The World at War s01e04 Episode Script
Alone (May 1940 - May 1941)
Throughout the road with the ruined equipment, the armies British French e if removes for the only port canal still available, Dunquerque.
The 15 km, throughout coast of the canal, the German army wait for the order of attack of Hitler.
In beaches of Dunquerque, almost half million of men, British and Frenchmen, they face the surrender, or the minimum possibility of rescue for English boats.
The World in War Alone May of 1940 the May of 1941 It had groupings of troops that they had been congregated in a "V" in Indiana line to the measure that they were come close to the water.
Clearly that many of the soldiers they left with water for the neck e went up for the hunting-mines that they were come close.
Others, clearly, embarked in the beach in small small boats, but it did not have panic nor concern.
We found many small boats, many with a dozen of soldiers on board, that they returned for England courageous.
Many times, we ofereciamos in them to remove the soldiers of the small boat, to be able to go to search more and they said: They are not worried, we have ours 12 sailors e we return for England with them.
They go to search its.
We saw thousand of men in the beach of Margate.
The troops were in bad state, they were weak.
It has a man that I will never forget.
It entered on board, he had been without teeth, e held a metal ring with silenced bayonet.
We had that to take off weapons of everybody e we do not obtain that it released of it.
It grasped the weapon with the hands and were imprisoned.
A youngster was in the beach, entered in the boat and he found that he was the saved one.
E they found this exactly.
England, home and beauty.
We go for there! We are made an impression.
They were very tired e had finished there sleeping exactly.
Our duty was to hinder the enemy airplanes to reach these troops.
If enemy aviation had superiority in Dunquerque they would have massacreed in them in the beach.
It swims could be made.
They did not have weapons, nor antiaircraft artillery, the bombers German e the diving huntings Germans, the Stukas, they would have the killed one and not we would obtain to remove the troops.
The Germans had also tried to sink the ships.
They knew that the troops they did not go to swim until England, therefore, they had that to embark.
If the ships sank, the British army would be enclosed.
The RAF tried to keep German aviation far from beaches, six torpedo-boat destroyers and more than The Tactical Command lost almost half of the force in France, of Dunquerque.
Dunquerque was one great defeat.
But the efforts of the Royal Navy e of small boats they had saved 330 a thousand troops British and Frenchmen.
During one week the time was clean e German aviation was moved away.
I find sincerely that they they had thought that they did not go takes off them of there.
But thanks to God they had obtained.
The time was good, the sea seemed a calm lake e this helped all world.
If the sea was brave, not we would have the removed one in Dunquerque, because when the high waves they arrive at the beach, take everything.
An invasion of the German army at any time, all would have interrupted the operation.
Although the courageous efforts of the British and French troops that they moved away the Germans, I do not find that they would have soldier on barrack duty the advance of the German army if Hitler had desired thus it.
What it remained of Dunquerque one surrendered in 4 of June.
Hundreds of troops they had not been salutes.
it left to fight e the British first-minister, Churchill, directed it the world.
What General Weygand called the Battle of France, finished.
The Battle of England it now goes to start.
Hitler knows that it will have that winning in them in this island or to lose the war.
If facing, all Europe could be free e the life of the world will be able to advance for vast lands e sunnier.
But if to fail, the whole world will fall in an abyss of a new Age of the Darknesses.
We go then to dedicate to us to this new task e holding in them in way that if the British empire e its Commonwealth a thousand years to last, all will go to say: "They had never been so well.
" England prepared itself to face the immediate invasion.
A new withdrawal was effected of children of the South and the East where it could be waited a German invasion.
Some parents sent the children for other countries of boat.
But this finished in September when a German submarine a boat with 90 children sank.
To be prevented against the invasion, more than a million of men not used to advantage for the army they had been offered stops to create National Guarda.
They trained with woods because it did not have weapons for all e assayed cruel defenses against one it has attacked German.
The treinos seem to have impressed the reporter.
The agricultural workers they had become themselves into motociclistas.
The horses had given place the quick motions.
The infantry walks now with the two feet in air.
They are part of the courageous one it keeps mounted British, desirous to receive Adolph when to come to take a tea with cookies.
We see the one training battalion of sidecars, a quick and certeira force that it will badly make the enemy.
They learn to support everything with conditions that will be able to find.
