Original subtitles

(narrator) September 1, 1939.

Germany attacks Poland.

Adolf Hitler ignores Britain and France which had promised to fight for Poland.

Sunday September 3. The British prime minister Neville Chamberlain broadcasts.

(Chamberlain) This morning the British ambassador in Berlin

handed the German government a final note

stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock

that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland,

a state of war would exist between us.

I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received

and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

(chanting / cheering)

(narrator) Danzig, taken from Germany after the First World War,

welcomed its liberators.

To many good Germans the city's capture symbolised the end

of the humiliating Treaty of Versailles.

Hitler swept forward to congratulate his victorious troops.

He said they'd rescued his people from Polish barbarism.

The Germans thrust into Poland from the west and north.

In two weeks the Polish army had virtually ceased to exist.

Warsaw was one of the few places to hold out.

The Russians, by agreement with Germany,

seized parts of Poland they claimed as theirs by right.

The two conquerors met at Brest-Litovsk.

It was the scene of the Russian surrender to Germany in 1918.

The official German greeting in Russian

said German soldiers had always respected Russian soldiers.

The clash of Nazi and Communist was, for the moment, conveniently forgotten.

The final bombardment of Warsaw began on September 23.

(♪ Polish national anthem)

For nearly three weeks Warsaw Radio

had defiantly played the Polish national anthem.

On September 27 the anthem stopped.

- (announcement in Polish) - (air-raid siren)

Warsaw was reduced to rubble.

The capitaI's commander surrendered.

Poland, swallowed by Germany and Russia,

disappeared into a new dark age.

Arrests, deportations, executions began.

(siren)

Britain's war started with a false alarm.

September 3.

(man) I remember when the outbreak of war came.

We were in the cabinet room

at the moment that the ultimatum expired.

(narrator) Lord Butler was a junior minister.

(Butler) And we were just beginning to congratulate the prime minister

on his broadcast when we heard a terrible wailing,

which of course was the first air-raid siren.

Chamberlain took it very seriously

and his wife appeared with an enormous basket full of things for the night

and Thermos flasks and things to read and so on.

And so we all went and sheltered.

I went and sheltered after some delay in the Foreign Office.

The whole of the Horse Guards Parade was empty of people

and there was nobody in sight anywhere.

When I got there, there was no furniture so I had to sit on the floor.

And an air-raid warden said that there would be no gas.

But of course there wasn't really any war for some time,

quite apart from being no gas.

(air-raid siren)

(narrator) So, no war that day, or for many months.

People settled down to enjoy the unexpected reprieve.

It was perfect weather for a late holiday - or invading Poland.

(♪ military band)

People had braced themselves for a grimmer war.

Hospitals were cleared to take air-raid casualties.

The experts predicted over a million injured in two months.

Children and their mothers evacuated from the cities - 1.5 million of them.

For some, a nightmare. For others, an adventure.

(man) We assembled in a playground rather like this.

The kids were there and the parents.

Children had the gas mask over their shoulder and labels tied to them.

(woman) The women had to decide whether to keep their children with them

or whether to allow them to go out.

Now, one would think that this was an easy decision.

Why not keep your children with you - the natural thing to do?

But against this was the terrible thought

that there was going to be gas,

that there was going to be terrible bombing and death

and that children would be maimed.

(man) Everyone was crying - the parents and children -

and as we moved off especially, people burst into tears.

My mother was more unhappy about the wrench of us going

rather than the war itself.

My sister was crying. I personally wasn't.

I was rather excited at the prospect of leaving this part of London.

We thought we'd travelled to the other side of the world,

but in fact, we came to Denham, here, only 20 miles from London.

I promised my mother I wouldn't be separated from my sister,

so we went to the village hall with all the other kids,

and because we wouldn't be separated, we were the last ones to find a billet.

It was like being auctioned off at the time.

But when we finally got a house to take us in, it was fantastic.

It was a new world that opened out to us.

I mean, we had toothbrushes and sheets on the bed and hot water.

Imagine hot water! We just couldn't get over it.

And we didn't know what eiderdowns were for.

In the morning we went blackberry picking.

Then we heard the sirens, so we rushed back to our billet.

