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. It is the morning of May 7th, 1940. In the House of Commons in London, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is making his opening remarks in a debate that will decide the fate of his government. One month earlier, British troops were out-generalled and out-maneuvered when Germany made a surprise and successful invasion of Scandinavia. The Nazis invaded Denmark and Norway. A token expeditionary force was sent by Britain to Norway. They were defeated. Back in the home island, the Chamberlain government was set upon by friend and foe alike for their conduct of the war. In his speech, Chamberlain tries to explain the failure of the Norwegian campaign. To his aid comes the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Says Churchill, I take complete responsibility for everything that has been done by the Admiralty and I take my share of the burden. When he finishes, the floor is taken by David Lloyd George, Great Britain's World War I leader and long-time enemy of Chamberlain. Said Lloyd George, I do not think the First Lord was entirely responsible for all the things that happened in Norway. Then he faced Chamberlain and said, you ask for the nation to perform sacrifice. I say solemnly that the Prime Minister would give an example of sacrifice by giving up his seals of office. A brief recapitulation of the events leading up to the debate. Just five days after the German attack on Norway and Denmark, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made a widely publicized address. On April 5th, Chamberlain said, after seven months of war, I feel ten times as confident as I did in the beginning. I feel that our position is now stronger against the enemy than it was in the beginning. Then came the statement that in 35 days would ring derisively through the House of Commons as his government began to fall. Said Chamberlain on April 5th, when war broke out, it was natural since German preparations were far ahead of our own, that the enemy would take advantage of his initial superiority and attempt to overwhelm us and France before we had time to make good our deficiencies. Is it not a very extraordinary thing that no such attempt was made? Whatever the reason, one thing is certain, Hitler has missed the bus. Now came the four-day debate that saw the Chamberlain government tottering. Finally, on May 10th, 1940, Germany again was on the move. In one fantastic sweep, they invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland and simultaneously smashed across the French borders. In Great Britain, Winston Churchill was asked to form a government. 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. They have penetrated deeply and spread alarm and confusion in their tracks. Behind them, there are now appearing infantry in lorries and behind them again, the large masses are moving forward. The regroupment of the French armies to make head again and also to strike at this intruding wedge has been proceeding for several days, largely assisted by the magnificent efforts of the Royal Air Force. We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated by the presence of these armored vehicles in unexpected places behind our lines. If they are behind our front, the French are also at many points fighting actively behind there. Both sides are therefore in an extremely dangerous position. And if the French army and our own army are well handled, and I believe they will be, if the French retain that genius for recovery and counterattack for which they have so long been famous, and if the British army shows the dogged endurance and solid fighting power at which there have been so many examples in the past, then a sudden transformation of the scene might spring into being. Having received His Majesty's commission, I have formed an administration of men and women of every party and of almost every point of view. 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. Side by side, unaided except by their kith and kin in the great dominions and by the wide empires which rest beneath their shield, side by side the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue not only Europe but mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. 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 defend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must, as conquer we shall. Now in a little more than nine months, the Chamberlain government had fallen and the man of peace would see his dream shattered and history would remember his declaration of war speech of September 3rd, 1939 when World War II officially began. I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street. 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. You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that it would have been more successful. Up to the very last, it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honorable settlement between Germany and Poland. But Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement. The proposals were never shown to the Poles nor to us and though they were announced in the German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier the next morning. His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will even give up his tactics of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force and we in France are today in fulfillment of our obligations going to the aid of Poland who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unproven attack upon her people. We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace. But a situation in which no word given by German ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel itself safe has become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage. At such a moment as this, the assurances of support which we have received from the Empire are a source of profound encouragement to us. When I finish speaking, certain detailed announcements will be made on behalf of the government. Please give your close attention. Now may God bless you all and may he defend the right. For it is even things that we should be fighting against. Drink force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution. And against them I am certain that the right will prevail. The Nazi attack across France was unstoppable. One month to the day of the assault, momentous news crackled across the transatlantic wires. News that buckled France in the midst of her most terrible misery. The struggle for freedom of the people of Italy began. Combatants on land, sea and in the air. Blackshirts of the revolution and of the legion. Men and women of Italy, of the Empire and of the Kingdom of Albania. Listen, a declaration of war has been given to the ambassador. To the ambassador of France and England. In the United States, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke of the Italian attack. On this tenth day of June, 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor. Italy had entered the war. Italy, traditional friend of Great Britain. Italy, an ally of the