All language subtitles for The World at War - S01E04 - Alone (May 1940 - May 1941).eng

NARRATOR: May 26, 1940.

Along roads lined with their
smashed and abandoned equipment,

British and French armies retreat to
the only Channel port still open to them:

Dunkirk.

Ten miles away, along
the Channel coast,

German armor awaits
Hitler's orders to attack.

On the Dunkirk beaches,

nearly half a million
men - British and French -

face surrender, or the slim chance
of rescue by ships from England.

MAN: There were masses of troops
and came down in a sort of a V-shape

to a crocodile, semi-single file,
as they got near the water's edge.

Of course, many of these soldiers
were going out up to their necks in water

and climbing into,
say, minesweepers

that could get in
nearly as close as that.

Others on the beach were
embarking in the small boats.

But there didn't seem to
be any panic or worry at all.

One came across lots
of these small boats,

many of them with perhaps a
dozen or so soldiers on board,

heading back for
England resolutely.

One quite often offered to take
their crews of soldiers off them

so they could go back
for more, and they said:

"No fear. We've got our 12 pongos, and
we're going back to England with them."

"You go and get your own."

MAN: The beach was...
There were thousands of men,

like Margate beach
on a bank holiday.

The troops was in a pretty bad
state. They were in a bad way.

There was one man especially,
I shall always remember.

He came on board - he'd
had his teeth blown out -

and he was holding a
rifle with a fixed bayonet.

We had to take the
arms off everyone,

but we couldn't shift
the gun out of his hands.

His hands was actually gripped it,
and they was... fixture.

A chap was on the beach, and then he
gets aboard a ship and thinks he's safe.

But they really did
think this. They said:

"England, home and beauty
- let us get there, boyo."

MCBEATH: We were most
impressed. They were very tired.

Most of them slumoed on went to sleep.

Our job was to stop enemy
aircraft getting at those troops

because, believe me, if enemy aircraft
had superiority of the air at Dunkirk,

they would have massacred
those fellows on the beach.

They had no guns,
they had no anti-aircraft.

And German bombers and
German dive bombers - the Stukas -

would have just murdered them. And
we couldn't have got those troops off.

Another thing the Germans
tried to do was to sink the ships.

They knew that the fellows
couldn't swim to England,

so they had to try
and get on the ships.

And if they could sink these ships, the
British army would have been trapped.

NARRATOR: The RAF tried to keep the
German air force away from the beaches,

but six destroyers and
over 200 craft were sunk.

Fighter Command lost nearly half
its strength in the French campaign -

100 planes in the
Dunkirk operations alone.

[ENGINE SPLUTTERING]

Dunkirk was a major defeat,

but the inspired efforts of the
Royal Navy and the little ships

saved 330,000 British
and French troops.

For a week, the
weather was fine,

and the German
army was held off.

GOOD: I don't think they thought they
would get them off. That's my opinion.

But it was an act
of God that they did.

The weather was good,
the sea was like a millpond,

and this was a great
help to everybody.

If it had been rough water, you'd
have never got them off of Dunkirk,

because when those rollers
go up that beach, they go.

MCBEATH: Any moment, a
breakthrough by the German army

could have stopped
the whole operation.

I don't think, despite
the valiant endeavors

of the British and French troops
who were keeping the Germans back,

that they could have stopped the might
of the German armor getting through

if Hitler had so
wanted to do it.

NARRATOR: What was left of
Dunkirk surrendered on June 4.

Thousands of troops
could not be rescued.

A fortnight later,
France stopped fighting,

and the British prime minister,
Churchill, broadcast to the world:

CHURCHILL: What General Weygand
had called the Battle of France is over.

The Battle of Britain
is about to begin.

Hitler knows that he will have to
break us in this island, or lose the war.

If we can stand up to him,
all Europe may be free,

and the life of the world may move
forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail,

then the whole world will sink
into the abyss of a new dark age.

Let us therefore brace
ourselves to our duty...

and so bear ourselves

that if the British Empire
and its Commonwealth

last for a 1,000 years,

men will still say:

"This was their finest hour."

