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. 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 bombing and heavily armored tanks, have broken through the French defenses north of the Maginot Line, and strong columns of their armored vehicles are ravaging the open country, which for the first day or two was without defenders. We have differed and quarreled 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. It is July 10, 1940. The war in Europe has reached an unbelievable stage. It is exactly two months since the Nazi armies began their great attack that swept aside the low countries of Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. It is less than one month since the Germans entered the undefended capital of Paris. It is just a few days since Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke these dramatic words to the British Empire and the world. The disastrous military events which have happened in France during the last fortnight have not come to me with any sense of surprise. Indeed I told the House of Commons, as you may remember, almost exactly a fortnight ago, that the worst possibilities were open. And I made it perfectly clear that whatever happened in France would make no difference to the resolve of Britain and the British Empire to fight on, as I then said, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. During the last few days we have successfully brought off the great majority of the troops we had on the lines of communication in France. And seven-eighths of all the troops we have sent to France since the beginning of the war, that is to say about 350,000 out of 400,000 men, are safely back in this country. Others are still fighting with the French. We have also brought back a great mass of stores, rifles, and munitions of all kinds, which had been accumulated in France during the last nine months. We have therefore in this island today a very large and powerful military force. This force includes all our best-trained troops and our finest troops, including scores of thousands of those who have already measured their quality against the Germans and found themselves have no disadvantage. And now the island empire awaited Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of the home island. What will happen if the Germans attack by air? Again, the Prime Minister. This brings me to the great question of invasion from the air and of the impending struggle between the British and German air forces. It seems quite clear that no invasion on a scale beyond the capacity of our land forces to crush speedily, no invasion on a scale beyond that is likely to take place until our air force has been definitely overpowered. In the meantime, there may be raids by parachute troops and attempted dissents by airborne soldiers. We ought to be able to give the infantry a warm reception, both in the air and also if they reach the ground in any condition to continue the discussion. But the great question is, can we break Hitler's air force? Now, of course, it is a very great pity that we have not got an air force at least equal to that of the most powerful enemy within reach of our shore. We were promised that five years ago. But we have a very powerful air force which has proved itself far superior in quality, both in men and in many types of machines, to anything we have met so far in the numerous and fierce air battles which have been fought with the Germans. I look forward confidently to the exploits of our fighter pilots, these splendid men, this brilliant youth, who will have the glory of saving their native land, their island home and all they love from the most deadly of all attacks. On June 22, 1940, the French nation surrendered to the Germans at the French town of Corpien. Two weeks later, the British Navy attacked the remnants of the French Navy at Oran. The Prime Minister tells of the action. During the last fortnight, the British Navy, in addition to blockading what is left of the German fleet and chasing the Italian fleet, had imposed upon it the sad duty of putting effectually out of action for the duration of the war the capital ships of the French Navy. These, under the armistice terms signed in the railway coach at Corpien, would have been placed within the power of Nazi Germany. The transference of these ships to Hitler would have endangered the security both of Great Britain and the United States. We therefore had no choice but to act as we did and to act forthwith. Our painful task is now completed. Although the unfinished battleship, the Jean Barre, still rests in a Moroccan harbor, and there are a number of French warships at Toulon and in various French ports all over the world, these are not in a condition or of a character to derange our preponderance of naval power. Today is the 14th of July, the National Festival of France. A year ago in Paris, I watched the stately parade down the Champs-Élysées of the French Army and the French Empire. Who could foresee what the course of a year would bring? Who can foresee what the course of other years will bring? Faith is given to us as a help, as company, when we stand in awe before the unfurling scroll of human destiny. And I proclaim my faith that some of us will live to see a 14th of July, when a liberated France will once again rejoice in her greatness and in her glory, and once again stand forward as the champion of the freedom and the rights of man. When that day dawns, and dawn it will, the soul of France will turn with comprehension and with kindness to those Frenchmen and Frenchwomen wherever they may be, who in the darkest hour is not despair of the Republic. In the meantime, we shall not waste our breath or cumbers our thoughts with reproaches. When you have a friend and comrade at whose side you have faced tremendous struggles, and your friend is smitten down by a stunning blow, it may be necessary to make sure that the weapon that has fallen from his hands shall not be added to the resources of your common enemy, but you need not bear malice because of your friend's cries of delirium and gestures of agony. You must not add to his pain. You must work for his recovery. The association of interest between Britain and France remains. The cause remains. And duty inescapable remains. Now it is July 10, 1940. History will recall it as the Battle of Britain. On July 19, Adolf Hitler spoke to the members of the Reichstag. Said Chancellor Hitler, in this hour I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience to appeal once more to reason and common sense in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position to make this appeal since I am not a vanquished begging for favors, but the victor speaking in the name of reason. I can see no reason why this war need go on. So said Adolf Hitler. You will now hear a montage. A montage of words spoken in answer to Hitler's proposal by the Prime Minister of Great Britain. And now it has come to us to stand alone in the breach and face the worst that the tyrants might and enmity can do. Should the invader come to Britain, there will be no placid lying down of the people in submission before him, as we have seen, alas, in other countries. We shall defend every village, every town, and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army. And we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved. The battle of Britain is about to begin. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty. So bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its commonwealths last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their tiny tower. In order to win the war, Hitler must destroy Great Britain. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire, nay, in a certain sense, the whole English-speaking world will be on his track, bearing with them the swords of justice. 