The Battle of Britain

WHY WE FlGH A SERlES OF SEVEN lNFORMATlON FlLMS

THE BATTLE OF BRlTAlN

SPEClAL SERVlCE DlVlSlON

lNFORMATlON FlLM #4

Produced by:
THE WAR DEPARTMENT SPEClAL

SERVlCE DlVlSlON S.O.S.

With Cooperation of:

THE SlGNAL CORPS

JUNE 1940

The shadow of the conquering German armies,

covered western Europe.

The self-styled master race,

was riding high.

DUNKlRK

Calais

Now Adolph Hitler stood, just as Napoleon had stood,

more than 100 years before.

And looked across the English Channel to the one

fighting obstacle that stood...

..between him and world domination.

The chalk cliffs of Britain rose sheer

and white, out of the choppy waters.

And beyond, a little island, smaller

than the state of Wyoming.

Crush that island, and its stubborn people and the

way was open for world conquest.

The fall ofAustria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark,

Norway,

..Holland Belgium, France had given him more than

100 million slaves,

..to work for him or starve.

The preliminaries were over, it was time for the main

event. The battle of Britain.

Berlin

Where Napoleon failed, I shall succeed. I shall land

on the shores of Britain."Adolph Hitler

Hitler and his Generals feverishly drafted their plans

for the conquest of Britain.

Every detail must be anticipated.A slip now, might

wreck the timetable of world conquest.

Six weeks of final preparation went into

those plans.

Six weeks to determine the history

of a thousand years.

The thing was fool-proof. See for yourselves how

simple the whole operation was meant to be. Look.

GERMAN PLAN FOR lNV ASlON OF ENGLAND

PHASE l

Knock out the Royal Air Force and its bases.

Get control of the air and sea lanes

across the channel.

Follow the blitz plan that wiped out

the low countries, Poland and France.

Destroy communication and transport lines.

Above all, get command of the air.

PHASE ll

Pulverize the coast line with dive bombers.

Drop parachute troops to take over the air fields and

establish beach heads.

Drop parachute troops to take over the air fields and

establish beach heads.

PHASE lll

Actual invasion.

Pour the German Panzer divisions across,

in high speed barges,

..under an umbrella protecting fighter planes.

then send spear-heads of armed might, to divide,

surround, destroy all opposition.

That's all there was to it.

Conquer Britain. Force the surrender

of the British fleet.

then with the combined sea-power of Germany,

Britain, ltaly, France and Japan,

..he could control the seas, and

tell us whereto head in.

The torch of freedom flickered low.

On the invasion coasts, more than 100fully equipped

German divisions were singing the Nazi theme song,

We are sailing against England.", as they waited the

word from Hitler.

Here, for weeks, all the supplies and weapons of the

Nazi war machine...

..had been turned toward Britain.

The jaws of the Nazi whale,

were set to swallow Jona.

And what about Jona?. How was he doing?.

Well, Britain also had an army

But it was an army dragged from sea at Dunkirk.

An army without weapons. These had been

left behind on the roads of France.

Tanks, guns,

..motorized equipment,

..all abandoned to save the one

priceless item...

.. men!

In all of Britain, there was not enough equipment for

one modern division.

Only one tank for every thousand square miles of

territory.

Only one machine gun, for every 1 500 miles of

beach.

Britain had a navy too, but it was

scattered all over the globe,

..guarding vital food and supply lines.

And the British knew it would be suicidal to use their

fleet in the narrow waters ofThe English Channel,

..with the German air force in control

of the air.

Britain also had an air force.

An air force outnumbered 10 to 1 by the enemy

..both in men and machines.

There was Britain herself.

The people of Britain.

The people who would be terrorized

and forced to surrender.

They knew every man, woman and child,

in uniform and out,

..would be Hitler's target, in the onslaught that could

come at any moment.

They knew they had a job to do

and not much time to do it in.

The young, the not so young and the old.

The clerk, the butcher, the farmer, the member of

Parliament,

..they formed the civilian army,

Britain's Home guard.

They started from scratch.

Experience, equipment, supplies...

..all were scarce.

Only one shell to fire at each practice.

The women of Britain refused to be left out.

We're in this too."

We'll put up the barrage balloons."

Man the air cat guns."

We'll run railroads and get the trains

through on time."

Ferry the planes."

Carry the dispatches."

Drive the ambulances and run the buses."

And we'll see our male are fed,

and don't go hungry."

Others worked.

They worked full time.

Overtime.

Double time.

Forty hours a week, fifty, sixty, seventy.

Hours meant nothing.

Fatigue meant nothing.

Until the government forced them to cut down hours,

because over-fatigue was...

..hurting production.

And when they weren't working the men

patrolled the moors for parachutes...

..blocked the roads...

.. rehearsed invasion defenses.

For something had happened here

the Germans could never understand.

In a democracy, it is not the Government

that makes war...

..it is the people.

To lead them, the people had chosen Winston

Churchill as their Prime Minister.

To lead them, the people had chosen Winston

Churchill as their Prime Minister.

And he spoke the word in every British heart, when he

said:

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may

be."

We shall fight in landing grounds,

in fields, in streets,

and on the hills."

We shall never surrender."

This was Britain in its darkest hour.

The people knew they were in for the worse

the Nazi mind could invent, yet...

..they didn't panic or run away

They patrolled and waited.

They drilled and waited.

They worked and waited.

Waited for the terror they knew was coming.

Then it came!

That is the sound that became part of life,

for every man, woman and child in Britain.

August 8th, 1940 and the battle for Britain is on.

Thirty enemy aircraft over the channel,

flying due west."

Here comes the Luftwaffe.

In dozen of flights, hundreds of planes.

Bombers, fighters, dive-bombers,

across that 21 miles of channel.

That eight short minutes of water.

Their first tactics were to bomb convoys

in the channel.

Convoys loaded with food and munitions,

bounded for the great port of London.

German fighters waited overhead for the defending

planes of the RoyalAir Force, the RAF to appear.

They didn't have long to wait.

The RAF came, facing of 6, 8, 10 to 1,

..and dove in, shouting the old hunting cry: "Tallyho!"

Phase one of the Nazi plan, called for

the RAF to be knocked out of the air...

..but the men of the RAF,

hadn't read the Nazi plan.

In the first 4days, the RAF knocked

182 German planes out of the sky

For the next week the Germans attacked the coast

cities from the Thames River to Weymouth.

Mr. Getty, take cover!"

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