[WHISTLE]

[CHEERING]

NARRATOR: Britain prepared
to face immediate invasion.

A new evacuation of children began
from the south and east-coast areas

where a German landing
might be expected.

Some parents sent their
children overseas to safety.

But this was stopped when
a U-boat sank a British liner

with 90 children on board.

To guard against invasion, over a
million men not needed by the forces

volunteered to form
the Home Guard.

They drilled with broomsticks
as there were no rifles to spare,

and rehearsed bloodthirsty
defenses against a German attack.

The regular army's training seems
to have impressed the newsreels.

NEWSREEL: The one time foot slogger have
turned kick-starter pushers.

Shanks's pony has given
way to a spanking motorbike.

The left-right, left-right blokes
have both feet off the ground.

They're Britain's
mighty mobile mounties,

all keen to welcome Adolf when he
drops in for a cup of tea and a cream bun.

A battalion of infantry
on wheels is on exercise -

a swift-moving striking force that
will do the enemy a bit of no good.

They learn under conditions they
might meet with on active service.

Up and down they go, but unlike
the Hun they're always on the level.

NARRATOR: The army had
brought back their rifles from Dunkirk,

but almost everything else
had been abandoned in France.

In June, the only fully-equipped
division in Britain was Canadian.

I remember in June going down
to the Southeast corner of Britain,

where General Thorne
was in command -

Kent, Surrey, Sussex,
that sort of area,

a possible landing area for the
Germans, if they were going to attempt it -

and I remember sending a memorandum
to Winston which must be in his papers.

If I remember right,
I said something like this:

the troops were in very good
heart and very well trained so forth,

but of course there was no antitank
weapon of any kind,

no antitank guns, and no tanks.

That was in the area where, if the
Germans landed, they might be expected.

The cupboard was bare.

NARRATOR: The king
rejoiced that Britain stood alone,

with no more allies to pamper.

The head of Fighter Command,
Sir Hugh Dowding, agreed.

He had lost too many
planes helping the French.

Station names and signposts were
removed to baffle invading Germans.

The effect was to
baffle British travelers.

Antitank barriers deprived the Germans
or an easy advance along the railways.

In the invasion areas, the countryside
disappeared under coils of barbed wire.

The beaches, too, were
wired to below low-water mark.

JB Priestley remembers
a visit to the seaside.

I went down one hot
summer day - late summer -

to one of the seaside
resorts on the Kent coast.

The last time I visited,
it was packed out -

the beaches absolutely crammed,
and all the fun of the fair going on.

Then to see it on this
strange, bright, empty day,

the beaches deserted, a lot of
barbed wire all over the place,

I felt then that, in a way, this was
a kind of symbol of what people felt,

and that they were ready to
abandon this for the time being

in order to get on with the war.

NARRATOR: Churchill was
everywhere, no longer a suspect politician,

but the living embodiment
of the British will to resist.

It was a situation he
seemed to revel in,

describing for colleagues a vivid
picture of himself

leading a last-man defense
of a devastated Whitehall.

Immediately Churchill became prime
minister, the pace in Whitehall changed.

People started not merely
to think fast, but to act fast.

Distinguished civil servants could
be seen running down the passages.

Churchill himself was
physically very energetic.

He would suddenly make the most
extraordinary and energetic sorties.

He would inspect troops, marching
at great speed down the ranks,

and outpacing all the
younger men following him.

I remember one evening he said he
was going to inspect some new works,

and although he was 65 years
old, he vaulted over a brick wall

and landed feet first in
a pool of liquid cement.

And with an impertinence which
in retrospect I'm surprised at,

I said, You've met your Waterloo,"
as he was stuck in the cement.

He turned to me and said, "How
dare you? Anyhow, my Blenheim."

NARRATOR: In the arms factories
men and women they worked long hours

to fill the gaps in
British defenses.

Production reached a peak in
June, then fell as workers tired.

But the spurt lasted
through the critical time.

Production of fighter
planes doubled.

