The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company brings you the sound of war, the actual sound record of World War II, 2,191 days from the time Hitler's Panzer divisions moved across the Polish borders to the ceremony of the Japanese surrender aboard the United States battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. World War II, the most terrible period of death and destruction in the long history of man. World War II, a drama preserved for all time through the medium of radio, an era never to be forgotten. Tonight, the fall of France. I speak to you for the first time as Prime Minister in a solemn hour for the life of our country, of our empire, of our allies, and above all, of the cause of freedom. It is May 19, 1940. Winston Churchill is speaking to the British Empire and the world. Germany has been Prime Minister for but nine days. The onrushing Nazi war machine has forced the Dutch army to capitulate in but five days. Luxembourg had already surrendered on the day of the Nazi attack. The Belgian army is in complete retreat and the French army has broken its sedan. German armies are poised for the dash to Paris and beyond. The phony war is over. The powerful German Wehrmacht that smashed Poland in less than one month, that has moved almost unopposed into Denmark and Norway, has now cracked the low countries in France in a little more than one week. German newspapers were proclaiming the end of the war. And now Britain was all but alone. And they called to lead the nation a man of courage. His name, Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill, born of another time, of another era. Winston Churchill, 66 years old, beloved, majestic, unbending. Winston Churchill, who on his opening speech to the House just nine days before said, You ask what is our policy? I will say it is to wage war by sea, land and air, and with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us. To wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word, victory. Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength. He has spoken to the House of Commons. Now he would speak to the nation. I speak to you for the first time as Prime Minister in a solemn hour for the life of our country, of our empire, of our allies, and above all of the cause of freedom. A tremendous battle is raging in France and Flanders. The Germans, by a remarkable combination of air bombings and heavily armoured tanks, have broken through the French defences north of the Maginot Line, and strong columns of their armoured vehicles are ravaging the open country, which for the first day or two was without defenders. We have differed and quarrelled in the past, but now one bond unites us all to wage war until victory is won, and never to surrender ourselves to servitude and shame, whatever the cost and the agony may be. If this is one of the most awe-striking periods in the long history of France and Britain, it is also, beyond doubt, the most sublime. Behind them, behind us, behind the armies and fleets of Britain and France, gather a group of shattered states and bludgeoned great races, the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians, upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope. Unless we conquer, as conquer we must, as conquer we shall. Now events move quickly, but the days of May moved slowly for the Allies. The Blitzkrieg was a reality. Fortresses like the Maginot Line meant little to the onrushing Germans. The hope which could not be run over was bypassed. On May 18th, Premier Paul Reynaud shook up his cabinet, making himself Minister of Defense. Now came drama of the present that brought back the greatness of the past. Reynaud appointed 85-year-old Marshal Henri Petain as Vice Premier. Petain, hero of Verdun. Henri Petain, who said at Verdun, they shall not pass. And now to the front came another name of the past, General Maxim Vagon. Vagon, 72 years old, former Chief of Staff to Marshal Fosch. Vagon, a product of another time, another war. The Vagon Line was formed and almost immediately smashed. What military experts had called the finest army in Europe was now reeling and in the throes of the death rattle. From Paris, Premier Reynaud. Mr. Reynaud is saying, let all who are watching this drama of the Battle of France understand therefore and let them understand at once. For the stakes are enormous and only time can truly measure them. As for us, more than ever before, we have confidence in our own. And now the scene shifts to Belgium. It is 17 days since the Germans attacked Belgium. All was in disorder. On May 27th, King Leopold III called the British High Command. Said the message, the Belgian army is losing heart. It has been fighting without a break for four days and under heavy bombardment. The time is rapidly approaching when we will be unable to continue the fight. We will have to soon capitulate to avoid a collapse. The fall of Belgium was expected but not this quickly. From Great Britain, Winston Churchill and his war leaders had prepared for every possible disaster. As early as May 14th, just four days after the