An American in England 42-12-08 (08) Home Is Where You Hang Your Helmet

Summary

Podcast Summary: "An American in England 42-12-08 (08) Home Is Where You Hang Your Helmet"

Hosted by Harold's Old Time Radio
Release Date: July 4, 2025

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Home Is Where You Hang Your Helmet," part of the limited series "An American in England," listener Norman Corwin shares a poignant narrative exploring the lives and experiences of soldiers stationed in England during wartime. Through intimate conversations and vivid storytelling, Corwin delves into the emotional burdens carried by soldiers, the camaraderie among Allied forces, and the enduring spirit of the British people amidst the chaos of war.

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The Emotional Burdens of Soldiers

Corwin opens by reflecting on the personal hardships soldiers endure, illustrating how warriors carry memories and personal items that symbolize their homes and loved ones. He recounts a conversation with a French soldier, Victor, highlighting the deep emotional ties that motivate soldiers to fight:

Norman Corwin [01:19]: "Every soldier who goes abroad takes his country with him. A thousand square miles of it. Also, his favorite homegrown stories of homemade songs."

Victor explains how he dedicates each shot to someone dear to him, underscoring the personal sacrifices made on the battlefield:

Victor [02:09]: "I dedicate each one to some place or somebody in France. Like this. That's my home."

This segment emphasizes that beyond the physical challenges, soldiers bear the weight of their personal histories and the memories of those they protect.

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Interactions with Allied Soldiers

Corwin shares insightful interactions with soldiers from various Allied nations, showcasing the diverse backgrounds united by a common cause. He vividly describes meeting two RAF pilots, Ben and Stan, who embody the multicultural fabric of the Allied forces:

Norman Corwin [05:16]: "We introduced ourselves at this point, Ben the Briton and Stan the Pole."

Their camaraderie is evident as they share songs and stories, bridging cultural gaps through mutual respect and shared experiences. However, tragedy strikes as both pilots are lost in action, highlighting the constant peril soldiers face:

Norman Corwin [05:48]: "Both took the high road and it's in their records perfectly plain for anybody to see that they went out and fought day after day, sincerely, without compromise..."

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Stoicism and Dedication Amidst Adversity

The episode delves into the varying perspectives among soldiers, contrasting pessimism with unwavering optimism. Corwin recounts dialogues with a Sergeant from Pittsburgh and a Private from Montana, illustrating differing attitudes toward their deployment in England:

Sergeant from Pittsburgh [10:23]: "What a hole. What a country. Black, dirty, rainy, smoky."

Private from Montana [11:20]: "Me, do I like it here? I think this is as close to heaven as a man can get."

This juxtaposition highlights the resilience and personal coping mechanisms soldiers adopt to manage the stresses of war.

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British Resilience Under Bombing Raids

Corwin underscores the steadfastness of the British people during relentless bombing campaigns. He narrates a compelling story of a woman who remains calm and composed even as bombs fall onto her train, exemplifying the British "stiff upper lip":

Unnamed Passenger [13:18]: "I beg your pardon. That was a bomb, wasn't it? Yes, I said, that was a bomb."

Her ability to return to reading without flinching encapsulates the collective bravery and stoicism observed in British civilians during the Blitz.

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Patriotic Dedication of British Farmers

Shifting focus to the home front, Corwin interacts with Everington, a British farmer deeply committed to supporting the war effort despite bureaucratic challenges. He contrasts Everington’s patriotism with American frustrations over cumbersome forms:

Unnamed Farmer Everington [15:54]: "It's really very little to ask of a man when you think of the tremendous job being done."

Corwin highlights Everington’s positive outlook and sense of duty, portraying British civilians as equally steadfast and willing to contribute tirelessly to the national cause.

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Allied Unity and Democratic Spirit

A significant portion of the episode celebrates the unity and democratic values upheld by Allied leaders amidst global conflict. Corwin reflects on the RAF Symphony Orchestra's benefit concert, attended by a diverse audience including royalty and commoners alike:

Norman Corwin [19:13]: "They were there to see the payoff. The fruit of their labors."