A 100 new Spitfires and Hurricanes
a week replenished Dowding's forces.

The new minister of aircraft
production, Lord Beaverbrook,

took care to make ordinary people
feel part of the production battle.

My father was a
master of propaganda.

There were the pots and pans,

where everyone was asked to
give up pots and pans and railings.

Stanley Baldwin
didn't give up his gates,

but most people gave up all
they could in the way of metal.

The pilots and we all knew you couldn't
make aircraft out of pots and pans,

but it brought the people to realise
that it was a desperate situation.

The response was tremendous. They
had piles and piles of pots and pans -

not knowing what to do with them.
But he was a great propagandist.

NARRATOR: But where
was the German invasion?

[♪ FANFARE]

In June 1940, Hitler had not
begun to think about invading Britain.

He was busy celebrating his French victory,
and expected Britain like France to make peace.

Berlin gave him a hero's welcome
when he returned there on July 6

with Admiral Raeder and
his other commanders in chief.

Only the German navy seemed
to have plans for an invasion.

By the time Hitler
began to take an interest,

the army had its own plans
and was critical of the navy's.

Both looked to Göring, Luftwaffe
chief, to win control of the air -

vital for an invasion.

And Göring believed the Luftwaffe
on its own could knock out Britain.

Arguments between the
services went on for months.

The army at first wanted
to land 40 divisions

on a wide front between
Ramsgate and Lyme Bay,

and press on to a line from Maldon
in Essex to the Severn Estuary,

sealing off London.

This was later scaled down
to a landing by nine divisions

between Folkestone and Brighton,
supported by two airborne divisions -

about 200,000 men in all.

By September, Britain had
overcome her earlier weakness

and had 16 divisions
available in the Southeast.

An invasion fleet from all parts of
Germany assembled in northern ports.

Landing craft were
built, and boats converted

to carry troops and
amphibious tanks.

The army thought
the fleet too small.

The navy thought even that
size fleet difficult to protect.

Both agreed that air
supremacy was vital.

The invasion, codenamed Operation
Sea Lion, was set for mid-September.

The plans did not impress the
Luftwaffe, on whom everything depended.

MAN: In my opinion,
the plan was not serious.

Especially the navy didn't
want to have the responsibility,

and the navy has asked
the air force first of all

to establish the absolute...
the absolute air superiority

over the invasion area.

The preparation the navy
did was not very convincing.

Also, our preparation... Especially My
wing was designated to be

one of the two wings to
be transferred to England,

and our preparations
were... about ridiculous.

The air force was not
trained and prepared

to conduct an independent
air war over England.

NARRATOR: As the invasion fleet assembled the Luftwaffe's
first targets were merchant convoys and harbors,

particularly in the narrow
seas of the Channel.

Dover became known
as Hellfire Corner.

There was always something for the
newsreel camera or the news reporter -

for instance, Charles
Gardner of the BBC:

NEWSREEL: Now the Germans
are dive-bombing a convoy out at sea.

There are one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven.

There's one going
down on its target now.

Boom. No, he hasn't
hit a single ship.

There are about ten ships in the
convoy, but he hasn't hit a single one.

Here they come,they come in a steep dive. You
can see the bombs actually leave the machines and coming towards us.

You can hear our own
guns going like anything now.

There's a fight going on. You
can hear the rattles of machine-gun bullets.

That was a bomb,
as you may imagine.

There's another bomb dropping.

It's dropped... It missed the convoy.
They haven't hit the convoy in all this.

We've just hit a Messerschmitt!
That was beautiful.

He's coming right down now. I think
definitely that was that first contest.

Absolute steep dive. I'll just move
round so I can watch him a bit more.

Here he comes. He's
going slap into the sea.

And there he goes - bam!

Oh, boy! I've never seen
anything so good as this.

The RAF fighters have
really got these boys taped.

NARRATOR: The convoy system
was disrupted, and harbors like were badly Dover hit.

But while the town
suffered casualties,

Dowding had not yet been forced
to commit his full fighter strength.