They go going up and I descend, but in contrast of the Hunos, they are always in the good way.
The army brought metal rings of Dunquerque, but all the remaining portion it are abandoned in France.
In June, the only division equipped in England she was the Canadian.
I remember to go to the Southeast of England in June where General Thorne commanded, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, this area, a possible area of aterrisagem of the Germans, if they risked, e I remember to send to circulate the Winston, still must exist, e I wrote more or less this: The troops were livened up e trained well, but, clearly, it does not have any antitank weapon, no antitank weapon e no tank.
This in an area where if it waited that the Germans invaded.
The state was this of things, we were badly.
The king practiced shot to the target, e was contented for the country to be and without allies to only please.
The head of the Aerial Command, Sir Hugh Dowding, agreed.
It had lost many airplanes to help the Frenchmen.
Plates and signals had been removed to confuse the Germans.
The result was to confuse the British travellers.
The barriers antitank they would make the life of the Germans hard in case that they tried to cross for the line-railway one.
The campestre landscape disappeared under the barbed wire.
The beaches were with traps below of the water level.
J.
B.
Priestley remembers of one it visits to the coast.
In one day hot of Summer, in the end of the Summer, to one of beaches in the coast of Kent.
The last time that is there was full, the full beaches of people e was time of the Fair.
E to see it, on this day strange, limpid and empty, the desert beaches, an immense barbed wire for all the side, at the time, I felt that it was a species of symbol of what the people felt, that they were prepared to abandon this, in order to continue with the war.
Churchill was in all place.
Already was not one suspected politician, but the alive image of British resistance.
It was a situation of that liked, to show to colleagues one image lived of itself exactly leading the defense of a destroyed government.
As soon as Churchill if he became first-minister the rhythm in the government moved.
The people had started to think fast and to act fast.
Some employees saw themselves running for the corridors.
Physically, proper Churchill he was very energetic.
It made the onslaughts extraordinarier and energetic.
When inspecting the troops, it marched in great speed exceeding the young behind it.
I remember that a night said that it went to inspect new workmanships e although to have 65 years, it jumped a wall of bricks, e fell of foot in a swimming pool of liquid cement.
E with an impertinence, that it surprises now me, said to it: I find that it found its Waterloo.
therefore he was imprisoned in the cement.
E it answered:How if atreve? When very, my Blenheim.
In the armament plants, men and women worked to fill the imperfections of the British defense.
The production went up in June e went down due to the fatigue.
But the great effort gave it has supported to the critical times.
The production of huntings duplicated.
One hundred Spitfires and Hurricanes per week they fulled the forces of Dowding.
The new minister of the aerial production, Lord Beaverbrook, it made the common citizen to participate in the battle of the production.
My father was one master of the propaganda.
And Pans had the action "Pots" where if it asked for to deliver the tachos, pans and gratings.
Stanley Baldwin not it delivered the gate of it, but the majority of the people delivered everything what it had in metal.
All we knew that they did not become airplanes of tachos and pans, but it was good, all capsize that it was a critical situation.
The reply to this action it was enormous.
They had mounts and mounts of tachos and pans e did not know what to make with them.
But, as it said, it was excellent making propaganda.
But where it was the German invasion? In June of 1940, Hitler not it thought about invading England.
He was busy festejando the French victory e waited that England, as France, if it delivered.
Berlin received it as to a hero, e came back back in 6 of July with admiral Raeder e other commander-head.
But the German navy it seemed to have plain for the invasion.
When Hitler if it interested in the subject, the army makes other plans e criticized of the navy.
Both had been turned toward Goering, head of the Luftwaffe, to control the airspace, vital for an invasion.
Goering found that only the Luftwaffe it obtained to defeat England.
The quarrels between departments had been drawn out.
The army wanted 40 divisions between Ramsgate and Lyme Bay forming a line between Maldon, in the Essex, until the estuary of Severn, isolating London.
Later, they had passed to positioning of nine divisions between Folkstone and Brighton, supported for two aerial divisions.
To all, 200 a thousand men.
In September, England it exceeds its weakness e had 16 divisions available in the Southeast.
An armed of German invasion it was congregated in the ports to the North.
They had been constructed aterrisagem tracks e the modified boats stops to carry amphibious troops and tanks.
The army found that the fleet was reduced, the navy found that exactly this fleet was difficult to protect.