He also illustrates the blending of personal lives with national responsibilities, mentioning leaders like Queen Elizabeth, Mrs. Roosevelt, and Stalin’s involvement in war efforts, reinforcing the idea that leadership and ordinary citizens are united in their commitment to victory.

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Hope for a Post-War Future

Corwin conveys a sense of optimism for the war’s end, envisioning a future where the sacrifices of soldiers lead to the downfall of fascist regimes and the restoration of peace:

Norman Corwin [25:09]: "They'll be hanging their dusty helmets on a peg somewhere inside Germany and the swastikas will come down..."

This aspirational outlook serves as a motivating force, underscoring the belief that unity and perseverance will ultimately triumph over tyranny.

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Conclusion

In "Home Is Where You Hang Your Helmet," Norman Corwin masterfully weaves together personal anecdotes, soldier testimonies, and reflections on the broader war effort to paint a vivid picture of life in wartime England. The episode underscores the universal themes of sacrifice, resilience, and the unbreakable human spirit, offering listeners a heartfelt homage to those who serve and the enduring bonds forged in the face of adversity.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Norman Corwin [03:09]: "Every soldier who goes abroad takes his country with him. A thousand square miles of it."

• Victor [05:48]: "Both took the high road and it's in their records perfectly plain for anybody to see that they went out and fought day after day, sincerely, without compromise..."

• Unnamed Passenger [13:18]: "I beg your pardon. That was a bomb, wasn't it? Yes, I said, that was a bomb."

• Unnamed Farmer Everington [15:54]: "It's really very little to ask of a man when you think of the tremendous job being done."

• Norman Corwin [19:13]: "They were there to see the payoff. The fruit of their labors."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the essence of the episode, providing a detailed overview for those who haven't listened while preserving the rich narratives and emotional depth presented in the original broadcast.

Transcript

[Norman Corwin]

Have you got a half hour? Tell you something about various kinds of soldiers I've seen in the country of one of your allies. Recently, England made a lot of notes at random, including musical notes.

[Joseph Julian]

The Columbia Broadcasting System presents An American and England, the second of a limited series of four programs written and directed by Norman Corwin, an extension of the transatlantic series of the same title. Recently, recently. Short waved by CBS from London. Tonight, home is where you hang your helmet with Joseph Julian, narrator and music by Lynn Murray.

[Norman Corwin]

I was watching some range practice one day at an army camp near a famous English town I can't mention, and there was a fighting French soldier aiming at a target. Doing very well too. The last two were bull's eyes. And on the chance he had picked up some of our language since Dunkirk, I went over and complimented him on his shooting.

[Victor]

Thank you very much.

[Norman Corwin]

Always been a crack shot. Pardon?

[Victor]

What kind?

[Norman Corwin]

Always good with a gun. Bon avec la gun?

[Victor]

No, no, not always. I did not two years ago shoot good.

[Norman Corwin]

Improved with practice. Have you?

[Victor]

Well, yes and no. I am much better since I think of certain things when I shoot.

[Norman Corwin]

You mean you imagine you're aiming at a Nazi every time you a weeb.

[Victor]

But also something, I think each time I aim. How you say you understand their own did they be? It means give something to make prison fair. Consequences.

[Norman Corwin]

You mean dedicate?

[Victor]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Norman Corwin]

Oh, yes.

[Victor]

I dedicate each one to some place or somebody in France. Like this. That's my home. For my friend Edouard, who was shot at Montreville.

[Norman Corwin]

Those shots were a little wide. I may have made him self conscious. He told me his best aim usually was on shots dedicated to his wife, whose whereabouts, incidentally, he didn't know. And his next best, he said, was for his young sister. Towns made him shoot straight too. Mostly towns in Alsace Lorraine, where he lived. Paris was far down on the list. But we talked for a while. He sometimes in broken English and I in broken French. And when I said goodbye to him, he told me his name was Victor and asked where I came from in America. Boston, I told him.