The unique thing
about Fighter Command

was that when war broke
out in September 1939...

we had there a system covering
the entire country for air defense.

And that system was based on radar,
or, as we called it in those days, RDF.

We had this chain of radar
stations around the coast,

and they were looking
out up to 100 miles.

And they were
feeding, on land lines,

all the information to the
headquarters of Fighter Command.

AITKEN: Radar really
won the Battle of Britain,

because without it we would
have been doing standing patrols -

and with the limited number of aircraft
and pilots, you couldn't have done it.

As it was, we could
wait on the ground,

and then radar would watch.

And through the various controls,
we would be told to take off

at a time when the Germans were
massing over Calais or over Abbeville.

And so, therefore, we wasted
no petrol, no time, no energy -

in fact, we could sleep
in between patrols.

And then we'd take off, and we would
be directed towards the German formation,

given height, distance and their
numbers - which was very important.

NARRATOR: On August
13, Göring changed his tactics.

He ordered an attack on radar
stations and fighter airfields,

which Fighter Command
was bound to defend.

While German bombers blitzed airfields that
defended London and the Southeast in England,

escorting fighters
dealt with British fighters

that came up to
attack the bombers.

Fighting over England put
the Luftwaffe at a disadvantage.

It was expected, but not equipped,
to win a decisive battle alone.

The German bombers were not designed
to carry a heavy enough bomb load.

German fighters had only enough
fuel to stay over England for half an hour,

whereas the British
fighters, close to their bases,

could land and refuel quickly
enough to rejoin the battle.

GALLAND: Our
range was very very limited,

and we could only cover a
small part of the British islands,

including London.

But over London, as an example,
we could only stay for ten minutes,

to come back to our bases.

So this limited range of
our fighters and the escort

has been perhaps
the... main point...

which avoided an effective
air offensive against Britain.

NARRATOR: The
Luftwaffe intelligence misled its pilots

about the damage
done to British airfields and the first assault.

They claimed eight had
been virtually destroyed.

In fact, none had
been knocked out,

and those damaged were
quickly patched up again.

The German pilots, faced by
resistance they hadn't expected,

became pessimistic
about winning the battle.

We fighting crews were convinced
that we couldn't win the battle

and we couldn't force England
to surrend by attacking

without any operation from
the part of the army or the navy.

Therefore, we were asking
that the High Command

should order the
invasion - the Sea Lion.

NARRATOR: A mere 1,400 British
fighter pilots and their ground crews

stood between
Britain and invasion.

Their responsibility was great - too
great, perhaps, to bear thinking about.

The face they showed the
world was dashing and carefree.

MAN: I think they took the
situation not the least bit seriously,

from the point of view
of their lives generally.

Some fellows would just
kick a ball around or lie around,

some would sleep, read
paperbacks, listen to the radio -

and that was our life.

I wanted to shoot an plane down, but
I didn't want to shoot a German down.

I really did not.

We did hear stories of Germans
shooting our fellows in parachutes,

and we used to think
that was pretty horrible,

but we weren't sure
whether it was true or not.

I know I had an experience of a German
aircrew getting draped over my own wing.

He'd baled out of a bomber and got
caught on my wing with his parachute.

I was jolly careful to get him off
as easily and as quickly as I could,

by yawing the airplane
and shaking him off.

There was no chivalry between
the German air force and the British.

Absolutely none. Not as far as
I was concerned. I hated them.

They were trying to do something
to us - trying to enslave us.

NARRATOR: The
climax of the battle

came at the end of
August, in the first week of September.

Upon the result depended Hitler's
decision to launch his invasion.

But the battle was between a comparative
handful of individuals on either side.

AITKEN: The fights
were rather extraordinary the way,

because although there
were a lot of aircraft about,

suddenly, when you were fighting a
particular man, the sky became empty.

HOLMES: I don't think anyone ever
considered that he would be killed.

Death was something which was
just put at the back of your mind.

If it was not, you'd have just got the
jitters about it and been very worried.

If a fellow did go missing, it was
just, "Poor old so-and-so, he's had it,"

and that was that.

