(solemn orchestral music)
(eerie music)
- [Narrator] World War II was
an earth shaking drama in five acts,
played out on a stage as
immense as the planet itself
and touching upon millions of lives.
The prelude to the war
took place in the 1930s
when Hitler intimidated the democracies
and extended the boundaries
of his malign power.
He achieved this through
gangster-like tactics
and a combination of bluff and bullying.
- This morning,
I had another talk
with the German chancellor.
Hail Hitler.
And here is the paper which
bears his name upon it,
as well as mine.
(artillery firing)
- [Narrator] Act one
opened with a mighty crash,
the start of the Blitzkrieg
when the Nazis began
their onslaught on Poland.
Britain and France, after
years of appeasing Hitler,
stood by their promises to the Poles
and declared war on Germany.
(suspenseful music)
By spring, Hitler had
stormed through Norway
and the Low Countries
until finally France, too, had fallen.
But one triumph eluded Hitler.
Saved by the miracle of Dunkirk,
Britain stood defiant and alone.
(explosions)
(machine gun fire)
After the Battle of Britain,
Hitler postponed his planned
assault on British soil
and switched his malevolence
to the east, invading Russia.
This was one of his costliest mistakes.
But despite heavy losses,
the German empire stretched
from the shores of the Atlantic
to the burning sands of Egypt,
From Greece to Leningrad and
beyond to the Arctic wastes.
Act two of the drama began in 1941,
when the Japanese Zeros
streaked out of a dawn sky
to attack the American
base at Pearl Harbor.
(explosions)
The sleeping giant was woken.
The USA declared war on the Japanese,
and by now, all of the principle
players were on the stage.
In a string of surprising victories,
Japanese forces swept through
the western Pacific and Southeast Asia.
Malaya was overrun, Singapore capitulated,
and the Dutch East Indies
and the Philippines were conquered.
The Japanese juggernaut
rolled through Burma to put India in peril
and island hopped to New
Guinea to threaten Australia.
A quarter of the globe was in
the control of the Japanese.
But their plan was not flawless.
Their victory at Pearl
Harbor was not complete.
The US carrier fleet was at
sea on the day of the attack
and they lived to fight another day.
Act three of the war came from the people,
something Hitler had not bargained for.
After the fall of France, the
horrors and heroism of war
became part of the fabric of daily life.
The bank clerk, the farm worker,
the factory girl, and
the office fire watcher
were as much on the front
line as any soldier.
In the year after the Blitz,
more civilians than fighting
men died from enemy action.
The organization of the home front
became as important a
part of the war effort
as the raising of armies.
Total war meant that people
had to be fed, housed, trained,
protected from air attack,
supplied with gas masks
and ration books.
Morale had to be kept
high through propaganda,
and when life was at its grimmest,
people needed something
that would raise a smile.
In the occupied nations,
some civilians joined the
resistance to set Europe ablaze.
The Nazis retaliated, but
reserved their greatest ferocity
for their onslaught on the Jews.
Six million were murdered
in Hitler's Final Solution.
The people also joined the conflict
in the field of scientific
warfare and espionage.
Polish and British mathematicians
broke the German Enigma codes
and a stream of agents
infiltrated enemy territory.
During this third act,
the guns had blazed at El
Alamein and Stalingrad.
(artillery firing)
(machine guns firing)
(explosions)
With these two resounding victories,
the tide of the war was
turning in favor of the Allies
and the fourth act was about to be played.
To bring the final victory nearer,
British and American bombers
pounded Germany from the air.
(explosions)
Brave sailors ran the gauntlet
of the U boat packs in the Atlantic.
(explosion)
On the eastern front,
the Red Army crushed the once
invincible Panzers at Kursk
and went on to give Hitler a sharp lesson
in blitzkrieg tactics.
(explosions)
The Africa Corps was
driven out of North Africa.
Italy was invaded and Mussolini deposed.
(explosions)
Then, in June, 1944,
Allied troops stormed
the beaches of Normandy.
Hitler now faced what
he feared most of all,
war on two fronts.
As defeatism spread through
the German high command,
a plot to assassinate Hitler
came within a breath of success,
but the German army fought on stubbornly.