The woman there reassured us and said not to worry, and we sat down to lunch.

It was the first fully laid-out table I'd ever seen in my life.

And war was declared, I think, that same lunchtime.

She said not to worry and passed us the horseradish sauce.

But I think a number of children suffered really deeply

being away from their families.

They suffered a sense of rejection.

They exhibited their senses of rejection and sorrow and suffering

very often by strange behaviour problems,

by bedwetting, perhaps not eating.

31 arrived, with two junior nurses, I think.

They were pretty dirty and two of them got impetigo.

I had young children at the time.

And I put them into a large room.

You've no idea... I had no idea that such things existed in England.

They relieved themselves all over the carpet

and the place was a shambles.

(man shouts orders)

(narrator) There was no heroic rush to volunteer for the forces.

You waited your turn to be called up

for processing in the military sausage machine.

All rather leisurely.

(church bells)

But a rush to get married.

In August and September, the highest number of weddings ever recorded.

White the only wear.

White for the blackout too, to make sure car drivers can see you in the dark.

At first the blackout was a bit of a joke.

Then road casualties shot up and the blackout wasn't funny any more.

There were no air raids,

but thousands of people were killed or injured in accidents in the blackout.

Depressing, too. Without it, you could almost forget there was a war on.

Every night, every home had to be blacked out.

The air-raid warden looking for chinks of light

became more hated than Hitler.

The government closed cinemas and entertainments

at the beginning of the war.

A fortnight later they were allowed to open again.

(♪ band plays "We're Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line")

In spite of total war, there were nearly a million and a half unemployed.

Sir John Simon, the chancellor of the exchequer,

introduced an emergency budget.

In three hours' time

all budget secrets will be revealed.

I am confident that, whatever may be the burdens

which have to be carried by the British taxpayer,

my fellow countrymen will bear them

with the same resolution and courage

as our fighting men will show

when they discharge their grimmer task on the field of battle.

(cheering)

The blackout budget. lncome tax up to 7s 6d.

A 60% tax on excess profit.

In retrospect, mild enough,

but a Conservative MP, Chips Channon,

thought it demolished the edifice of capitalism.

Another Tory, Leo Amery, wanted a tougher war. Why not bomb Germany?

The air minister Kingsley Wood said no.

German munition works were private property

and the Germans would retaliate.

The opening phase of the war

was one of the most extraordinary periods through which I've lived,

because it was a period of euphoria

on the part of the people of this country.

For a long time there were quite a lot of unemployed,

while the Germans were manufacturing arms at full stretch,

particularly in the Skoda works in Czechoslovakia,

which they had by that time occupied.

Now, all this time the Germans were a beehive of activity.

We were doing absolutely nothing.

We'd gone to war for the defence of Poland.

In the event, we did nothing to help Poland at all.

We never lifted a finger.

For the first three months of the war,

the greatest number of casualties were in the blackout.

We confined our war effort to dropping leaflets on the German people

telling them that it was a bad idea to go to war

and that it was a pity that they'd done it

and perhaps we might make peace.

(narrator) The Phoney War.

When a German plane crashed in Scotland in November,

people came from miles around to see it.

And the Luftwaffe's dead were buried with full military honours.

Three British divisions went off to France at the beginning of the war.

More followed. "Nearly 200,000 men," said the war minister proudly.

The French had mobilised six million men.

They grumbled that the British weren't taking the war seriously.

(Gracie Fields) ♪ Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye

(men join in) ♪ Cheerio, here I go on my way

♪ Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye

♪ With a cheer, not a tear, make it gay

♪ Give me a smile I can keep all the while

♪ In my heart while I'm away

♪ Till we meet once again, you and I

♪ Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye

(narrator) In France, training for a war that ended in 1918.

The newsreel reporter tried hard to make it sound impressive.

(reporter) The force, instead of being thrown into the line,

is able to perfect its training in conditions similar to those at home.

This bayonet drill in gas masks is our reply to transparent Nazi propaganda

which seems to indicate that Germany is preparing to employ poison gas.

Infantry battalions exercise with their weapons,

awaiting the moment for their use in actual warfare.

The mortar platoon goes into action

with a rapidity acquired by constant practice.