Inwardly, of course, you'd feel
it tremendously if you lost a pal.

But you didn't... you didn't dwell
on the subject of death at all.

Sometimes you could tell if a fellow was going
to get killed. He sort of lost it,yes you could.

My greatest friend was killed. He
was shooting at a Messerschmitt,

and another Messerschmitt
hit him from behind.

I was shouting at him, and you couldn't
do anything - and you saw him go in.

That affected you, but
you had to get on with it.

Your friends affected you deeply.
Terrible. But you couldn't help it.

NARRATOR: In the last week of
August and the first week of September,

103 of Fighter
Command's pilots died.

128 were seriously wounded.

Six key airfields in the Southeast
were put out of action for days at a time.

Against the fire German of
fighters and bombers,

Britain was now losing fighters
even faster than Germany -

nearly 500 in two weeks.

The last week in August,
the first week in September -

those two weeks
were the worst for us,

because by that
last week in August,

the Germans had been
pounding the airfields mercilessly,

and 31 August was
probably our worst day.

Fighter Command was
very nearly on its knees.

Dowding was very
conscious of that.

What was worrying him was the
constant pounding of the airfields,

and he was wondering how
much longer he could hold out -

when I say "he, I mean
Fighter Command."

Because he was still
facing that big problem

of denying the
Germans air superiority,

and yet they were
knocking airfields to pieces,

with the threat of knocking
out Fighter Command.

On 6 September, the king and
queen visited Fighter Command,

and there were
quite a few people

who commented on how
tired Dowding appeared to be.

The day after, 7 September,

when an invasion alert was
issued - "invasion imminent" -

and all that day things
were remarkably quiet.

All of us were beginning to wonder
what the devil was going to happen next.

And then, late afternoon,
the Germans launched

what many of the pilots in the
air having to face this onslaught

found to be just about the
heaviest attack they'd ever known.

And then came what Dowding
later described as "the miracle" -

the attack didn't go to the
airfields, it went to London,

and the airfields were spared.

Five minutes to five,

the sirens went.

Walking out onto my
veranda, looking down the river,

the sky was full of planes.

Within a couple of minutes, the bombs
started dropping in the Millwall Dock,

and I could watch 'em.

And it went on for
some considerable time.

On that first Saturday,
they practically obliterated

from the Silvertown
Way to Silvertown.

As a matter of fact, the whole of
the Tidal Basin, Custom House,

right up to Silvertown was
obliterated - make no mistake about it.

If it had continued,
that type of bombing,

in the daylight...

It was hitting everything
of consequence -

shipyards, gasworks,

oil firms, everything
of consequence.

Nearly all the bombs were
dropping in the proper target area.

NARRATOR: That night,
250 bombers returned -

the burning docks and
warehouses an unmistakable marker.

But Göring's change of
tactics relieved the pressure.

Fighter Command
regrouped. London burned.

After the raid on September 7,
many rescue workers and firemen

worked 40 hours nonstop.

"Most of us had the wind up
to start with, one of them said,"

"but you looked around and
saw the rest doing their job."

On September 15, the Luftwaffe
mounted another major daylight attack,

expecting no opposition.

But this time the Spitfires and
Hurricanes were waiting for them.

On that day, September 15, 56
German planes were shot down.

Britain had retained
command of the air by day.

The Royal Air Force had
won the Battle of Britain.

September 1940.

Now there were no
more daylight raids,

and there could be no
invasion before the spring.

But Britain's cities became
targets for the night bombers.

For 76 nights in succession,
London was bombed.

Queuing for shelter at dusk
became an orderly ritual,

the evening alerts, the dawn
all-clear, part of Londoners' lives.

[AIR-RAID SIREN]

[HUM OF AIRPLANE ENGINES]

I used to hear the
planes come over,

and they was, in my opinion, trying
to break the backs of the houses.

I'd listen and shudder.
"The next one's mine."

They'd have, say, six bombs.
"One, two, three, four... This is mine."

"No. Over the next one,
they'd go, and miss my house."

and that used to went on all night.