(machine guns firing)
(artillery firing)
Their attack through the Ardennes
to fight the Battle of the Bulge
was a last, desperate gamble.
With its failure, the Allied
avengers closed in on a Reich
which Hitler had promised
would last a thousand years.
In the Pacific, the plot evolved
into the same fate for the Japanese.
From the moment when they
had failed to achieve
a total and crushing
victory at Pearl Harbor,
defeat was inevitable for Japan.
But turning the inevitability into reality
was to take a heavy toll in human lives,
for the Japanese were tenacious fighters.
(explosion)
Men faced death on the beaches
of palm fringed islands
and in steaming jungles,
in the vastness of the Pacific
Ocean and in the skies above,
on muddy trails and in
prisoner of war camps.
General MacArthur, when he
left the Philippines vowed,
"I shall return."
He did so in a spectacular
campaign of island hopping
at Leyte in October, 1944.
The second wave of the American attack
worked its way across the
Pacific by way of bloody battles,
like those for Tarawa, the
Marshall Islands, and Saipan.
(artillery firing)
In China, Chiang Kai-shek fought on
under the promptings of
Vinegar Joe Stilwell,
and in Burma, the forgotten
14th Army beat the Japanese
at their own game of jungle warfare.
On land, sea, and air,
the Japanese were driven to
the last desperate resort
of a nation staring defeat in the face.
As act four was closing,
defeat was a constant companion
for the Nazis and the Japanese.
(artillery firing)
The final act
of the most tremendous drama
the world has ever witnessed
opened on January the 12th, 1945,
when the Red Army crossed the Vistula
to take Warsaw and drive into Germany.
In the west, the British and Americans
pushed deep into the Reich.
From his bunker in Berlin,
a shattered and ailing Fuhrer
directed imaginary armies
until the day even he himself
realized it was all over
and committed suicide.
His body was soaked in petrol and burned,
a fitting end for a man
who had plunged the world into flames.
Across on the other side of the world,
the Japanese were suffering
their own punishment by inferno.
Iwo Jima and Okinawa fell
after fanatical resistance.
Tokyo and other cities suffered
the horrors of firestorm raids.
Still worse was to come
when the atomic bombs fell
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Japan surrendered, and
the war was finally over.
(suspenseful orchestral music)
As in all wars and battles,
victory is never possible
without the men behind the machines,
the leaders and the strategists,
the commanders and the generals,
the men that not only created the theories
but also the men that put
those theories into practice.
World War II was the
platform for many such men.
There was no greater
leader in times of war
than Winston Churchill.
Churchill was the prime minister
for the greater part of the war,
and it is his name more than any other
that is forever linked with
the great fighting spirit and resolve
that saw Britain survive
the threat of defeat by Nazi Germany.
He was famous for his morale
boosting wartime speeches,
none more so than the speech he gave
after the Battle of Britain.
- [Churchill] The gratitude
of every home in our island,
in our empire, and indeed
throughout the world,
except in the abodes of the guilty,
goes out to the British
airmen who, undaunted by odds,
unwearied in their constant
challenge and mortal danger,
are turning the tide of the World War
by their prowess and by their devotion.
Never in the field of human conflict
was so much owed by so many to so few.
All our hearts go out
to the fighter pilots,
whose brilliant actions we see
with our own eyes day after day.
- [Narrator] Churchill's emergence
as prime minister in 1940
was a classic example
of the crisis producing
the right person to solve it.
No other leading politician
had the support across the parties,
the abundant energy, and
the clarity of vision
to command the respect and the
faith of the British people
at the very moment when it mattered most.
On the day of his appointment,
May the 10th, 1940,
the Germans unleashed their
Blitzkrieg in the west.
Within six weeks, they had
conquered most of western Europe,
pushing out the British forces
via Dunkirk in the process.
(explosion)
- [Churchill] The Royal Navy,
with the willing help of
countless merchant seamen,
strained every nerve to embark
the British and Allied troops.
220 light warships and 650
other vessels were engaged.
They had to operate upon
the difficult coast,
often in adverse weather,
under an almost ceaseless hail of bombs
and an increasing concentration
of artillery fire.
Nor were the seas, as I have said,
themselves free from mines and torpedoes.