[Victor]

Well, when I shoot on tour at a living Nazi, I dedicate a full sight of Boston for you. Eh?

[Norman Corwin]

That was a couple of months ago. The chances are pretty good that since then he may have met up with a living Nazi in Africa and made a dead Nazi out of him with a bullet named Boston. I just hope Victor lives up to his name, that's all. If you've never met a soldier away from his country, you have no idea how much a man can Carry that isn't in a pack. The faces of his people. The taste of home grub. The smell of old books in the attic. The way his dog looked when he'd holler, get down off that sofa. All these things he carries with him tucked away in the little kit bag behind his forehead. He thinks of telephone numbers he hasn't.

[Victor]

Used for five years.

[Norman Corwin]

And the silly porcelain horse on the top shelf of his china closet. And that first dance in June when he drove her home and they necked briefly on the front porch before her old man came out and said, what's the idea of keeping my daughter up so late? These things a soldier keeps piled away under his helmet. And every now and then he takes them out and sinks them over and then puts them back. And if he has to die fighting the sinkers of the Axis, he wants to die for these things. Yes. Every soldier who goes abroad takes his country with him. A thousand square miles of it. Also, his favorite homegrown stories of homemade songs. And when he sings, he may not sound like much, but at least he knows what he's singing about. One night in a village in Surrey, I came across two RAF pilots who were having a fine time singing. I figured they both belonged to a Polish squadron because they looked and the song sounded Polish. I went over.

[Victor]

Hey, you speak English?

[Norman Corwin]

Parlez vous Francais?

[Victor]

Why, yes, somewhat. I have a speaking acquaintance with both languages, especially English, as I'm an Englishman. Oh, I thought you were Polish.

[Norman Corwin]

Wasn't that a Polish song you were singing?

[Victor]

Yes, quite. It's one my friend here taught me. He's Polish.

[Norman Corwin]

We introduced ourselves at this point, Ben the Briton and Stan the Pole. Stan explained, mostly in Polish, that except for Ben's slightly Galician accent, he could easily pass for a street singer in Warsaw.

[Victor]

Yes, the kind they throw shoes at. From the windows, no doubt. Sing next to the English Scotch songs. Yak Loch Lomonds and Londonderry Air my school. I suspect he's saying that he's learned some English songs. When the war is over, he's going to teach them to his pupils in Prasnich.

[Norman Corwin]

Does he sing? Any request numbers?

[Victor]

What does he say? He says, sing Loch Lomon. Oh, Loch Lomon. Yes. Right. O, O ye Take the high road Then I'll sack the Lord and I'll be in Scotland before ye but me.

[Norman Corwin]

And my comrades and more than one kind of heir these flying men from Oxfordshire and Chesneys they liked each other and flopped songs and stories and took turns buying the beers. A good time Was being had by both. They knew that tomorrow, just as last night, they'd be out hunting the Hun. Maybe they wouldn't get back. There'd be no more Loch Lomond, no more Polska, no more laughter in the pub by the sign of the rose and crown. The fact of the matter is that within five weeks Stan was killed over Belgium and Ben didn't get back from escorting some fortresses into France. Both took the high road and it's in their records perfectly plain for anybody to see that they went out and fought day after day, sincerely, without compromise, without pose or politics, for a world which would be better for themselves and other people in a lot of countries. If the statesmen of their countries fight as honestly and hard and for the same things as Stan and Ben, there may well be occasion later on for considerable swapping of songs and beers. Maybe at last a good time will be had by all Malaya to Laughlone. Soldiers are wonderful people. At a dock in a British port which shall be unnamed, I was watching some American army engineers supervise the unloading of a transport. They had the job well under control and were willing to talk as soon as they were satisfied I wasn't a spy. I told them my name, but they insisted on calling me Mac, and they plied me with questions.

[Victor]

You been here long, Mack?

[Norman Corwin]

What do you think of English girls?

[Victor]

What kind of a town is London?