About, I said to my wife and
my in-laws, "well I'll be off now."

and I walked out of the door - lovely
big three-floor houses they were.

I walked up Approach Road, 20 yards
from the church, which was our post,

and suddenly there
was a...[WHOOSH]

Nothing, I heard nothing.

I talked about this
to people afterwards -

the bomb that hit
them, they never heard.

Now, I wonder if the people sitting
here now had that same experience.

The bomb that hit
you, you never heard.

And I fell flat on my face.

I picked myself
up, I turned round.

All I could see was a gray curtain
hanging in the middle of a wide road -

about twice as wide as this pub.

There was just a brownish-gray
curtain hanging there.

♪ Come, come

♪ Come and make eyes at me

♪ Down at the Old Bull and Bush

♪ La-la-la, la-la

♪ Come, come

♪ Drink some port wine with me

♪ Down at the Old Bull and Bush

♪ La-la-la-la-la-la,
la-la-la-la-la-la-la

♪ Just let me hold
your hand, dear

♪ Do, do

♪ Come and have a drink or two

♪ Down at the Old Bull
and Bush, Bush, Bush!

MAN: No matter what
shelter you went in,

there was always someone there
who would provide the entertainment

to sort of take away the strain.

NARRATOR: Underground stations, it
was decided, must not be used as shelters.

But people simply took them over
and the authorities had to accept it.

WOMAN: We was all singing,

we was all happy - just
like there was no war at all.

There was a canteen.

I used to sing as well and cheer
people up when the bombs was going.

Until one night, it was very bad, and I was just
under the sit praying for the big guns to start.

I was talking to a gunnery sergeant
who had been stationed in Hyde Park,

and he told us without any hesitation
- and he cried when he told us:

"Beleive me when we was sent into London,

we simply elevated our guns
to its maximum and fired."

"We knew that every shell we pumped
up had no chance of hitting a plane,

but don't tell me it
didn't give you courage."

And there's not a person sitting round
this table, I think, can say it didn't -

"once they heard those guns firing,
they thought, Good, we've got 'em now."

But they only knew that it was the
morale - and that's all it did to 'em.

But the bombs just had to come
down. There was nothing to stop them.

NARRATOR: For 76 mornings,

rescue squads dug through
rubble, searching for survivors.

MAN: A bomb dropped on a
block of flats, about four stories,

and it took the whole front out.

And they said, "There's an old chap
up there. He won't go in a shelter."

So we go up, and when we got up there,
the old chap was snoring his head off,

about 20 empty bottles round his bed,
and the bed's nearly out in the street!

And he never woke up then!

We saw an old lady staggering around,
and we said, "You'll have to come out."

She came out and all she had on

was half of what should've
been a nightdress.

"I said, You'll have to put something
on, make yourself a bit decent."

She was about 80-odd, and
she was completely in a daze.

She said, "I'll go and get something,
and she came out with her hat on!"

NARRATOR: People somehow got to
work through a nightmare of upended buses,

cratered roads, bombed railways.

MAN ON RADIO: London calling...

NARRATOR: Radio reporters told America
and the world that London could take it.

The spirit of Londoners
won sympathy and help.

But the United States
remained neutral.

While Britain stood alone, from
September 1940 to May 1941,

40,000 people were killed in
raids - half of them Londoners.

Hundreds of thousands
of people were homeless,

eating, living,
sleeping in rest centers.

Clothing and everything else
had vanished with their home.

But not morale.

To be clean, you couldn't very well
say, "I'm going to have a bath today,"

cos you was afraid the warning
would go halfway through it.

So you'd have a bowl of water, have a
wash and perhaps get your neck done,

and run and take all
your things in the shelter -

finish your bath
perhaps the next day.

Never actually have a bath
properly. Step in and step out.

You get used to it. You
can get used to anything.

It was not an uncommon sight to
see: "No windows but plenty of spirit."

Or, "Sorry we've got no front door.
Don't trouble to knock, just come in."

And you'd see these funny little
notices put up outside a door.

This was the sort of thing that made
you think there was something in it.