Steel helmets assume a fashionable appearance with camouflage.

(narrator) French and British generals too

prepared for their part in the battle to come.

The British dug in on the Belgian frontier.

In December it was decided that when fighting began

they'd leave their defences and advance into Belgium.

Anything helped to keep their minds off the war.

(♪ "Maginot Line" by George Formby)

♪ Now, imagine me in the Maginot line

♪ Sitting on a mine in the Maginot line

♪ Now it's turned out nice again

♪ The army life is fine

♪ French girls make a fuss of me

♪ I'm not French as you can see

♪ But I know what they mean when they say oui, oui

♪ Down on the Maginot line

♪ Now, imagine me in the Maginot line

♪ Sitting on a mine in the Maginot line

♪ Now it's turned out nice again

♪ The army life is fine

♪ At night myself to sleep I sing

♪ To my old tin hat I cling

♪ I have to use it now for everything

♪ Down on the Maginot line

(cheering)

(narrator) "Winston's back," the navy was told on September 3.

Chamberlain was reluctant to recall his most bitter political opponent

with a reputation for military adventure.

But Churchill was popular with the public.

He had warned them war was coming.

Now, with surprising energy for a 64-year-old,

he proved a willing leader.

The RAF dropped leaflets, the army dug trenches,

but Churchill's navy was Britain's strongest arm.

And the first lord of the admiralty was often in the news.

We are in a very different position

from that we were in ten weeks ago.

We are far stronger than we were ten weeks ago.

We are far better prepared

to endure the worst malice of Hitler and his Huns

than we were at the beginning of September.

(narrator) The news that a German battleship

was sinking British merchantmen gave the chance to take the offensive.

Churchill concentrated much of the navy's strength on finding her.

One hunting group patrolled off the River Plate in South America.

Three cruisers - Exeter, Ajax and Achilles.

At dawn on December 13 they sighted a heavier German ship.

It was the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.

Although outgunned, the cruisers engaged her.

The Battle of the River Plate began.

(man) Within about five minutes of the alarm being sounded,

Graf Spee and Exeter were shooting at each other

and the Ajax and Achilles were both shooting at the Graf Spee,

concentrating their gunfire.

The Exeter was quite soon hit

and received early damage.

Her foremost guns only fired a few rounds each

before they were out of action.

She continued as long as she possibly could with her after turret,

but the ship herself was badly damaged. Her speed was reduced.

The six-inch-gun cruisers before long turned directly towards the Graf Spee

so as to close the range still faster

and the captain of the Graf Spee

did not follow up the Exeter entirely,

but indeed before very long started heading towards Montevideo.

But we could not see any spectacular damage inflicted on him,

and indeed his speed seemed to be unimpaired

and his heavy guns were still firing regularly and with very good accuracy.

(narrator) The Graf Spee took on fuel

and put ashore the crews of the merchant ships she'd sunk.

Captain Langsdorff asked the U ruguayans for permission to stay

but was told he must clear the port in 72 hours.

So he buried his dead.

Believing that heavier British ships were waiting for him,

he prepared to carry out his final orders from Berlin.

(Woodhouse) As soon as he started pulling his anchor up

we got news of it from our people ashore

and we sent off our aircraft.

In due course we got the signal from the aircraft,

which was a very welcome one:

"Graf Spee has blown herself up."

(narrator) Two days later, Langsdorff shot himself.

Churchill made the most of a victory won by bluff rather than gun power.

Two of the cruisers were brought home.

(♪ "A Life on the Ocean Wave" by Henry Russell)

Their crews marched through the City of London to Guildhall

and the first lord of the admiralty basked in their glory.

(Churchill) The brilliant sea fight

which you executed,

those who are here executed,

takes its place in our naval annals

and I may add that in a dark, cold winter,

it warmed the cockles of the British heart.

(cheering)

(air-raid siren)

(narrator) Helsinki, November 30, 1939.

Finland has refused to hand over bases and territory

demanded by her neighbour Russia.

The Russians attack.

The massive Russian army crossed the frontier,

apparently set for the kind of easy victory

the Germans had had in Poland.

But the Finns, few in number, fought back.

Camouflaged Finnish ski troops knew how to use their own conditions,

moving round the Russian flanks, cutting their supply lines.

