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the History Channel Original Podcast. The nation of Poland no longer exists and that enables Adolf Hitler to attack the West. After six months of inactivity, what is called the Phoney War, Germany quickly occupies Denmark, then invades Norway, where they easily defeat a British and French force, triggering a crisis in the British leadership. Now the the question is, where will Hitler point the Wehrmacht next and who will be able to stop him?
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This is world war ii with tom hanks. Episode 2 blitz.
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May 10, 1940. German forces sweep through the Netherlands and Belgium, headed for France. This will be the third time that Germany has invaded France in 70 years. Because of this history, the French have constructed a 280 mile system of forts known as the Maginot Line.
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The idea is to have a number of different fortifications and infrastructures and weapons. Underground tunnels,
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you have extensive batteries that can house entire battalions. There are even electric railroads underground to funnel soldiers from blockhouse to block house.
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Confident that the border with Germany is secure, the French position their best troops along the Belgian Dutch border.
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The French army of 1940 is regarded as Europe's finest. They have a large number of soldiers. They have some of the largest and best tanks in all of the world. At this time,
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nobody else has an army standing between the Allies and Germany. It's so deeply assumed the French army will hold off the Germans, just as it had in the First World War.
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The French army feels more more than capable of meeting any challenge it might face in a future conflict,
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as they did 25 years before in the First World War. Great Britain also sends an army to stop the German invasion.
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The British Expeditionary Force has been sent across to assist the French in their defense against the Germans. You've probably got about 300,000 men. They are the cream of British ground troops.
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British and French forces surge into Belgium looking to confront the Germans, what they believe will be the main effort of the German attack.
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They're heading for the line towards the distant rumble of gunfire.
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This is precisely what Hitler wants them to do. One of the Wehrmacht's best generals, Erich von Manstein, has designed a trap.
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Manstein, very ambitious general, big advocate of war, of movement tactics, Blitzkrieg tactics. He says, we're gonna distract them. We'll still have an army facing the Maginot Line. We'll still have an army sweeping through Belgium, but we'll do what they least expect. We'll cut through the Ardennes.
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The Ardennes forest straddles the French frontier with Belgium. Its steep, wooded hills and valleys are considered impenetrable here.
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There was no reason to build anything because the forest was so thick and dense.
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But Manstein's not deterred by this terrain. He sends his armored forces into France from this unexpected direction, which gives Hitler the opportunity to outmaneuver the Allies.
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And once he sold on it, and so often in Hitler's life, it becomes a kind of mania for it, he says, this is what I wanted. Finally, someone understands me.
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Hitler now throws the bulk of his forces through the Ardennes. That same day, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns.
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The Second World War is going badly for Britain. Hitler's troops have swept through Denmark and Norway, and Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, like leaders do, takes the blame for that.
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I sought an audience of the King
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this evening and tendered to him my
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resignation, which His Majesty had been pleased to accept.
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The King asks the First Lord of the Admiralty, the maverick politician Winston Churchill, to become Prime Minister.
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Winston Churchill was born at a time when Britain was at its imperial apex, the height of the Victorian age. From the youngest age, he's brought up thinking that he's special, that fate has predestined that he would one day save Britain and its empire.
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Churchill has openly been critical of Hitler, very worried about Hitler, against German rearmament and against Hitler's obvious plans in Europe.
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He was the guy who, sounding like a bit of a crank for years, had said this was going to happen. And then when it does happen and you're looking to turn to somebody and it's inevitable that you turn to the person that was right all along.
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Churchill's immediate challenge is to stiffen British resolve and to prepare them for a long struggle. From his first address to Parliament, Churchill demonstrates his determination to defeat the Nazis.
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Churchill used the wonders of language and the oratory skill and the way he crafted his words. Well, he's one of the most quoted people in the world.
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I would say to the house, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
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Nasty, dirty baseworks. Blood, sweat, toil. He takes you up here and he brings you back down here.
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You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word, victory. Victory at all cost. But without victory, there is no survival.
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People that were there that day said that you could feel the opposition to Winston Churchill just draining away.
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As the Vermont advances on France through Belgium and the Arden Forest, Adolf Hitler takes a risk.