It was in conditions such as
these that our men carried on,
with little or no rest,
for days and nights on end,
making trip after trip
across the dangerous waters,
bringing with them always
men whom they had rescued.
The numbers they have brought back
are the measure of their
devotion and their courage.
- [Narrator] When Britain stood
alone against the Germans,
it was a moment when firm
leadership was vital.
Churchill wrote of this
period in his memoirs,
"I felt as if I were walking with destiny
"and that all my past life had been
"but a preparation for
this hour and this trial."
(machine guns firing)
(artillery firing)
(crowd cheering)
- We shall defend our island,
whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on
beaches, landing grounds,
in fields, in streets, and on the hills.
We shall never surrender.
(machine gun fire)
(explosion)
What tragedies,
what horrors,
what crimes
has Hitler and all that Hitler stands for
brought upon Europe and the world.
It is upon this foundation
that Hitler pretends
to build out of hatred
a new order for Europe.
Nothing is more certain than
that every trace of Hitler's footsteps,
every stain of his infected
and corroding fingers
will be sponged and
purged and, if need be,
blasted from the surface of the earth.
Lift up your hearts.
All will come right.
Out of the depths of sorrow and sacrifice
will be born again the glory of mankind.
(artillery and machine guns firing)
(artillery firing)
(machine guns firing)
(artillery firing)
(machine guns firing)
(explosions)
Hostilities will end officially
at one minute after midnight tonight,
Tuesday, the 8th of May.
But in the interest of saving lives,
the ceasefire began yesterday
to be sounded along all the fronts.
The German war is therefore at an end.
We may allow ourselves a
brief period of rejoicing.
Today is victory in Europe day.
(crowd cheering)
- [Narrator] Churchill's wartime
leadership was legendary,
motivating the nation through
disaster and triumph alike.
The country was indebted to him,
and the gratitude of the
nation was no more apparent
than on the day of his funeral in 1965.
(artillery fires)
(artillery fires)
- [Churchill] Last time I spoke to you,
I quoted the lines of Longfellow,
which President Roosevelt
had written out for me
in his own hand.
I have some other lines
which are well known
but which seem apt and appropriate
to our fortunes tonight,
and I believe they will be so judged
wherever the English language is spoken
or the flag of freedom flies.
(explosion)
(explosion)
(machine gun fire)
(explosion)
(gun firing)
(machine gun firing)
(explosions)
- Fire!
(artillery firing)
(bell ringing)
- [Narrator] The British
victory at El Alamein,
coming as it did after years of defeat,
was greeted by ringing church
bells, banner headlines,
and an outpouring of public admiration
for a man that continued unabated
throughout the rest of his life.
- [Bruce] This is the BBC
Roaming Forces Program.
This is Bruce Belfrage.
Here's some excellent news
which has come during the past hour
in the form of a
communication of GHQ Cairo.
It says, "The Axis forces
in the western desert,
"after 12 days and nights
of ceaseless attacks
"by our land and air forces,
are now in full retreat."
(crowd cheers)
- [Narrator] Field Marshal Montgomery
was a man obsessed with
order, precision, and method.
He based his campaigns on planning
and an absolute unwillingness
to improvise or take chances.
The fight for Rommel's Panzer Division
was put up in the face of impossible odds
is one of the greatest
actions of World War II.
(artillery firing)
(explosion)
(explosion)
(artillery firing)
(explosions)
(machine guns firing)
(artillery firing)
(explosion)
(explosion)
(artillery firing)
(machine guns firing)
Yet, despite Britain's overwhelming
numerical superiority in men and arms,
it required that one man
with self confidence,
determination, and rapport with the ranks
to elicit the dogged, unremitting effort
that eventually resulted
in the British victory.
(artillery firing)
During the Normandy landings of D-Day,
he was the leader of the British forces.
(artillery firing)
In Western Europe, he was
the commander of the British forces.
(machine guns firing)
(artillery firing)
(machine gun firing)
(artillery firing)
(machine gun firing)
(artillery firing)
To many of the men who served
in the ranks in the desert or later,
he was almost a godlike figure.
He had the great gift
of being able to explain
the most complicated plan
so that it appeared simple,
and when he had finished a briefing,
everyone present knew
exactly what he had to do.