[Norman Corwin]

You ever run into a fellow named Irving Bell?

[Victor]

Give us a light, Mack. Do you know Ed Morrow who's on the radio? How'd you come over? By plane.

[Norman Corwin]

One of the boys was from St. Louis, and I asked him if he knew how the World Series was coming out. That was the week the Series had started. His answer shocked me, as it probably would shock St. Louis.

[Victor]

I don't know and I don't care. Care. How can you get excited about a baseball game when you're getting ready to bust into Europe somewhere With a couple of million tanks and guns and bombers? Look at the stuff coming off this one ship. I don't care if the cards win, lose or draw. Besides, my team's always been the Browns anyway.

[Norman Corwin]

Oh, what an ambition rooting for the Browns. What's your team, Jack?

[Victor]

Reds. The Cincinnati Reds.

[Norman Corwin]

Best team in baseball.

[Victor]

Yeah. How about the Russian Reds? There's a team for you. I bet they're not playing baseball in Russia right now.

[Norman Corwin]

I bet they are. Maybe not baseball, but soccer or something. I suppose you could say there's kind of a World Series going on there, too.

[Victor]

The battle of Britain and the defense of Stalingrad you can take everything else and give me that. That's the crux of the war right there. What an army those Reds got, huh? Russia. If they only had names you could pronounce. Small, Yent, Brian, Minsk, Pinsk, Sari, Riska, Nubicord, Novacord.

[Norman Corwin]

It's star, isn't it?

[Victor]

I can't pronounce any of them Russian names. Cranny's sakes, you ought to be ashamed to say that coming from where you do.

[Norman Corwin]

Why? Where does he come from? Tell him.

[Victor]

Go ahead, tell him where you come from.

[Norman Corwin]

I come from Texas.

[Victor]

Yeah, but where in Texas? Tell them the name of the town.

[Norman Corwin]

Oh, desert. More Americans know more about more British today than ever before in our joint history. And vice versa. As far as I'm concerned, that's all to the good. Because once you get to know the English people, you can't help liking them. Of course, that doesn't necessarily go for their country or their climate. There's some difference of opinion about that. Sergeant from Pittsburgh, stationed in a city in the Midlands, said to me, what a hole.

[Victor]

What a country. Black, dirty, rainy, smoky. Sometimes I think I'd rather be in Australia, Libya or even Jersey City.

[Norman Corwin]

Whereas a private from Montana whom I met near Henley on Thames, said to.

[Victor]

Me, do I like it here? I think this is as close to heaven as a man can get.

[Norman Corwin]

He was drinking ginger beer, which is non alcoholic, so it couldn't have been that he meant it.

[Victor]

Yes, sir, as close to heaven as the man can get.

[Norman Corwin]

Like to stay here after the war?

[Victor]

I sure would.

[Norman Corwin]

Don't think he was slighting Montana either. That Thames Valley district has some of the most beautiful country in the world. Soft and green and rolling and happy looking. It affects you like a poem by Keats or a Morris dance or a fresh young country girl with a bloom on her cheeks and no paint on her lips. Which reminds me of the land army girl. That's the volunteer farm worker who showed up late on the job at a farm in Kent county one morning and apologized to the farmer.

[Everington]

I'm sorry to be late, but the Jerrys were over last night and dropped farm on the house I'm living at. And I'm afraid the rescue squad took a bit long digging me out.

[Norman Corwin]

Now, what about that? What about the British and their famous stiff upper lips and their genius for understatement? What about the capacity of the man at home to stand up under punishment? The phrase he took it like a soldier is no idle phrase in Britain. For all her people in this war are Soldiers. It was my friend Davidson, the philosopher, who said, home is where you hang your helmet. I think he was right. You remember those store signs in London during the Blitz?

[Victor]

Bombed out. Flooded out but not sold out. Die one of our camp beds and be bombed in comfort.

[Norman Corwin]

Soldier shopkeepers kept their helmets on the wall behind the counter. Why the British are even good soldiers. Between stops, a Chelsea housewife told me the story of how she was riding in a train and there was only.