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This is a huge gamble for the simple reason that if you try to mass panzer divisions and motorized infantry on these little dirt tracks, you're going to have massive traffic jams and they're going to be a ripe target for the French and British air forces, which could fly over and just bomb these things while they're stuck in the ardet.
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Hitler is in some ways the ultimate gambler with his notions that whatever he does, if he is strong enough and if he has the will and he's got the German people behind him, nothing can fail.
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Three days after German tank divisions enter the Ardennes, the French remain unaware of the Nazi threat.
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The French are not expecting a major German assault here. So the French troops along the Meuse are older men, reservists who've been called back to the colors.
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At 1500 hours on May 13, the countryside quiet is shattered by the sound of tank engines.
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So if you're a French soldier and you look out through your binoculars at what's happening, suddenly there's a tank appearing across the river. And then suddenly another one. And then suddenly dozens, even hundreds more. You make a panicky report back to your superior officer. I see German tanks,
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German pioneer units throw bridges across the river.
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They'd get their tanks across and launch a massive assault on French defenses.
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The surprised French troops now face a terrifying German barrage. As German panzer divisions race across the border. The French army is overwhelmed. Now the Wehrmacht pours through a 60 mile wide hole in the French lines.
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Line after line after line of tanks just crossing the Meuse. And at this point, there is no time for the French to mobilize and to come and defend that area.
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One German commander, Erwin Rommel, is particularly aggressive.
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He's a daring, dashing young man. He doesn't come from the traditional Prussian aristocratic military background. He's very aware of doing smash and grab type actions which will get you noticed.
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Hitler's been very impressed by him. When he crosses the Meuse, it's full speed ahead. People describe the invasion of the west as blitzkrieg, lightning war. But you know, that's really just a poetic metaphor, a way to describe something that is actually much more complex. The Germans themselves use a term, bewegungskrieg. It means the war of movement.
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The advance continues. The opponent must not be allowed to rest.
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The 7th Panzer Division becomes known as the Ghost division because it disappears from the situation map for hours, sometimes days at a time. It's moving faster than people can keep up with. But that's Rommel.
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The French are in full retreat. After only a few days of fighting. Northern France lies largely undefended. At 7:30 in the morning on May 15, Winston Churchill receives a phone call. It's French leader Paul Reynaud who tells him, we are beaten. The road to Paris is open. Send all the planes and all the troops you can.
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It cannot be overstated. How surprising and out of left field this German breakthrough is. The French army that had stayed diligently in the trenches for four years in the First World War crumbling in a matter of days.
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Churchill immediately flies to France.
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Churchill takes a tremendous risk by going over to France. There's a battle ongoing. There's a danger he's going to be shot down at any moment by hostile German fighters. But he feels he has to do it because he wants to stiffen the French morale. But when he goes to the Qui d', Orsay, which is the French Foreign Office, they're burning papers.
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The scene in Paris is absolute chaos. The French government is trying to figure out what they have to do in the face of this military defeat.
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Churchill calls the French lily livered. He says they don't have the requisite state of mind to hold back the Germans.
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But what happened has nothing to do with fighting qualities or one side being more valiant than the other. It has to do with one side completely overwhelming the other at the point of contact. And when things are happening faster than you think they should be happening, the reaction can be kind of a wave of panic.
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With the French on the brink of collapse and the British army in retreat, Churchill turns to the United States for help.
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Churchill had one key strategy for winning the Second World War. Get America involved.
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He dictates a telegram to President Roosevelt.
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He makes the clear warning to Roosevelt that eventually Nazism might come for the Americans as well. So he makes an appeal. We need destroyers, naval assistance, but we also need guns. We need planes, we need steel. He's desperate for military assistance.
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Ideally, Franklin Roosevelt wanted to keep German aggression on the European continent and ideally turn it back. And so Roosevelt's great hope is that perhaps by offering supplies, we'd keep the war on that side of the Atlantic, because a Nazified Europe was going to be a world threat.
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But it's an election year. Roosevelt is running for an unprecedented third term in office. His domestic policies are propelling him back into the White House. But the majority of Americans do not want to involve themselves in another global contest. So Roosevelt's foreign policy is a political vulnerability. Roosevelt wants to help Britain and France, but America's neutrality laws restrict how much he can provide. His hands are tied. If the Germans seize France, Britain will be left to face the Nazis alone.