- [Churchill] You have
altered the face of the war
in a most remarkable way.
What it has meant
in the skill and organization
of movement and maneuver,
what it is has meant
in the tireless endurance and
self denial of the troops,
and in the fearless
leadership displayed in action
can be appreciated only by those
who are actually on the spot.
But I must tell you that
the fame of the desert army
has spread throughout the world.
- [Narrator] Many of his
superiors considered him
a first class leader who took no risks
and was the personification
of the dedicated professional soldier.
It was Field Marshal Montgomery
that took the formal surrender
of Germany's northwestern armies
at his headquarters near
Hamburg on May the 4th, 1945.
Montgomery read out
the surrender document,
finishing with a declaration
that unless the Germans
signed it there and then,
hostilities would be resumed.
- Delegation will now sign this,
this paper.
They will sign in order of seniority,
and General Admiral von
Friedeburg will sign first.
Now, General Kinzel will sign next.
- [Narrator] Montgomery
countersigned the document
on behalf of the Supreme Allied Commander,
General Eisenhower.
- Now, I will sign the instrument
on behalf of the Supreme Allied Commander,
General Eisenhower.
- [Narrator] For Montgomery,
the Luneberg surrender
was the culmination of
his victorious career.
General George Smith Patton,
flamboyant, swaggering, and controversial.
He was a man of contrasts,
deeply religious and fiercely profane,
a hot tempered, ruthless
fighter with a kind heart,
a learned military tactician
and a fiery tank commander.
(artillery firing)
Considered by the Germans in
an analysis of Allied generals
as the most dangerous man on all fronts.
At the highlight of his career,
Patton was given command
of the Third Army.
They were sent across to
France one month after D-Day.
The dash made across
France by the Third Army
was a triumph for both
Patton and his staff.
It was at his insistence the
fastest and most efficient.
(artillery firing)
It was at the Battle of the Bulge
that the strength of General
Patton's command shone through.
(artillery firing)
He fought the battle in his own fashion,
driving around the front
lines in his open Jeep.
One of his cardinal rules
was that commanders and their staff
should be seen physically
by as many individuals in
their command as possible.
Patton visited battle lines
and unit command posts
at every critical point.
He was never seen moving backwards.
He would always fly to the
rear lines to save time,
but more importantly to avoid
the possibility of lowering morale.
He described the battle himself
as one of the greatest
exploits in military history,
executed under the most
difficult and trying conditions
and against tremendous odds.
He further maintained that he had
very little to do with the victory.
All he did, he said,
was to give the orders.
It was his staff and the troops
that performed this amazing feat.
During a briefing to
his men, he told them,
"There is probably no commander in Europe
"who did less work than I did.
"You did it all."
This was not a man indulging
in a false show of modesty.
He believed every word he said.
What he did not say, however,
was that in addition to giving the orders,
it had been he who turned the Third Army
into an efficient, well knit team
capable of carrying out his orders.
It was also he that kept them functioning
at peak performance under
extremely difficult conditions.
Though his reputation was
made as a tank commander,
his army's success at the Bulge
depended far less on
spectacular tank battles
than on his superb coordination
of armored, infantry, artillery,
air, and support forces.
In the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower,
George Patton was a man
who knew his business.
There were, of course,
many other legendary leaders
and generals during the period,
each one of them deserving a chapter
in the annals of the history
of the Second World War.
(suspenseful rhythmic music)
It is not only the great leaders
that made their mark as men of the moment.
During the Second World War,
there were many accounts of
bravery from individuals,
feats of superhuman courage
with no other motive
other than to help save
the lives of others.
War inevitably brings forth heroes,
men and women that go
beyond the call of duty.
It would be impossible and also unfair
to try and categorize them
into levels of bravery.
But there is one decoration
that is given to those
who perhaps just went
that little bit further.
The Victoria Cross is by far
the world's most coveted
medal for bravery.
Although instituted more than
a century ago and spanning
the four most terrible
wars in Britain's history,
it has been awarded to only 1,350 men,
three of whom have won it twice.
One was also awarded to
the American Unknown
Warrior, who lies buried
in the Arlington National
Cemetery in Washington
as a symbol for all those
who died in the Allied Corps.