The Russian advance ground to a halt,

confirming the German belief that the Russian army,

purged by Stalin of many of its regular officers, couldn't fight.

Whole Russian divisions were destroyed.

Those who weren't taken prisoner died in the snow -

for the Russians, a humiliating, if temporary, failure.

In Britain it was snowing, too.

The censorship tried to hush it up but people couldn't help noticing it.

To the trials of the blackout were added the worst winter for 45 years,

a coal shortage, burst pipes and food rationing.

The RAF was grounded.

Troops were called in to keep the trains running.

For the navy, another victory.

Taking refuge in a Norwegian fjord,

the Graf Spee's supply ship Altmark was cornered by British destroyers.

Ignoring Norwegian neutrality, they boarded her

and after a fight released 300 British prisoners.

For Hitler the seizure of the Altmark was a setback.

He hastened his plans to invade Norway.

(cheering)

For Churchill, another popular triumph.

He too had his eyes on Norway.

Churchill's colleagues had discussed for months

his plan for British action in Norway,

but some, like the foreign secretary Lord Halifax,

were difficult to persuade.

Churchill now added a plan to help Finland

as part of the Norwegian operation.

He proposed to stop Germany's important supply of iron ore,

which came from Sweden to the Norwegian port of Narvik.

Then it was shipped to Germany through neutral Norwegian waters.

Churchill wanted to mine the waters

and he added enticingly that if Narvik were captured

it could be used as a base for helping Finland against Communist Russia.

Churchill knew that his plan might mean retaliation by Hitler in Norway,

and helping Finland could mean war with Russia.

Chamberlain was concerned about innocent Norwegian lives

and the effect on American opinion.

Eventually, he was persuaded.

(man) I think that deep down he still hoped

that perhaps the major clash of armies could be avoided.

He thought that Germany

was on the verge of starvation,

or if not on the verge of starvation,

it anyhow would be brought to the verge of starvation by economic warfare.

He thought also that deep down

the German people didn't support Hitler,

that this was a clique and that if we did our propaganda properly

there would perhaps be a revolt of the generals

or somebody else against Hitler

and that therefore dropping propaganda leaflets by bomber command of the RAF

rather than bombs was a good way of conducting the war.

Anything to stop the real major outbreak.

And that is why I think to some extent the campaigns in Norway

were something acceptable to Chamberlain,

because it kept the war distant.

It kept the idea of a real big clash,

a repetition of Passchendaele or the Somme, far away.

It meant that war would be localised and perhaps some miracle would happen.

Perhaps Hitler would die or be assassinated

and the whole thing would end with the minimum of bloodshed.

Finland today

amidst her snows and her frozen lakes

is fighting against the forces of unscrupulous violence

just as we are ourselves.

(applause)

And her need calls for our sympathy and our aid.

(no sound)

(narrator) British aid did go to Finland, but late.

The Russians brought all their weight to bear

and overwhelmed the Finnish defences.

The day the British steeled themselves to force a landing in Norway,

Finland surrendered.

So Britain was saved from war against Russia and Germany at the same time.

The armistice terms gave Russia most of what she wanted.

Hundreds of thousands of Finns had to evacuate their homes.

The French prime minister Daladier

had staked everything on helping Finland.

He was replaced by Paul Reynaud.

Reynaud went on pressing for Churchill's operation

to cut off the German iron ore.

An Allied meeting in London decided to mine Norwegian waters.

Churchill had got his way.

British and French troops stood ready to invade Norway.

The mines were laid on April 8.

A few days earlier, no thought of Norway in his mind,

Chamberlain had proclaimed that Hitler had missed the bus.

And General Ironside dared the Germans to do their worst.

Hitler's invasion force sailed on April 6.

The Luftwaffe took over most of the Norwegian airfields.

(♪ marching band)

The German march into Oslo was led by a band.

Norway had no standing army, only half-trained militia.

The Norwegians were antimilitarist by tradition

and they had seen German newsreels of the blitzkrieg on Poland.

No one wanted Oslo to go the way of Warsaw.

There was little resistance.

The Allied operation in Norway was a muddle from the start.