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In northern France, German forces continue forward, attempting to trap the fleeing Allied armies.
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Every day it becomes clear that nothing can hold up the German advance.
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Now the Germans move to cut off the Allies at the English Channel.
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Once they reach it, all those Allied armies will be surrounded.
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The only chance of survival for the troops is to build some kind of defensive system around the Channel port closest to them, and that's Dunkirk, and then attempt an evacuation by sea.
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The small coastal town of Dunkirk is just 60 miles across the Channel from Britain. But Dunkirk doesn't have the infrastructure to support a mass Naval evacuation. By May 20, more than 450,000 French, Belgian and British soldiers are retreating in desperation to its wide open beaches.
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The Germans are already on the fringes of the Dunkirk perimeter.
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The Allies are trapped.
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There is no other British army. That's the best leaders, the best Sergeants and NCOs in danger of being absolutely wiped out by German forces.
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Then Hitler orders his panzers to halt.
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Hitler travels to the front lines. He's noticed some problems. The tanks are far, far ahead of their follow up infantry. Rommel's ghost division, for example. Hitler believes that the generals at the front are not, not reporting back to him with the specificity they should be. And he's kind of angry about that. And so Hitler had decided to take control of this operation.
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Field Marshal Hermann Goering insists the Luftwaffe can finish off the Allies.
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Goering's like, you know, Hitler, Fuhrer. You know, it's like, come on, they're on the beach, they're sitting ducks. Why would you want to waste your precious panzers? I can do this with Luftwaffe aircraft alone. For the Brits on the beach, there's an absolute hellscape. They're subjected day and night to constant aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe, strafing, dive bombing, level bombing.
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The British troops are just on the sand and each time this happens,
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they
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all take what cover they can. This goes on hour after hour after
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hour
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as they're waiting for deliverance.
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It was a time of total terror.
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As the Luftwaffe bombs the troops. The British War Cabinet is divided over how to save them. Prime Minister Churchill wants to evacuate as many British and French troops as possible by sea. But his foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, wants to explore diplomatic options.
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There are factions in the United Kingdom led by Lord Halifax, which believe that the war with Germany is pointless, totally destructive and can't be won. They want to have some sort of peace treaty with Germany.
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Halifax is saying, we have to face facts here, we have to face reality. Adolf Hitler has won in Europe. We can still preserve our independence, we can still preserve our empire if we make a deal with Hitler. And the way to do that is talk to an intermediary. Well, that's the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. He might be a broker to negotiate a peace between Britain and Germany.
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Halifax tries to get help from American diplomats.
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The American ambassador in Rome and various other people approach Mussolini to come up with some sort of peace treaty.
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But Churchill will not negotiate.
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He believes that if London were to enter into talks that British morale would collapse.
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Churchill decides to risk the Sea rescue plan codenamed Operation Dynamo. On May 26, the first Royal Navy ships set off across the Channel.
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Dynamo is the only car the British can play at this point. In London, they're estimating maybe we'll get 20, 30, 40, 5,000 at the most off.
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But now Hitler sends his forces back into action. Panzers begin to assault the defensive line around Dunkirk. On that first day, the Royal Navy rescues less than 8,000 men. The British need to find an additional way to get troops home.
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There were these two breakwaters, long stone and concrete jetties that stretched a mile into the sea. They're not designed for ships to come and dock next to them, but an emergency, this is what they can do.
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So you've got the British troops four abreast walking out onto this breakwater so they can get out to deep enough water and get picked up by ships.
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But meanwhile, they're under constant air attack by dive bombers and bombers.
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The British are running out of time. With over 400,000 Allied troops trapped on the beach at Dunkirk, a desperate call goes out from British leaders. Help us get our soldiers home. The response is immediate. For nine days, small vessels, all captain and crewed by volunteers, cross the Channel, fishing trawlers and paddle steamers, cargo ships and lifeboats, barges and yachts, each sail into the firestorm around Dunkirk, joining the Royal Navy in the rescue mission.