The deeds for which the
Victoria Cross has been won
are as varied as the backgrounds
from which the recipients have come,
for it is the most democratic of medals,
open as much to the common soldier
as to his commanding officer,
every rank and every grade of all branches
of Her Majesty's forces.
Cast in bronze from the cannons
captured at Sevastopol in the Crimean War,
the Victoria Cross retains a mystique
that no other decoration
has ever achieved.
It takes precedence over all the others,
and the merest glimpse of that
distinctive crimson ribbon
on the breast of a veteran is
sufficient to establish him
as a military monarch in
the minds of his fellow men.
The VC has never been won a woman,
although the rules do not
preclude the possibility.
It has, however, been
won by four civilians.
And contrary to popular belief,
two Germans have also won it,
as well as one Russian and five Americans.
Part of the warrant qualifying
a Victoria Cross decrees
that neither rank nor
long service nor wounds
nor any other circumstance
or condition whatsoever,
save the merit of conspicuous bravery,
shall be held to establish a
sufficient claim for the honor.
During World War II, many VCs were won,
none more deserving than that awarded
to Group Captain Leonard Cheshire,
possibly one of the most
courageous men of the war.
Cheshire's operational career in the RAF
began in June, 1940.
Against strongly defended targets,
he soon showed that extra
courage and determination
of the exceptional leader.
He was always ready to
accept additional risks
to ensure the success of a mission.
Defying the formidable
Ruhr defense system,
he frequently flew in and
released his bomb load
from a much lower level than called for,
thus obtaining much more
accurate results on the target.
Over Cologne in November, 1940,
an anti-aircraft shell burst
right inside his aircraft,
blowing out one side
completely and starting a fire.
Undeterred, Cheshire went
on to bomb the target
and still made it home.
In 1943, he took command of
the legendary 617 Squadron
and opened his fourth operational
tour as wing commander.
His first impact on the squadron came
when he began to devise a fresh way
of ensuring accurate attacks
against comparatively small targets.
This developed into a
totally new marking system
which was to use a marker
aircraft flying in first
to mark the target at much lower heights
than the bomber force.
This new system of Cheshire's
also coincided with the development
of the 12,000 pound blast bomb.
The first raid was on the
aircraft factory at Limoges
on the 8th of February.
Cheshire led 12 Lancasters through cloud
to reach the target in moonlight.
In the lead aircraft,
Cheshire then dipped down to
200 feet over the factory,
dropping his ordinance of
incendiaries right on the target.
These burst at once, sending
out a glow of red spot fires.
The remaining bombers in the
stream behind at 7,000 feet
now had a perfect point at which to aim,
and the raid was a complete success.
It soon transpired to Cheshire
that there was an urgent
need to mark targets
with a much faster and
more maneuverable aircraft
than the Lancaster.
He was very soon given two Mosquitoes,
which were perfect for the task.
It was the famous Munich raid
which helped win Cheshire
his Victoria Cross.
Four Mosquitoes were to make
the first markings of the target.
The pilots were Wing Commander Cheshire,
Flight Lieutenant Kearns,
Squadron Leader Shannon,
and Flight Lieutenant Fawke.
Cheshire was to mark a small
house on the railway sidings,
which he did with remarkable accuracy.
But the sheer mark of the man
and his courage can be seen
when having marked his target
he continued to fly around the target
with no regard to his low reserve on fuel.
He directed the 200
Lancasters into the area,
flying at only 1,000 feet,
immediately below the path
of their falling bombs.
With the task complete,
Cheshire set course for home
only to face flying through
40 miles of heavy flak.
On approaching RAF Manston,
his fuel gauge read only
10 minutes of fuel left
only to find that there were
enemy fighters over the airfield
shooting up the landing aircraft.
He calmly switched off all his lights,
and with all landing lights
on the airfield extinguished,
he landed the Mosquito
in complete darkness.
This was just one of his many exploits,
and although he led 617 Squadron
on some 40 similar raids,
the true measure of
his wartime achievement
was in his brilliant
inventiveness and leadership.
He was a man that would
always back his own judgment,
and events proved him
right time and time again.