German attack, the British Admiralty made round the clock announcements to pleasure craft owners to have their boats ready for any eventuality. Now as the month of May was coming to a close, the announcements over the BBC were longer and at more frequent intervals. And now the British, French, Belgians and Poles were slogging back to French and Belgian ports. A small British force was holding out at Calais. The French were fighting rearguard actions at Lille and Carcel. On March 29th, the German High Command issued a victory communique. It stated that the British and French armies, almost a half a million men, were trapped and doomed. The troops were now at the one port that gave them a chance, a name that would live for all history, the port of Dunkirk. And now the time had come for the evacuation. The British called it Operation Dynamo. Lawriot John Maysfield called it the nine days wonder. Actually 887 ships of every size and shape delivered 339,000 British and French troops to the safety of the British Isles. They would fight again another day. The British commentator J.B. Priestley. These brightened bells and brightened queens left that innocent foolish world of theirs to sail into the inferno, to defy bombs, shells, magnetic mines, torpedoes, machine gun fire, to rescue our soldiers. A catalog of misfortunes and miscalculations ended as an epic of gallantry. We have a queer habit, and you can see it running through our history, of conjuring up such transformations. Out of a black gulf of humiliation and despair rises a sun of blazing glory. Now the Minister of Shipping. The father and his son would take their yacht across from some south coast port without a word to anybody and bring it back full of troops. There was a deal boatman who took his motorboat across with several open rowing boats in tow and brought them all back full of troops. In the House of Commons, Winston Churchill once again spoke. His words, we must be very careful not to assign this deliverance the attributes of victory. Wars are not won by evacuation. From Great Britain, Charles de Gaulle. Moi, General de Gaulle, j'entreprends ici, en Angleterre, cette tâche nationale. J'invite tous les militaires français des armées de terre, de mer et de l'air. J'invite les ingénieurs et les ouvriers. De Sáis hauler un coup de folie aux Youtube, restaurant et au possessif, je lance des I invite the leaders, the soldiers, sailors and airmen of the French forces on land, sea and air, wherever they may be at this moment, to get in touch with me. I call upon all Frenchmen who wish to remain free to listen to me and to follow me. Long live France, in freedom, in honor, in independence. As Charles de Gaulle spoke, Paris was undergoing its first air attack. It is now June 3, 1940, and disaster leads to more disaster in an unending chain. Chancellor Hitler has ordered 100 Nazi divisions into the attack. Across the Somme, into Normandy, south of Amiens, and around the northern flank of the Marginot Line. The skies were heavy with the planes of the Luftwaffe. The British Air Force, after saving the French, Poles, Belgians and themselves at Dunkirk, were now regrouping for a possible assault on the home island. The French were in misery. Their roads were clogged with every form of vehicle, with persons of every station. The German troops were 35 miles from Paris. It is 5 p.m. June 10, 1940. The place, Rome. The situation, Ilducce. Benito Mussolini is speaking in the Piazza Venezia. Thousands upon thousands of Italians are gathered to hear Ilducce. France is dying, and loudspeakers throughout Italy are blaring forth the announcement that Mussolini will speak that afternoon. Many of the populace believe that the Ilducce is about to announce that France and Great Britain have sued for peace. They will be shocked. They will be surprised. They will be loyal to the Ilducce. Mussolini began, combatant on land, sea and in the air, black shirts of the revolution and of the legion, men and women of Italy, of the empire and of the kingdom of Albania. An hour, signed by destiny, is ticking on the skies of our country. An hour of irreparable decision, a declaration of war, has been given to the ambassador. To the ambassador of France and England. As Mussolini talked, the populace was suddenly awakened by the fury of his talk. The cries of Ilducce, Ilducce, Ilducce rang through the afternoon. Mussolini continued on. Said the Ilducce, our conscience is clear. If today we have decided to take the risks and sacrifices of war, it is because the honor, interests and future firmly impose it. Since a great people is truly such, only if it considers its obligations sacred and does not avoid the supreme trials that determine the course of history. Then Mussolini concluded, on this eve of an event of import for centuries, we turn our thoughts to His Majesty the King and Emperor, who has always understood the thought of the country. Lastly, we salute the new Führer, the chief of the great ally Germany. Proletarian fascist Italy has arisen a third time, strong, proud, compact as never before. There is only one order. It