticise the young people for saying,
47:44oh, well, we've heard enough about it.
47:46How could you understand what we went through?
47:49How could you be sympathetic?
47:52Because you never went through it.
47:58I feel very grateful that I was chosen to survive
48:03those traumatic events,
48:06and they have stood me in good stead all my life.
48:19Life is full of tears.
48:22Life is like that, and you may have to cry,
48:25but there's no way of going round it.
48:27You can't turn your back on life.
48:33Witness six years.
48:36For what is six years? It goes very quickly.
48:38It makes you appreciate that time goes awfully quickly,
48:42and you should fill each one for giving minutes.
48:46By and large, things could be better in a perfect world.
48:51Everything could be better.
48:55But the world is not perfect.
48:59We've been quite happy, really.
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