[Everington]

One other passenger passenger in the compartment, a woman, and we were both reading. The train was going at a pretty good speed when a raider spotted us and dropped a bomb. Now, when you're riding in a train with the windows closed, you don't hear planes and don't get any warning of bombs because you can't hear them whistle on the way down.

[Norman Corwin]

Lovely.

[Everington]

Well, I happened to glance up casually as you do when you're reading, and just as I looked out of the window, I saw a bomb land in a culvert at the side of the railway and there was a big explosion. Well, the train rocked and shook, but it held the tracks and kept right on going. This woman, still sitting across from me, seemed a little startled, but she returned to her magazine as though nothing had happened and I returned to my book. About three minutes passed and she looked up and said very. I beg your pardon. That was a bomb, wasn't it? Yes, I said, that was a bomb. She nodded and went back to her reading and we rode the rest of the way to Cardiff in perfect silence.

[Norman Corwin]

The British are obviously brave and soldierly people, but unlike the Germans, there's also a little shyness mixed up there somewhere. Fellow works for the BBC, told me we're inclined to be self conscious of the people. We get scared the same as anybody.

[Victor]

Else, but we don't show it for fear of making fools of ourselves.

[Norman Corwin]

If a man were walking down the.

[Victor]

Street and bombs started falling, he probably wouldn't run for shelter. He'd keep on walking.

[Norman Corwin]

If anything, he'd walk a bit slower. If he ran, he'd think he was making a spectacle of himself. I was staying at a farm in Great Dunham, Norfolk county, one weekend, and my host, a farmer in the Home Guard named Everington, invited me into his office to take a look at his morning mail. He thought it might amaze me. In one delivery there were seven different forms to be filled out.

[Victor]

Form one Application for a permit to obtain supplies of sugar for the purpose of feeding a colony of bees. Form two form concerning Vegetable and Glass.

[Norman Corwin]

House Cropping Program 1943, 44.

[Victor]

Form three. Application for building license. Form four. Application for the retention of men born.

[Norman Corwin]

In 1924 from military service under the special scheme for farm workers.

[Victor]

Form 5. Application for potato subsidy. Form 6.

[Norman Corwin]

Questionnaire from the Grass Dryers Association Limited requesting information of all owners of combine harvesters.

[Victor]

Form 7. Application to enter stock for marketing.

[Norman Corwin]

The significant part of this form fest to me was Everington's attitude. He didn't grouse about red tape, but looked upon answering questionnaires as a patriotic service. The way he explained it was simple.

[Unnamed Farmer]

It's really very little to ask of a man when you think of the tremendous job being done. Before the war, we used to raise only one third of the country's food requirements. Now we're raising 2/3.

[Norman Corwin]

Gosh, that must mean just in terms of ship, tonnage saved is nobody's business.

[Unnamed Farmer]

Ah, but it's everybody's business.

[Victor]

Every last farmer, every last.

[Norman Corwin]

See, that's an expression. Every nobody's business. That's an American expression.

[Unnamed Farmer]

I know it's an expression. It's a British expression too. But it's still everybody's business. The amount of corn and sugar beet and potatoes we raise here in England.

[Victor]

Has a great deal to do with.

[Unnamed Farmer]

The amount of munitions you're able to ship to your men in the Solomons. Well, certainly our ministry has to ask questions. How else can they know how to plan for the feeding of our civilian population, to say nothing of our armed forces and the forces of our allies stationed on our soil.

[Norman Corwin]

I couldn't help thinking of the letter I got that week from a friend in the States complaining bitterly about questionnaires from Washington. According to him, a simple matter like the forms for mileage rationing got into such complications that it practically took an advanced university course to fill one out. I got the impression from the low wailing tone of his complaint that he was being asked by Mr. Ickes, hey.

[Victor]

If you use your car on weekends, state whether, assuming the initial motion of said car is X and its proportionate velocity is 1 y and your wife is in the back seat, the constant of integration of both front tires is greater or lesser than the logarithm of the Smith, which is Z B, if.