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There was every kind of ship that I saw coming in this morning and every one of them was crammed full of tired, battle stained and blood stained British soldiers.
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The the BEF leaves everything behind, all the tanks, all the artillery, all the trucks. The idea being that the men are the most important thing. We can make new equipment, but we can't make new men.
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The evacuation at Dun Curtin brings over 300,000 British and French troops to Britain. Though thousands are left behind. In Britain, the operation becomes known as the the miracle of Dunkirk. On British streets there is relief, joy and anxiety about what's to come. On June 4, Churchill addresses those fears.
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We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory.
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He reminds me people that things aren't looking good for Britain at this time. France is almost certainly lost and there's a great possibility in the weeks and months ahead that the Germans are going to launch a sea and air invasion of the uk and the question is, will we be able to stop it?
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Churchill's able to come out and issue this clarion call, issue this raw of belligerence and determination.
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We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.
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It's the most simple messaging in political history. This is a war against absolute evil. It is total war. We're going to fight for every inch and every yard and we're going to win.
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We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing ground. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
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With this speech, Churchill ends all discussions of a negotiated peace in France. Hitler moves quickly. He orders the Wehrmacht to strike south, heading for Paris and beyond.
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The Germans are essentially pursuing anti trench warfare. Anything that they can do to avoid the slog that they had in the First World War.
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As German forces race to the capital, damaging historic cities in their wake, the French population takes flight.
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People are terrified, fearing for their lives of the brutality of of the German soldier. So roads and railways are soon overflowing with refugees. Men, women, children, grandparents. Families are divided. Children get separated from their parents because there's so much chaos.
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There are 8 million French refugees on the run. On June 14, German troops march into Paris.
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They are parading down the Champs Elysees. Things could not be worse for the French. Grown men are crying. This is unbelievable. Unimaginable.
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Hitler insists the ceremony to sign the French armistice happens in the exact railway carriage where the Germans signed their surrender at the end of World War I.
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Hitler is like a giddy schoolboy. He can't believe this is happening. He's just jubilant.
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The terms of the armistice are several. The French army is restricted to a size of no larger than 100,000. France itself will be divided into two parts. The Germans will occupy about 3/5 of the remaining 2/5 will be led by Marshal Philippe Petain. And this will become known as Vichy France because the new French government will be seated in the town of Vichy.
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For the French, it's the end.
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The fall of France is a seismic event with global ramifications.
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France gave Germany a blank check to signing the terms of the arms.
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German propaganda Paris is in Deutsche hand captures iconic images on Hitler's first and only trip to conquered Paris. When France falls, for the vast majority of Americans, it's as if the unthinkable has happened.
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Roosevelt and the people close to him recognize a more immediately what this means. All the things that the United States didn't have to do as long as France was in between us and the Germans, they're now going to have to do. It's going to Build a very large army, it's going to build a very large navy, it's going to think about a global presence and it's never again going to put its own security in the hands of another country, even a friendly one like France.
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Roosevelt now calls for America to mobilize. In the coming months, he'll institute the first peacetime draft and call for the production of 50,000 warplanes.
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Overwhelmingly, we as a nation, we are convinced that military and naval victory for the gods of force and hate would endanger the institutions of democracy in the western world.
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After taking Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and now France, Hitler is triumphant.
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There's a tremendous return of Hitler to Berlin. The crowds are in the hundreds of of thousands on the streets pushing toward his motorcade. For the Nazis, these are the glory days. This is the height of Hitler's power. For most of the population of Germany, he can do no wrong. He is their beloved Fuhrer. And Hitler's ego goes out of control. That allows Hitler to convince himself of his own propaganda, convince himself that in a way, he's almost immortal.
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Now Hitler attempts to dictate a new peace deal with Great Britain.
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In this hour I feel compelled, standing before my conscience, to direct yet another appeal to reason.
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In England, Churchill defies him. And so Hitler gives the go ahead to an operation he thinks will force Britain into submission. Operation Sea Lion.
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He's now saying, okay, well if the Brits aren't going to come to terms with me, then I will invade Great Britain
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first. The Luftwaffe targets the planes and infrastructure of the British Royal Air Force.
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So the initial German air assaults were against British RAF facilities, airfields, administrative stations, supply depots and the like.