Troops were embarked, disembarked, embarked again, without vital equipment.

A contingent of French troops sailed with the British, plentifully equipped.

Unlike the British, they were trained for winter conditions,

but they hadn't got straps for their skis.

Even the expedition's objectives were confused.

Trondheim in central Norway was to be captured by a pincer attack

from Andalsnes and Namsos.

So some troops were diverted south.

But Churchill's mind was still fixed on Narvik,

and it was there the first battle took place.

The navy bombarded Narvik

and German destroyers already there took a battering.

But the advantage was lost.

The British army commander didn't make a direct assault on the town.

British Territorials did land at Namsos and Andalsnes.

They had no skis, no proper maps of Norway,

and no heavy guns.

There was little they could do when they ran into the well-equipped Germans.

Captain Martin Lindsay was with the British force at Namsos.

(Lindsay) There was no hope at all for this operation

because it was entirely improvised at short notice and in a great hurry

and the force had no aircraft supporting it and no artillery.

But even more important, all the ground was covered with snow

and the only way to operate was with ski troops,

and we hadn't got ski troops.

Therefore the troops were confined to the road.

Whenever the Germans got onto the hills on the flank they had to retire.

(narrator) The British couldn't stop the Luftwaffe

from blitzing the little Norwegian towns.

German control of the Norwegian airfields was the key to the battle.

The Germans advanced, capturing hundreds of British prisoners.

Some of these were flown to Berlin and paraded before Hitler.

Others were put in front of German newsreel cameras.

You seem to be in a good mood. You don't find Germans as bad as you expected?

- Oh, no, certainly not. - Oh, no.

I was captured at Fåberg by the Germans.

From there I came to Lillehammer

and we had a supper.

It consisted of brown bread, Gorgonzola,

wine which the Germans gave to us, cigarettes.

And a hot meal each day.

And I'm getting on fairly decent.

I hope the war will soon be over and we'll all go back home.

(narrator) Most did go home ingloriously,

abandoning Andalsnes and Namsos still burning.

Chased by the Luftwaffe - the Norwegian campaign rammed home the lesson

that sea power without air power could no longer win battles.

Their only honour the part they played in bringing down a government,

for now the machinery of democracy began to work.

As the troops disembarked,

an angry parliament was assembling to debate the disaster.

Feeling cut across party lines.

Captain Lindsay, a Tory, went to the leader of the Labour opposition.

(Lindsay) Well, I was the first person from this force to reach London.

I went to see Mr Attlee on the morning of the first day of the debate

and I gave him a memorandum

about the appalling improvisation and deficiencies in Norway,

because I was convinced that we should lose the war if we went on like that,

which he gave to Herbert Morrison

to help him open for the opposition that afternoon.

The Norway debate was the only decisive debate I ever attended

during my 34 years as a member of the House of Commons

because it was the only division

which definitely brought about the fall of a government.

For nearly a year before that debate

there had been a piling-up of bitterness and anguish

in the breasts of people

who wanted Britain to go all out and win the war against Hitler.

And so you can imagine that the debate was a very fierce one -

not only the Labour opposition but also Conservatives.

They felt that the whole conduct of the war could not be carried on

under a man whom they had already assailed at the time of Munich

and whom they realised was not really by nature a war leader.

Gradually, the temperature began to rise,

and when Herbert Morrison for the Labour Party

announced that they were going to divide at the end of the debate

against the government...

There was an action group

of which Clement Davies was chairman, the Liberal leader, and I was secretary.

It was an all-party committee,

committed to pressing for more decisive action during the war

and a more vigorous posture

and more vigorous prosecution of the war.

And we decided to hold a meeting after Morrison's announcement

and we asked Leo Amery to preside over it.

It was an enormously attended meeting.

Many Conservative members of parliament were there

and I felt something was happening.

There were a great many members of parliament

who had never been hitherto members of our action group

who fetched up at the meeting.

The feeling at the meeting was passionate.

And I felt, at that time, that a great many Conservative members

were not only prepared to abstain in the division

but even to vote against the government.

And I came down from that meeting with feelings of great tension.