In all, he flew 100 missions,
and 100 times he had gone out, bombed,
endured ack-ack, fought
fear, tiredness, and cold,
exerted all his skill, all
his ingenuity, and come back.
He had forgotten all else in life,
other than leading his squadron,
setting an example of frozen
courage in every attack,
bombing, shattering,
and killing the enemy.
To mark his achievements
of determined leadership and
courage over a long period,
King George invested Cheshire
with his third DSO and the Victoria Cross.
The citation read,
"Wing Commander Cheshire
"led his squadron personally
on every occasion,
"always undertaking the most
difficult task himself."
Cheshire undertook one
more task during the war,
which in a split second
dramatically changed
the rest of his life.
He was the British observer
in the American B29 when they dropped
the second of their
newest bombs on Nagasaki.
In the moment of the blinding flash
came the greatest moment of
truth for Leonard Cheshire.
The supreme efficient man of war,
a much decorated hero of 100
mortal raids against the enemy,
was to spend the rest of his
life as a crusader of peace.
Only three men have ever won
the Victoria Cross twice,
and only one of those three
was decorated during World War II.
Captain Charles Hazlitt Upham
of the Second New Zealand
Expeditionary Force
was that brave soldier.
It was in Crete between the
22nd and the 30th of May, 1941
that the then Second Lieutenant Upham
won his first decoration
when he displayed outstanding
courage and leadership
in very close quarter fighting.
A small force of New Zealanders
was attacking the German army at Maleme.
A German machine gun nest was
proving difficult to overcome.
Under the cover of darkness,
Charles Upham advanced single
handedly on the gun position.
He fearlessly attacked,
firing his hand gun
and throwing a series of grenades.
This threw the German gunners completely,
which in turn enabled
the rest of his force
to follow up the attack
and destroy the position.
Following this raid, he
advanced with his men,
and in the ensuing conflict,
he was blown up by a mortar shell
and badly wounded by a second.
He was later hit by rifle
fire, badly injuring his foot.
But in spite of his wounds
and also suffering from a
severe attack of dysentery,
he refused hospital treatment.
At one point in the conflict
when his company were forced to retire,
the wounded Second Lieutenant
carried another wounded man
back to a safe position.
In the same battle on the
30th of May at Sphakia,
he beat off an attack by the Germans,
22 of them falling to his
short range pistol fire.
This won him his first Victoria Cross.
The Bar was awarded for his gallantry
on the 14th and 15th of July in 1942.
Now a captain, Charles Upham
was leading his company
at El Ruweisat Ridge near El Alamein.
After being hit twice and wounded,
he refused to leave his men
and insisted on leading them into battle.
Just before dawn, he led
them in a determined attack,
capturing his objective
only after fierce fighting.
With only hand grenades,
he personally destroyed a German tank,
along with several guns
and armored vehicles.
Although this arm had been
broken by a machine gun bullet,
he continued to hold the position
until, at last, weak from loss of blood,
he was taken off for medical treatment.
Having had his wounds dressed,
he immediately returned to his men,
remaining with them until once again
he was severely wounded
and unable to move.
He was captured and held
as a prisoner of war
until he was liberated in 1945.
A very brave and gallant man.
Of course, not all heroes
that showed supreme courage
were awarded the Victoria Cross.
During the Battle of Britain,
only the RAF's fighter pilots
stood between Britain and
the planned Nazi invasion.
One of the most legendary of
these champions of the air
was Douglas Bader, an amazing character
who had lost both legs during
a pre-war flying accident.
In spite of his somewhat
precarious disability,
he was a man with a forceful disposition,
and it was due to this
great inner strength
that the RAF were persuaded
to let Bader fly operationally
when the war started.
He was very soon promoted
to flight lieutenant of 222 Squadron
when he claimed his first enemy kill
by shooting down an Me 110 over Dunkirk.
In July, 1940, he was given
command of 242 Squadron,
a unit compromising
mainly of Canadian pilots,
which had been withdrawn,
demoralized, from France.
Bader had a firm belief in
his ideas of air warfare,
which quite often the Air
Ministry were forced to listen to.
It was his idea that
more damage could be inflicted
on the German bombers
by much larger formations of fighters.
This lead to a heated argument
between AOC Trafford Leigh-Mallory
and his 11 Group Commander, Keith Park.