Both agreed that aerial supremacy was vital.
The invasion, with the name Operation Lion-do-Sea, was for September.
The plans had not made an impression the Luftwaffe, on who everything depended.
In my opinion, the plan was not serious.
Mainly, because the navy did not want.
to have the responsibility e the navy asks for first to the Air Force to establish absolute the aerial superiority in to be invaded area.
The preparation that the navy it develops was not convincing.
E our preparation, mainly mine, it was to be one of the two sections transferred to England e our preparations they had been ridicule.
The Air Force was not trained nor prepared to lead an aerial attack independent on England.
With the meeting of forces of the invasion, the targets of the Luftwaffe had been merchant boats and ports, mainly in narrow seas of the Canal.
Dover was known as the Esquina of the Hell.
It had always something stops the reporter, as for example, Charles Gardner of the BBC.
Now the Germans are bombing ships.
It has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
One of them dives for the target.
Not, it failed.
It has ten ships e it did not make right none.
There they come, in perforated flight.
We see the bombs to leave the machines e to come in our direction.
We hear the reply now of our side.
It has a shoot out.
One hears the noise of the machine guns.
This was a bomb, as they can imagine.
Another bomb goes to fall.
It fell.
The target failed.
Not yet they had made right in nothing.
We reach a Messerschmit.
He is pretty, it goes to fall now.
I find that this was the first one.
An authentic perforated flight.
I go to walk to be able to see better.
Here it comes.
It goes to enter of belly in the sea and bum! Well! Never vi nothing so good as this.
The huntings of the RAF they had given handle of them exactly.
They had not come back to sail in convoy e ports as Dover sufficiently they had been reached.
While the cities they suffered decreases, Dowding not yet shows the total force of its huntings.
What he was fantastic in the Aerial Command it was that when the war it blew up in September of 1939, we had a system that it covered the country all in the aerial defense.
The system had as base radars, or as we called at the time, RDF.
We had a net of stations of radar for all the coast that they covered one distance of 160 km.
They had passed to land all the information for the quartéis of the Aerial Command.
The radar earned Battle of England, because without it we would have that to have done patrols e with the limited number of airplanes and pilots it would not be possible.
Thus, we could wait in land, the radar observed everything e for some controls we knew when to take off in the hour where the Germans they were in Calais or Abbeville.
Therefore, we do not waste fuel, time nor energy.
By the way, we slept between the patrols, we took off and we followed for the German formations with the altitude data, distance e the number of airplanes, what it was very important.
In 13 of August, Goering moved of tactics.
It commanded an attack the stations of radar and aerodromes of huntings that the Aerial Command it had to defend.
When bombing aerodromes that they defended London and the Southeast, British huntings attacked the bombers German.
To fight on England placed the Luftwaffe in disadvantage.
One expected that it earned a alone decisive battle, but it was not equipped for this.
The bombers German they could not take many bombs.
The huntings alone had fuel to fly over during half hour, while the British huntings, close to the bases, they could aterrisar and replenish e to come back toward the battle.
Our reach was very, much limited e alone we could cover a small one part of the British islands, including London, but we only could fly over London during ten minutes it stops later coming back toward the base.
This limited reach of the huntings in our escort it was perhaps the main point that it prevented offensive an aerial one against England.
The private services they had deceived the pilots how much to the damages in the aerodromes.
They said that eight had been virtually destroyed.
In the truth, none he had been destroyed e the ones that had been damaged immediately they had been repaired.
The pilots German when facing a resistance that did not wait they had been pessimistic how much to the victorious result.
Our team of combat she was vain of whom not we could gain the battle, e we could not force England to the surrender when attacking, without an operation.
led for the army or for the navy.
Therefore, we asked for that the High Command it commanded the invasion, the Lion-do-Sea Operation.
Mere 1400 pilots e its land staff they were between England e the invasion.
They had an enormous one responsibility, great excessively to think itself about it.
The expression that they showed to the world she was easied.
I find that they had faced the situation very calmly of the point of view of the physical integrity of them.
They played soccer, they did not make nothing, some slept, others read books, they heard radio and this age our life.
It wanted to abate airplanes, but not to abate Germans.
Serious that it did not want.
We heard histories of Germans who abated our colleagues of parachute e we found this horrible one, but we did not know if it was truth or not.