The more you saw it, the more you
felt encouraged to be able to go out.

Once you'd gone out to go on to a
job and your family were left behind,

you always felt that somehow:

"The Joneses or the
Smiths up the road,

if anything happens at
home, they'll look after 'em.

NARRATOR: Factories went on
working, by night as well as by day.

But night workers were
constantly interrupted by raids.

There was no real defense
against German bombing at night.

Fighter Command's helplessness
worried its chief, Dowding.

I once went to Redhill with him when
the bombers were coming over London.

There was a squadron commanded
by a fellow called Jimmy Little.

He said to me in the car going down,
"Max, I hold my head in my hands

at the thought of people being bombed
and I cannot do anything about it."

NARRATOR: To the
relief of the authorities,

Buckingham Palace was
bombed as well as East London.

Now it could be seen that king,
queen and people were all in it together.

King George and Queen Elizabeth
won respect by their tour the blitzed areas.

They had come to the throne in the shattering
circumstance of the Duke of Windsor's abdication.

Now, for the first time, they emerged
as popular figures in their own right.

[CHEERING]

Churchill too, with exuberance,
persuaded most political opponents

to forget his past.

MAN: The average East Londoner
didn't care twopence for Churchill,

as a man or a politician,

but the man who filled
up Chamberlain's place,

he was a leader.

And every time he opened his mouth,
he inspired confidence into the people -

whether they accepted
him as a Conservative...

But he was there, he was for 'em,
and he was against the common enemy.

NARRATOR: But sometimes
he got a mixed reception.

MAN: I remember, just off Green Street,
an avenue where Churchill came down.

There was a devil of a
great crater as big as this pub.

There were crowds of women trying to
get things out of the shattered houses.

Churchill, after having a look
round, he said, "We can take it."

And the women told him what they
could take, in no unmistakable manner.

They said, "We're the ones that
are taking it - you're out of the way."

NARRATOR: December 29, 1940.

German planes scattering incendiary
bombs set the City of London ablaze.

There were 1,500 fires
in and around the city.

St Paul's Cathedral
was surrounded by fire.

MAN: You could
see the fire of London.

60 miles away, you
could see the fire.

WOMAN: That night when the fire was burning I was in a
shelter, and it was burning above me.

We all had to get out, and
we wasn't panicking a bit.

And we had to run to the
top of Commercial Road,

to a factory that had a shelter
down below in the basement.

And as we were running along,
there was fires all burning around.

I could feel the heat on the
floor - the puddles were hot.

And when we got into the shelter, we stood all night,
sleeping on each other's shoulders.

I stood all night sleeping
on somebody else's shoulder.

MAN: Eventually, we used
so much water, we ran out of it.

And there we stood,
letting the fires burn -

and we couldn't
do nothing about it.

NARRATOR: The heart of the
City of London was destroyed,

but St Paul's survived.

Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham,
Swansea, Liverpool and many more

shared London's ordeal - all were
within reach of the German air force,

with bases in France
and the Low Countries.

It was more difficult for British
bombers to reach German cities.

The government anxiously round for some other
way of carrying the war to the enemy.

We decided the only place
where we could fight the enemy

was the North African desert,
the Middle East theater generally.

There was nowhere else. We couldn't
hope to make a landing in France

in any foreseeable future, and therefore
couldn't injure the Germans that way.

So the two alternatives...
They weren't alternatives.

The two possibles were bombing,
and fighting in the Middle East.

And that is why from
those very early days

we began to push, agitate, ask
for more armor in the Middle East.

We had to take the armor out of
the line, out of the defense of Britain.

There was no
other way of doing it.

NARRATOR: On December 10, 1940,

two Commonwealth
divisions under General Wavell

attacked the big Italian
army in North Africa.

Slightly to their own surprise,
they advanced with great speed.

Fortress after
fortress was taken.

100,000 prisoners were captured.

Now there seemed to be a chance
to get at the main enemy, Germany -

through Yugoslavia and Greece.