By September, 1940, however,
his theory was put into regular practice,
and the big wing formations
were soon standard procedure.
During the Battle of Britain,
he was constantly leading
his large formations
of Hurricanes and
Spitfires into the conflict
with devastating results for the enemy.
It was at this time
when Bader was awarded
the DSO for his bravery.
From a very early stage in his career,
Bader had laid down certain precedents
for fighter pilots in the combat area.
They should dive down
to the enemy formation
to try and break it up, and
always with the Sun behind them.
Never, under any circumstances,
follow a damaged opponent
down hoping for a kill,
for a pilot would be sitting target
for an enemy fighters above.
Straggling behind was disastrous.
A lone fighter would be
easy prey for hostile guns.
Bader's concept worked, and very soon,
Leigh-Mallory began to call 242
the Disintegration Squadron.
In October, 1940, Hitler's
planned invasion was postponed,
and he turned his bombers
onto the cities of Britain.
By this time, Bader was commanding
no fewer than five squadrons.
In March, 1941, he was
promoted to wing commander
and became one of the first wing leaders.
He made many kills over
the French coastal areas.
On August the 9th,
however, he made his last.
He had just shot down two 109s
when he was attacked and his aircraft hit.
With the aircraft in
flames, he had to bail out,
losing his two artificial
legs in the process.
He landed in enemy territory
and was immediately taken prisoner.
Amazingly, a report came via
German radio intelligence
that they were requesting
a new set of legs for Bader
and that they would give permission
for a British plane to land.
The RAF, however, opted
for a different method,
and dropped a new set
of legs from a Blenheim
during a bombing raid.
Bader was taken to a POW camp,
but he attempted to escape.
He was caught,
after which he made several
more escape attempts,
until finally he was
taken to Colditz Castle,
the camp for constant escapees.
It was here that he remained
for the rest of the war.
Liberated on the 14th of April, 1945,
he returned to England,
where he was promoted
to group captain and commanding officer
of the Fighter Leader's
School at Tangmere.
When the RAF performed
the fly past in 1945 over
London to mark the victory,
Bader was out front in the lead fighter,
one of the greatest characters of the war
and one of the finest leaders.
Whilst in Colditz,
like all the other
captive Allied officers,
Bader was driven to seek an escape.
There were many other legendary escapees.
In fact, Colditz, known
as the bad boys' camp,
was a prison designed for those
who had tried to escape before,
or for those who were a high
security risk to the Germans.
These escape attempts were
often at great personal risk,
as any prisoner caught escaping
could quite well be shot,
as did happen on many occasions,
one of the most notable being
the 50 RAF officers executed
after the Great Escape.
One of the most infamous
escapees from Colditz
was Mike Sinclair, otherwise
known as the Red Fox.
Sinclair, a lieutenant in the
Army, was captured at Dunkirk.
To him, being held captive was a disgrace,
and at all costs, he felt
he should attempt to escape,
not only to get back to
England and the fighting,
as one man couldn't really make
much difference to the war,
but mainly because that
getting out of the camp
would mean that the Germans
would call out thousands
of troops to hunt him down,
thus occupying them in
activities away from the war.
He had originally been
taken to a camp at Poznan,
from which he escaped.
He was caught and then
taken to Colditz via Vienna.
En route, he escaped again,
and again, he was eventually recaptured
and ended up in the castle confines.
On a visit to the doctor
at nearby Leipzig,
Sinclair again escaped from his guards.
He was caught three days later in Cologne.
One of his most spectacular attempts
was when he dressed up as the
camp commandant, Franz Josef.
He spent three months studying
his walks and mannerisms.
In September, 1943,
Sinclair and two others,
also in German uniforms,
simply walked out of the camp,
relieving the sentries
from duty as they went
by ordering them back to the guard room.
On the last sentry post, one
guard was unsure about Sinclair
and demanded identification.
In the fracas that followed,
Sinclair made a run for
it and a shot was heard.
Sinclair fell to the ground.
Luckily, he was only wounded,
as the bullet had ricocheted off his ribs.
This was his seventh escape
attempt from Colditz.
An eighth attempt with Jack
Best was over the west terrace.