[Norman Corwin]

Your driving license has been suspended at.

[Victor]

Any time between 1927 and 1942, do not answer the first and second of these questions.

[Norman Corwin]

1. Can you whistle with three fingers in your mouth? 2.

[Victor]

Have you noticed any undue wear and tear either on your flywheel dowel pin or on the center line of your gudgeon pin?

[Norman Corwin]

Three, where are the snows of yesteryear? And do you own chains for both sets of tires?

[Victor]

This question must be answered.

[Norman Corwin]

That, according to my friend's letter, was how the United States was torturing its citizens. But I wasn't for a minute taken in by it. I had very little sympathy for his complaint to begin with, and everything's example of good cheer gave me less. Here was a British farmer, already weighed down by taxes, living on rations, liable at any moment to be bombed, working hard on his farm to increase production, doing Home Guard duty on Sundays, serving without pay on the District War Agricultural Committee, and, incidentally, bringing up a family to be useful citizens of his country. So when he gets the morning mail and finds seven forms to fill out, what does he do? Squawk? No. He supports the Ministry of Agriculture, which sent him those forms, and explains to a visiting American why certain questions are necessary and why a government at war must know the answers. Berrington took me out for a walk on his farm and showed me with justifiable pride his green fields, his orchards, his barns, his animals. He stopped to pick an apple off a tree and said, this orchard I.

[Unnamed Farmer]

Planted for my son's education. When he's old enough to go to college, these trees will be at their prime, yielding enough to pay for his tuition.

[Norman Corwin]

We walked through fields of barley and beet and grass and potatoes and wheat. The sky was clean and blue after the early rain. The morning was heavy and still, as though with the peculiar wisdom of autumn, with the quietness of things grown and ready to be reaped, somehow in the tranquility of those Norfolk acres, the trees thinning, the time being fall, the air being innocent of war. As a newborn lamb, I could think of nothing but bombs and food quotas and questionnaires. And it occurred to me that the civilian who objects to answering questions might do well to think of the very simple, uncomplicated forms filled out for soldiers who have given the very best they have to give. Name.

[Victor]

Age.

[Norman Corwin]

Identity, number.

[Victor]

Cause of death.

[Norman Corwin]

Next of kin. And I wondered about the ultimate questionnaire, about the great question to be asked in the final reckoning. And what did you do for the race of man in the time of the greatest struggle ever on your earth? At the National Gallery in London one fine day, the RAF Symphony Orchestra was playing a benefit concert with Myra Hess, the celebrated pianist. Now this orchestra goes around the country playing for workers in factories, for soldiers in the camps, for wounded men in the hospitals, and Miss Hess, who before the war gave perhaps a dozen concerts a Year now gives almost that many in a week. She too plays in canteens and factories. But this afternoon she was playing before a London audience which included the Queen. There are very possibly boxes in the National Gallery, including a royal box, but the Queen was not in one. She was sitting in the audience like everybody else. There was nothing to distinguish the Queen from such commoners as the Waffs in the same row, from the ushers who stood at the back of the hall, from the RAF men who had saved Britain and were listening raptly to the music, or from the German composer who wrote it. What impressed me as I listened to was the democratic attitude of the heads of our allied nations, the King and Queen of England eating hot dogs at Hyde Park. Mrs. Roosevelt riding in the New York subway. Joe Stalin taking two hours out of a busy war with a Hun at the gates of Moscow to talk with the editor of a liberal American newspaper named PM Soldiers. The Duke of Kent was killed on active duty. Stalin's son helped to smash the Germans on the central front. Churchill's daughter is in the ats. The Roosevelt boys are scattered around the earth. A big war, this one. Whether you hang your hat in White House, Whitehall or Kremlin, it's a helmet you're hanging. It would take a year of programs to tell you half the curious and amusing and touching little things that one meets up with in the course of a few weeks. For example, I was standing on the banks of the Cam river in Cambridge one day watching some ducks paddling around. Their coloring seemed to me unusually beautiful. And I said to an instructor of RAF cadets, tell me, are these ducks native to this part of the country?