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Goering claims the Luftwaffe will destroy the Royal Air Force in just three days and leave Britain open to invasion. British pilots scramble in defense.
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Can this relatively small number of British planes. They've got probably about 2,950 fight off what is an ever increasing Luftwaffe.
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The Battle of Britain is the largest and most intense aerial combat the world has yet seen. If the Luftwaffe wins, Germany will invade.
- [35:08]
N
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- [36:47]
A
By the end of August 1940, the Luftwaffe is sending 1,000 planes a day across the English Channel. The fate of the British Empire is being decided in the skies above southern England. Churchill is acutely aware that the future of his country rests in the expertise and bravery of just a small number of young pilots, not just from Britain, but from across the Commonwealth and conquered Europe as well.
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J
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
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L
He was talking about those several hundred fighter pilots who were flying sometimes six times a day, taking off, striking at a German air armada, landing, being rearmed, refueled, and then taking off again.
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J
109 destroyed, buddy. Yes. Oh, good show.
- [37:53]
L
But of course, actually there are ground crew. There are legions of observers who are using binoculars to look at the skies above.
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30 enemy aircraft over the canal, flying due west.
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There are women working on plotting tables to build up this big picture of German movement. There is a gigantic integrated information rich system supporting those pilots.
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The German loss rates are really high and the Germans aren't succeeding. You know, they're not able to break them.
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In seven weeks, the Luftwaffe will lose 600 aircraft and their crews. Germany is losing the Battle of Britain. In mid September, Hitler approves a new strategy. Invading Great Britain is postponed indefinitely. The Luftwaffe's New mission is to destroy the spirit of the British people through terror bombing.
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So begins the Blitz which is months and months and months, almost uninterrupted bombing of British civilians in areas.
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In the fall of 1940, the driven Luftwaffe bombs London on 57 successive nights.
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The Blitz was traumatic, it was horrifying. There is arbitrary random death, being caught in collapsing buildings, burned alive, gas mains blowing up. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed
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in cities across the United Kingdom. Families bury their dead, some in mass graves.
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Churchill did everything he could. He visited the East End. He actually wept on one occasion when he saw the bloodshed, the devastation that had been rained down by German bombers.
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America receives firsthand reports of Britain's ordeal.
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Hello America, this is Edward Murrow speaking from London. The noise that you hear at the moment is the sound of the air raid siren. A searchlight off in the distance sweeping the sky above me.
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A
Now
- [40:46]
B
Edward R. Murrow was one of those people who had this attitude of bringing you to, you know you are there was one of the things he used to say.
- [40:54]
A
Off to my left I can see just that faint red angry snap of anti aircraft burst against the steel blue sky.
- [41:04]
J
There they are,
- [41:06]
A
that hard stony sound.
- [41:11]
B
So all of a sudden the American people had the ability to hear in their homes from their radios the sounds of the bombs falling on London. Live from the Blitz. How could you not have sympathy with the people on the ground, the women, the children, the non combatants? And it made a huge difference in terms of building a sea change in the American attitudes that laid the groundwork for the isolationist attitudes of the United States to change.
- [41:51]
A
At the polls in November, Franklin D. Roosevelt wins an unprecedented third term. Now he has the political freedom to offer all aid to Great Britain short of war.
- [42:11]
J
Democracy's fight against world conquest must be more greatly aided by sending every ounce and every ton of munitions and supplies that we can possibly spare to help the defenders who are in the front lines. We must have more ships, more guns, more planes, more of everything. We must be the great arsenal of democracy.
- [42:47]
A
In the autumn of 1940, northern Europe is in Nazi hands, including what had been the Republic of France. Great Britain stands alone. Between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union there exists a territorial peace. But what does that mean to a leader like Adolf Hitler?
- [43:17]
G
World War 2 with Tom Hanks is produced by Neutopia Ltd. A E Factual Studios, Playtone Productions and Back Pocket Studios in association with Motion Entertainment for the History Channel. This episode was narrated by Tom Hanks and mixed by John Lloyd. Additional voicing provided by me, Jeremy Reagan from the History Channel. Our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler for Playtone. Executive producers are Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producer is Ben Dickstein.