already wins over and inflames hearts from the Alps to the Indian Ocean. Conquer. And we will conquer in order finally to give a world of peace with justice to Italy, to Europe, to the universe. Italian people, rush to arms and show your tenacity, your courage, your valor. In the United States, on a warm sunny June 10th, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was scheduled to make an address at the University of Virginia. It was not scheduled as a momentous address. The Italian declaration called for some alterations in the President's speech. It would now become one of the most memorable addresses of modern history. Every generation of young men and women in America has questions to ask the world. Most of the time, they are the simple but nevertheless difficult questions. Questions of work to do, opportunities to find, ambitions to satisfy. But every now and again in the history of the Republic, a different kind of question presents itself. A question that asks not about the future of an individual or even of a generation, but about the future of the country, the future of the American people. There was such a time at the beginning of our history, at the beginning of our history as a nation, young people asked themselves in those days what lay ahead, not for themselves but for the new United States. There was such a time again in the seemingly endless years of the war between the states. Young men and young women on both sides of the line asked themselves not what trades or professions they would enter, what lives they would make, but what was to become of the country they had known. There is such a time again today. Again today, the young men and young women of America ask themselves with earnestness and with deep concern this same question. What is to become of the country we know? It is understandable to all of us, I think, that they should ask this question. They read the words of those who are telling them that the ideal of individual liberty, the ideal of free franchise, the ideal of peaceful justice is a decadent ideal. They read the word and hear the boast of those who say that a belief in force, force directed by self-chosen leaders, is the new and vigorous system which will overrun the earth. They have seen the ascendancy of this philosophy of force in nation after nation where free institutions and individual liberties were once maintained. The people and the government of the United States have seen with the utmost regret and with grave disquiet the decision of the Italian government to engage in the hostilities now raging in Europe. More than three months ago, the chief of the Italian government sent me word that because of the determination of Italy to limit, so far as might be possible, the spread of the European conflict, more than 200 millions of people in the region of the Mediterranean had been enabled to escape the suffering and the devastation of war. The government of Italy has now chosen to preserve what it terms its freedom of action and to fulfill what its states are its promises to Germany. In so doing, it has manifested disregard for the rights and security of other nations, disregard for the lives of the peoples of those nations which are directly threatened by the spread of this war, and has evidenced its unwillingness to find the means through pacific negotiation for the satisfaction of what it believes are its legitimate aspirations. On this tenth day of June 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor. So now Italy had entered the war, and a dying France would have more misery. On June 12, two days after Italy's entrance into the war, Prime Minister Churchill flew to Tours to persuade the French to honor its obligations and not sue for an individual peace, but to carry on the war from North Africa. Premier Reynaud wanted to continue the struggle from North Africa, but his generals would not support him. Said General Vagon, in a few weeks England's neck will be wrung like a chicken. On June 16, Churchill made one of the most momentous proposals in the history of the empire. He called for a declaration of union between Great Britain and France. It guaranteed immediate citizenship to all the French populace, and every Britain would become a French citizen. A single war cabinet would be formed, a single British-French army. Both nations would be joined, and the final line of the proposal read, and thus we shall conquer. But the French refused. They wanted to surrender. The war on the continent was over. The Battle of Britain was about to begin. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island and lose the war. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty. And so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its commonwealths last for a thousand years, men will still say this about their fighting power. The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company has brought you The Fall of France, the actual voices and sounds of the most dramatic and tragic period of our time. This program was written, produced, and directed by Bud Greenspan. My name is David Perry.