[Victor]

Oh, no, they're very foreign.

[Norman Corwin]

You see, they escaped from the Cambridge zoo a few years ago, and nobody's.

[Victor]

Had the heart to put them back.

[Norman Corwin]

I was at an RAF Bomber Command station one night when the boys came back from raiding Wilhelmshaven. The bombardier of the first crew to report came into the intelligence room looking very happy over the night's work. And when the flight captain asked him, well, how did it go?

[Victor]

He answered, we hit him right in the eye.

[Norman Corwin]

The captain put his hand on the boy's shoulder and said, which eye? The sailor in Liverpool who stopped me to ask the way to St. James Cathedral and fell to talking and gave me a slant I never realized before about fighting at sea.

[Victor]

If somebody wants to invent a useful new weapon, let him find a cure for seasickness. Try aiming a gun at a dive.

[Norman Corwin]

Bomber when the ship's rolling over on.

[Victor]

Her side every Three seconds and you're rolling over on your inside and a bit of freezing wind blowing and the decks are washed to make it all the nicer.

[Norman Corwin]

Then there was a time I was on the train and a young Scotch tank driver was telling me how he had lost his mother and father in a bombing raid on the UN military village where he lived, or used to live.

[Victor]

Oh, I'm stoic about it, perfectly stoic. You know, you have to be philosophic about these things. I don't mind it anymore. Bothered me at first, I grant you that.

[Norman Corwin]

But I'm well over it now. I'm well over it. We rode along for another hour, and after a while he took his wallet out of a pocket and said, would you.

[Victor]

Would you like to see a picture of my mother and father?

[Norman Corwin]

Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, millions of them, hanging their helmets in all kinds of homes except their own. Soldiers of a dozen Allied nations crowded into these little British Isles carrying helmets for the express purpose of one day pulling them down over their heads and going out after the Huns, wherever they may be. Two months ago, the soldiers I've told you about were moving here and there over the face of England. They were shooting at targets, unloading transports, drinking beers, watching ducks, ducking bombs, listening to Mozart. But sooner or later, if they're not already doing it, they'll be shooting at fascists and unloading blockbusters and fighting in the night on frozen earth and awakening in the black hours before the dawn for the attack. They'll be flying and slogging and running and crawling and sniping and flanking and making with the grenade and bayonet. And one day, may it be a soon day, they'll be hanging their dusty helmets on a peg somewhere inside Germany and the swastikas will come down and the boys from Pont a Mousson and St. Louis and the fjords of Norway and the locks of Scotland and the mountains of Montana. They'll be there to see the payoff. The fruit of their labors. Hitler, Hess, Gurring, Goebbels and Laval Quizzling. All the slimy crowd, including opportunist generals and ratting statesmen, will go climbing up the gallows for the last and most popular of their public appearances. In the meantime, England is the temporary home for the Allied avenging armies. It's the last house on the street this side of liberty. One more note. In the Washington Club of the American Red Cross in London, a sailor from the great maritime state of Kentucky was worried about the fact that at the end of the club dances the band would play the star spangled Banner and pack away their instruments. But one night he went over to.

[Victor]

The club director and said, I sure do wish they'd play the British anthem too, Ms. Mumford. Man, I think it'd be a nice sort of gesture, don't you?

[Norman Corwin]

She thought so too. And since that time programs at this American club end with the playing of the British anthem.

[Victor]

Sam.

[Joseph Julian]

You have been listening to the Columbia broadcasting System's presentation of home is where you hang your helmet written and directed by Norman Corwin as the second of a limited series of four programs entitled an American in England. These are an extension of the international series of the same name originally broadcast for from London. Joseph Julian, the narrator of the London productions, served in that capacity again tonight. The musical score was composed, arranged and conducted by Lynn Murray. Next week, an Anglo American angle. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.

[Victor]

Sam.