United States, Great Britain and France in World War I. Italy, whose many sons crossed the ocean to become bulwarks of America's culture and civilization. Italy, a nation steeped in the law of freedom. Italy, the nation that produced Garibaldi and Kivur. Italy, the nation that produced Mussolini. Italy was now at war with France and Great Britain. From Great Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Italians, I will tell you the truth. It is all because of one man. One man and one man alone has ranged the Italian people in deadly struggle against the British Empire and has deprived Italy of the sympathy and intimacy of the United States of America. That he is a great man, I do not deny. But that after 18 years of unbridled power, he has led your country to the horrid verge of ruin, that can be denied by none. It is all one man. One man who, against the crown and royal family of Italy, against the Pope and all the authority of the Vatican and of the Roman Catholic Church, against the wishes of the Italian people who had no lust for this war. One man has arrayed the trustees and inheritors of ancient Rome upon the side of the ferocious, pagan barbarians. There lies the tragedy of Italian history. And there stands the criminal who has wrought the deed of folly and of shame. Also from Great Britain came a name that will live for all time, Charles de Gaulle. General de Gaulle is saying, I, General de Gaulle, undertake this national task here in England. I invite all French fighting men in the army, navy and air force. I invite French engineers and French munition workers who may be in British territory or who can contrive to get there to join me. 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. It is June 21st, 1940, the place, the town of Compiègne, France. The situation, the signing of the peace between Germany and France. The place, a town 45 miles north of Paris, the town of Compiègne. Compiègne, the final humiliation of France. Compiègne, where on November 11th, 1918, Marshal Ferdinand Foch had directed the surrender terms to the Germans at the end of World War I. The scene was an almost unbelievable one. Compiègne would now become the surrender place of the French. From the relics of World War I, the Germans had gathered the same railway car used in 1918 for their surrender. It would be used in the surrender ceremony today. The French had built a museum near the surrender site. One monument to the days of 1918 read, to the heroic soldiers of France, defenders of our country, and of right, glorious liberators of Alsace-Lorraine. Another inscription of a monument read, here on the 11th of November, 1918, succumbed the criminal pride of the German Empire, vanquished by the free peoples which had tried to enslave. The proceedings took 27 minutes. An eyewitness to the ceremony. Hello, CBR. Hello, NBC. This is William C. Kirkert, now carrying on. Hitler himself was the first one to rise, and as soon as Adolf Hitler stood up to greet the French delegates by giving the Nazi salute, Orphan Ribbentrop and Rochet followed suit, while Field Marshal Goering and Granhande von Reiter rose up that town, leaving Colonel General von Brauchitsch and von Keitel as the only ones to give the military salute. The French gentlemen themselves in turn greeted with the military salute, and although at present wore uniforms except Monsieur Noel, who was attired in smart civilian clothes. He himself was quite a contrast to the glittering uniforms which surrounded him. However, undeterredly, he took his place, almost facing, right there, over sitting at the opposite side of that long green table, with his back towards the statue of General Frosch. Well, it was 21 years and 8 months ago that Comte d'Inde was the scene of the signing of an amnesty, and today we are right here on the very same spot. It is the same car which was used at that time, the same table, the same chairs. Only this time everything is reversed. Where Marshal Frosch sat that time, now Hitler sat. Where the German delegates had their place, now the French clinic representatives are seated. Everything is reversed. Then it was Germany who was asking for an amnesty, and out of France. Within 24 hours the French signed the instrument of surrender. The terms, the demobilization of the French fleet, the turning over of all anti-Nazi Germans residing in France, the condition that any Frenchman caught while fighting with another country against Germany would be shot, and finally the most tragic term of all, that French prisoners would not be released until the conclusion of peace. Lee TomollaMANhhhhat It is four years later. Since France's humiliating defeat, much has happened to bring about their liberation. Now Paris is again liberated. This is John McRae in Paris. Those bells you can hear are the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral. They just began ringing about two or three minutes ago, and they're ringing a chime of thanksgiving that French troops have entered the city. We just came in this morning with the first correspondent of the first American record to come in with these French troops, and we've just had a big street fight here right in the square in front of the cathedral. And now all the church bells in the city are beginning. I can hear three or four more churches, and I'll let you hear them. We've just had a big fight here in the square in front of Notre Dame, and we're all lining our stomachs and hoping for the best, but we hope that's all over now and that these bells that we hear are a sign that the last ten resistance in Paris has cleaned up. Boys are ready for battle because most of them have been four years away from Paris, and you can touch how they're feeling when they come back and see their own folk again. The French boys are dressed in American uniform. They look like Americans, but when they open their mouths, the people know they're French. These bells are peeling out a chime of Thanksgiving that after all these years Paris is again free. When people found we were the first American car to come into the city, they overwhelmed us with kindness. They gave us wine, flowers, food. He gave us cigarettes. They're French cigarettes. They cost them about three or four dollars a packet. You can hear the crowd laugh here. Are you happy that we're here? Yes! Long live France! Long live France! Long live France! You see for yourself how happy everyone is that we're here. The allies are here. He says we're very happy that the allies are here. All right, all right. All right. He says all right. Everything is fine. It's very pretty. Are you happy too? Yes, very happy. Hello! She is very happy. Hello! I want to go back further. And he says we hope that the Germans will be pushed farther back. So France has again returned to the family of nations. The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company has brought you The Fall of France. The actual voices and sounds of some of the most dramatic moments of World War II. This program was written, produced, and directed by Bud Greenspan. My name is David Perry.