We did think that
if it were possible

to bring certain Balkan
countries into conflict with Hitler,

the consequences of that
might be really unforeseeable -

couldn't predict the result.

The view of the War Cabinet
and the Defense Committee

was that,we should if the Greeks were going to
defend themselves against the Germans,

we should bring them
what help we could.

And Dill and I were sent out,

after Wavell's victory, to
Cairo to look into this business.

When we got there, Wavell said, I
hope you won't mind what I'm going to say.

"I didn't think I
ought to waste time -

I've begun the movement of
troops and the concentration

to enable us to go to Greece.

NARRATOR: The commonwealth landing in Greece
was meant to forestall a German attack.

To many Greeks, it
seemed likely to hasten it.

They had held their
own against the Italians,

but when the Germans
attacked on April 6, 1941,

Greece was overwhelmed
in three weeks.

So was Yugoslavia,
which had joined the Allies.

50,000 Commonwealth
troops were evacuated.

One has to admit that...

we didn't obtain the
objectives we'd hoped for.

We weren't able to conduct,
with the help of the Yugoslavs,

any effective campaign
in the Balkans.

Turkey, it is true,
remained a defensive pad,

but we lost Greece and
lost many men - brave men -

and more were captured.

So in that sense, the balance
sheet was much against us.

And it was a depressing
time, no question of that.

NARRATOR: By May
1941, Germany and her allies

controlled most of
Continental Europe.

And in North Africa, a small
German force under Rommel

had recaptured nearly
all the British gains.

The British tried to hold
Crete as a naval base.

With complete
command of the air,

the Germans attacked Crete
with 16,000 parachutists -

the first large-scale airborne
assault in the history of warfare.

In spite of heavy losses, they gained
a foothold on a vital airfield, Maleme,

which meant that more
troops could be flown in.

Supported by intensive bombing,

the Germans were able to advance
against a bigger Commonwealth force.

Once again, air
power won the battle.

Commonwealth losses: 13,000
killed, wounded or captured.

And another evacuation to add to
the list of Norway, France, Greece.

The British people wondered how
much more they would have to take.

COLVILLE: Churchill thought
it important to Crete should be held at all costs.

If we lost Crete, we lost our base
in the Eastern Mediterranean -

our naval base and our air base.

And he kept on telegraphing
to Wavell, saying:

"Surely you can spare just a dozen
tanks for the defense of Maleme airfield",

the chief airfield in Crete,
"against German paratroops."

And Wavell replied
that he had no tanks -

they were all having their tracks mended
or their engines greased or something -

and the delta that he couldn't
spare even a dozen.

Well, Crete was lost.
It was a great disaster -

upset everybody in the House
of Commons, upset the country.

It was a low point for us in
the war, in the spring of 1941.

I used to be up until
2:30 in the morning,

broadcasting to America
and the Dominions and so on.

And I'd snatch some
pretty dicey sort of sleep

in the basement of
Broadcasting House.

I'd come out in the morning, and
then I'd walk around, and I'd think:

"I don't think there can be much more
of this, because everything's going."

On those mornings, you thought,
"Another two weeks of this"

and there'll be nothing
around here but rubble.

NARRATOR: On May 10, 1941,

London suffered its most
destructive night raid of the war.

Over 3,000 people
were killed or injured.

Hundreds of fires had to be
left to burn themselves out.

There seemed no end in sight
to the slaughter and destruction.

But although Londoners didn't
know, it was the turning point.

In April, '41,

Hitler assembled all the
commanders in France.

And... during two hours,

he talked to us about the
part two of the Battle of Britain.

And... he told us later -

two of us, namely my
friend Mölders and myself -

that it has only been in order to
camouflage the offensive against Russia.

This has been in April, '41.

And the raid on 10 May

can only be considered
as a camouflage of the...

beginning of the
Russian campaign.

NARRATOR: Among the casualties of the raid
on May the 10th was the House of Commons.

For exactly a year, a year
of disappointment and defeat,

the Commons had
sustained Churchill in office.

But the important
battle had been won.

Britain had survived.

Now it was Russia's turn.