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 freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit upland. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science. And if the Nazi villains drop down upon us from the skies any night in raid or heavy attack upon the key production centers, you will make it clear to them that they have not alighted in the poultry run or in the rabbit farm or even in the sheepfold, but that they have come down in the lion's den of the zoo. In July, August, and September, 40 or 50 squadrons of British fighter aircraft in the Battle of Britain broke the teeth of the German air fleet at odds of seven or eight to one. Never in the field of human conflict went so much owed by so many to so few. Do not despair, brave Norwegians. Your land shall be cleansed not only from the invader but from the filthy quizzing who are in tool. Lift up your heads, gallant Frenchmen. Not all the infamies of Darlan and of Laval shall stand between you and the restoration of your birthright. Tormented, mishandled, shamefully cut away peoples of Yugoslavia, glorious Greece now subjected to the crowning insult of the rule of the Italian jack-and-apes, be sure of yourselves, your rights, your independence shall be restored. Hold the heroism of your people, standing up to cruel oppressors. The courage of your soldiers, sailors, and airmen shall not be forgotten. Your country shall live again and resume its rightful part in the new organization of Europe. South-Hardy Dutch, Belgians, Luxemburgers, yield not an inch. Keep your souls clean from all contact with the Nazi. Make them feel even in their fleeting hour of brutish triumph that they are the moral outcasts of mankind. Help is coming. Mighty forces are arming in your behalf. Have faith, have hope, deliverance. Let me ask you this. What subtle, almost mystic attraction was it that drew the manhood of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa? Thousands of miles across the ocean to fight and suffer for four years in Flanders or at the Dardanelles or in the Balkans or Palestine, in a quarrel about which, but to tell the truth, they had not been formally consulted. What was it? What was the attraction? You could not write it down on paper. You could not print it in a book. And you will not find it in any act of parliament. Search the statute books that you may. It is not there. Some ancestral voice echoing down the ages suddenly called, come. So they all came. It is now September 7, 1940. The summer has changed to the orange of autumn. New names have entered the conversation of almost every citizen of London. Names that will be on their lips as they look to the skies. Names like Heinkel and Stuka, the bombers of terror. Names like Messerschmitt and Focke-Wolfe, the pursuit ships that protected them on their deadly mission. And there were proud names. Names like Hurricane and Spitfire. The planes that took to the skies to meet them. And now one of the great dramatic broadcasts of the war. You will hear an eyewitness radio description of an actual dogfight high in the skies over Britain as heard in August 1940 in London. So now the Germans are dive bombing a convoy out into the sea. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven German dive bombers. There is one going down on his target now. No, he missed the ship. He hasn't hit a single ship. There are about ten ships in the convoy. But he hasn't hit a single one. There you can hear an aircraft going at them now. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, there are about ten German machines dive bombing a British convoy which is just out to sea in the Channel. I can't see anything. No, we thought he got a German one and then got then. But now the British fighters are coming up. Here they come, they come in. Absolute steep dive. And you can see their bombs actually leave the ship and come into the water. You can hear our own guns going like anything now. I'm looking around now. I can hear machine gun fire but I can't see our Spitfires. There must be somewhere there. Oh, here's one coming down now. There's one coming down in flames. Somebody's hit a German and he's coming down with a long streak. He's coming down completely out of control, a long streak of smoke. The man's bailed out by parachute. The pilot's bailed out by parachute. He's a Yonkers 87 and he's going slap into the sea and there he goes. Smash! Terrific clumble of water and there was a Yonkers 87. There was only one man got out by parachute so presumably there was only a crew of one in it. Here comes this one Spitfire. There's a little burst. There's another bomb dropping. Yes, it dropped. Oh, they missed the convoy. No, they haven't hit the convoy in all this. The sky is absolutely patterned now with bursts of anti-aircraft fire and the sea is covered with smoke where the bombs have burst but as far as I can see there's not one single ship hit and there is definitely one German machine down and I'm looking across the sea now I can see the little white dot of parachute as the German pilot is floating down towards the spot where his machine crashed with such a big fountain of water about two minutes ago. Now then, oh there's a terrific mix up now over the channel. It's impossible to tell which are our machines and which are the Germans. There's one definitely down in this battle and there's a fight going on. There's a fight going on. You can hear the little rattles of machine gun bullets. That was a bomb as you may imagine. Well now everything is peaceful again for the moment. The Germans who came over in about 20 dive bombers delivered their attack on the convoy and I think they've made off as quickly as they came. Oh yes, I can see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Germans herring back towards France now for all they can go and here are our Spitfires coming after them. There's going to be a big fight I think out there but it will be too far away for us to see. Gosh there are lots more German machines up there. Can you see? Can you see Phil? Yes there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 on top layer. 1, 2, 3, there are 2 layers of German machines. They were all I think, I couldn't swear to but they were all I think Junkers 87. Where are 2 more parachutists? Flying sideways. No I think they're seagulls. Yes. You can hear the anti-aircraft battery still going. Well that was a really hot little engagement while it lasted. No damage done except for the Germans who lost one machine and the German pilot is still on the end of his parachute though appreciably nearer to sea than he was. I can see no boat going out to pick him up. So he'll probably have a long swim ashore. But that was a very unsuccessful attack on the convoy I must say. And so London stood and Great Britain and the people stood and the skies were slowly clearing of the enemy and soon the skies would be filled with the planes that would not send the citizens rushing to the bomb shelters and children could scan the clouds with the safety of times before. And the man who spoke the words of courage would smile the good smile and those who heard him in the house would thank God that he was there. And in the hall that through the centuries heard the great voices of Pitt, Disraeli and Gladstone and Lloyd George there would once again resound the tribute of love and devotion. The only reward those who are led can give their leader. The greatest honor that man gives to fellow man. The greatest honor that man gives to fellow man. The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company has brought you the Battle of Britain. The 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.