Meanwhile, Churchill had been putting up a great defence of the government,

and it was ironical again there because the debate was about Norway

and Norway had been a series of disasters for which,

although he might not be blamed because they may have been unavoidable,

he was directly responsible as first lord of the admiralty.

And Amery made a most formidable speech

in which he quoted CromwelI's words:

"You have been here long enough for any good you have done."

"In the name of God, go."

And then Lloyd George came down

and made the most devastating speech I've ever heard even him make

in which he concluded by saying to Chamberlain :

"You have asked the nation for sacrifices

but there is one sacrifice that is more necessary than any other,

and that is the sacrifice of your own office."

When the result was announced

and the Conservative majority fell to about 80,

and that meant the fall of the government in the circumstances,

I could see Chamberlain, I can see him now, blanch.

He had asked for friendship

from those who were his friends

and he hadn't got it, and he walked out of the chamber a solitary figure.

And I felt very sorry for him at that moment

because I knew that he knew that he was done.

And I remember Chamberlain going to his room afterwards

and saying he wondered whether this could go on.

But it wasn't till the next day that he really realised that his number was up.

On that particular day the whips, I think, tried to explain to him

that it might have been worse and that sort of thing,

but those of us who were with him

could see the writing on the wall by that time.

During those two days, 9 and 10 May,

there was great doubt as to who would succeed Chamberlain.

The Labour Party made it clear that if there was to be a coalition government,

which by now everybody thought necessary,

they would not serve under Chamberlain.

The choice, therefore, was between Churchill and Halifax.

(narrator) Lord Halifax was the obvious successor,

Chamberlain's trusted colleague.

But no peer had been prime minister for nearly 40 years. As for his rival...

(Colville) Churchill was viewed with grave misgiving

by the establishment, as it would now be called.

Everybody at 10 Downing Street and Whitehall generally,

the cabinet offices, and in very large sectors of the Conservative Party,

were frightened of Churchill.

They thought he was an adventurer. They remembered Gallipoli.

They thought that they did not want to see the fortunes of this country

at a most critical moment in its whole history

handed over to somebody who might do the most extraordinary things

and undertake the most astonishing adventures.

And they all, after all, realised that Norway,

this fiasco from which we were just hoping to recover

or had just been saved in the nick of time,

was largely the inspiration of Churchill.

It was a very fine idea but it didn't work, just like Gallipoli.

And therefore it was with a certain amount of fear of Churchill

that I think the minds of most people

in the centre of government and in the centre of Whitehall

turned towards Halifax.

Halifax was safe. He was clever. He was a fellow of All Souls.

He was a man of indisputable charm and absolute integrity.

And it was hoped that he would perhaps be sent for by the king.

The Labour Party approached me -

Hugh Dalton and Herbert Morrison -

and they both talked in favour of Halifax

and they thought that Halifax ought to take over.

I think their idea always was

that Churchill would run the war under Halifax,

an idea which didn't appeal to Halifax.

I remember Churchill telling me

that the critical moment came

when Chamberlain asked Halifax and him to join him in the cabinet room.

And the three of them were there.

Halifax was sitting beside Chamberlain,

who suddenly turned to Churchill and said :

"Tell me, Winston, do you see any reason why in the 20th century

a prime minister should not be in the House of Lords?"

And Churchill thought that this was a trap.

lf he said, "No, I see no reason at all,"

he thought Chamberlain would turn to Halifax

and say, "In that case, if the king were to ask my advice

I could perhaps suggest you."

On the other hand, it would be difficult for him to say, "Yes, I do,"

because then there could be no alternative but himself.

So he turned round and stood staring over the Horse Guards Parade

and did not reply to the question.

The decision, I think, was largely taken by Halifax

who told me he had a pain in his stomach an hour or two before the meeting

and did not really want to be prime minister,

whereas the man who did want to be prime minister -

he was quite determined - was Churchill.

(narrator) At dawn the Germans swept into Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The war was at last coming very close home to Britain.

As the Allied armies braced themselves for battle, Chamberlain resigned

and advised the king to send for Churchill.

(Colville) Churchill would be a gamble,

and perhaps when you're at a very serious moment of your lives,

a gamble is not the thing to undertake,

and so it was with great despair

that we all heard on the evening of 10 May

that the king had sent for Churchill.