They had only a few
seconds between the guards
as they slipped out of a
window along the terrace wall,
over the parapet, and
down into the woods below.
Sinclair and Best got as
far as the Dutch frontier
when they were spotted
by an off duty policeman
and caught once again.
But their escape had involved
over 20,000 of the German home guard
being called out to search for them,
men that would normally have been manning
the anti-aircraft defenses and such like.
By the summer of 1944, it was apparent
that the war could only go one
way and the end was in sight.
But still Sinclair felt
it was his duty to escape.
Many years before, a Frenchman
had escaped successfully
by jumping over a 10 foot
fence in the park grounds.
On a sunny afternoon
on September the 25th,
a group of men including Sinclair
were walking in the park area.
Suddenly, without any warning
or foreknowledge among those present,
Sinclair broke away from the group,
sprang across the tripwire,
and reached the main fence.
Gripping onto the barbed wire,
he jumped over and came
down the other side.
A German NCO ordered Sinclair to stop,
an order which was ignored.
He continued, running
150 yards down the ravine
to where a stream went
through an iron grid.
He had to get through the grid
or scale a 10 foot brick wall.
Before he could do either,
a shot rang out and Mike
Sinclair, the Red Fox,
one of the greatest escapees
of all time, was dead.
He was buried at Colditz
with full military honors.
Major Richard Bong was a
highly decorated young pilot.
Not only in his wartime
career was he awarded
the Congressional Medal of Honor, the DSC,
two Silver Stars, seven DFCs,
but also 15 other Air
medals for gallantry.
In achieving these decorations,
he also became the leading
American ace of any war,
with 40 kills to his credit,
and he flew 200 missions
throughout the Pacific.
Major Bong was a past
master of flying fighters
and more than able tactician.
He realized the importance
of protecting his flanks,
and his wing man was always
the most experienced and
capable flyer he could find.
But on one occasion,
however, he got it wrong.
He had already notched up 20
victories in his P-38 Lightning
fighting the Japanese Zeros,
so he was hardly a novice pilot.
He was out to intercept a
Japanese bomber formation
protected by fighters.
He prepared himself
for what should have been a tidy massacre,
but he suddenly became aware
that his wing man beside him
was not flying a P-38.
It was an enemy Zero.
Bong sharply put his aircraft
into an aerobatic routine,
intended to shake the Zero off.
At 15,000 feet, he leveled
off and looked in his mirror.
It was still there.
He again maneuvered his aircraft
in a series of dives, spins, and turns
until he was only a
few feet above the sea.
The Zero had been unable
to keep up the pace
and was now about a
half a mile behind him.
He climbed rapidly only
to discover himself flying
right into a formation of nine more Zeros.
The Japanese pilots had
one unanimous thought,
to knock Major Bong from the skies.
In what he felt was his
best form of defense,
he flew straight at
them to attack head on.
He put his first rounds
into the lead Zero.
It exploded in front of him.
He then selected a second and fired,
again blowing it apart in midair.
By now, the Japanese pilots,
having lost their leader,
were in a state of uncertainty
and were firing wildly
at the crazy US pilot.
Major Bong, cashing in
on their loss of control,
took a shot at a third Zero.
Damaged and smoking, it
twisted away from the formation
and dived towards the sea.
Thereafter, Bong decided
the best course of action was to retire.
Flying at full throttle,
he raced away from the
bewildered opponents
and eventually landed safely at base.
Only a pilot of his caliber
could have got away with such a feat.
There was not time in a dogfight
at odds of nine to one for any hesitation.
Despite his determination
to be top scoring ace,
there was no doubt as to why
he made such a good leader.
His men trusted him implicitly.
They knew that if they got in a fix,
Major Bong would somehow
get them out of it.
There were, of course, many heroes,
and indeed heroines, in World War II.
Each of them went just that
bit further than required
above and beyond the call of duty,
some in a single moment
of superhuman gallantry,
others showing strength, lack of fear,
and disregard for personal
safety over long periods of time.
Great courage has been
and will continue to be
shown by selfless men and women
in times of adversity and war,
but those experienced in heroism
all have one aim and one goal, peace,
which perhaps is the most
highly prized award to anyone.
(instrumental music)
(solemn orchestral music)