I had a situation where the parachute of a German was imprisoned in my wing.
It left the bomber e was imprisoned in my wing.
E I had all the care of the world to take off it in security from there when capsizing the airplane and taking off it from there.
If it had good ways between the Germans and the British? Clearly that not.
Not of my part.
It hated them.
They wanted to make of enslaved us.
The climax of the battle came in the end of August and at the beginning of September.
On the results the decision depended of Hitler to launch the invasion.
But the aerial battle was enters some individuals of each side.
In certain way, the aerial battles they were extraordinary, because although to have many airplanes in the sky, when fight with one airplane in particular, the sky was empty.
I find that never we think that we went to die.
The death was something that was forgotten in our mind.
If it was not, we were with fear and worried.
If a colleague disappeared, we thought that the poor colleague it had died and it was therefore.
Clearly that on the inside, we felt much the death of a colleague.
But we did not think about the death.
To the times, it gave to see when a colleague went to die.
It uncontrolled.
TARGET LOG BOOK PILOTS IN FLIGHT Mine better friend died.
It was going off against a Messerschmit e was another one for backwards going off against it.
I went off against it and I did not obtain to make nothing.
E the vi to fall.
This affected us, but we had that to exceed.
The death of the friends it affected us sufficiently.
But we do not hate to prevent them.
In the last week of August e in the first one of September, Aerial command had died.
Six aerodromes in the Southeast they had been disactivated during days.
Against the shots of huntings German e bombing England lost more huntings that Germany.
Almost 500 in two weeks.
In the last week of August e the first one of September.
These two weeks we had been the worse ones for, because in the last week of August, the Germans had reached the aerodromes without dó nor mercy.
Day 31 of August was perhaps ours worse day.
The Aerial Command almost it was defeated.
Dowding wise person of this.
It was this worried that it, to attack the aerodromes in such a way.
It was thinking how much time more would aguentaria.
It, the Aerial Command.
Because still it had that to deal with the problem to deny the aerial superiority to the Germans e when destroying the aerodromes they could reach the Aerial Command.
In day 6 of September, the king and the queen they had visited the Command Aerial e many people had commented that Dowding seemed tired.
In the following day, in 7 of September, when it was emitted an alert one of invasion, imminent invasion, the day was surprising calm.
We start all to think in what it would go to happen to follow.
In the end of the afternoon, the Germans had initiated, what many of the pilots that they deal with this onslaught, they consider the attack more weighed that already they had seen.
Later Dowding happened what it described as the miracle: the aerodromes had not been attacked, London was attacked and aerodromes had been saved.
To 16h55, the buzzers had sounded e I was for mine varanda, that it has seen for the river, e the sky was full of airplanes.
Inside of one minutes, the bombs had started to fall in the dock berth of Millwall e I obtained to see them.
It continued thus during some time.
In that first Saturday, they had destroyed everything of Silvertown Way until Silvertown.
By the way, all the Tidal Basin, Custom House, until Silvertown it was destroyed.
They do not have doubts.
If that type of bombing it continued of day.
They reached everything what it was important.
Gas shipyards, deposits, refineries, everything what it was important.
Almost all the bombs they made right in the zone of the target.
In this night, 250 bombers had returned.
The dock berths and warehouses in flames they were a inconfundível target.
But the tactics change of Goering it alliviated the pressure.
The Aerial Command regrouped.
Ardia London.
After the incursion of 7 of September, many firemen had worked The majority was without nothing, it said one, but we looked in return e we saw the others working.
In 15 of September, the Luftwaffe it mounted another diurne attack, without waiting resistance.
But of this time, the Spitfires e the Hurricanes waited them.
In this day, 15 of September, England earns aerial control during the day.
Royal Air Force earns the Battle of England.
September of 1940.
Now it did not have diurne attacks e would not have invasion before the Spring.
But the cities were white of nocturnal bombings.
During 76 followed nights, London was bombed.
The line for the shelters to dusk became a ritual.
Alert the nocturnal one, and of morning the alert one of attack end, they were part of the life of the native of London.
I heard the night airplanes e seemed me that they tried to knock down the houses.
I heard and I arrepiava myself: The next one is mine.
They played six bombs of each time.
One, two, three, four.
This is mine.
Not.
They had failed.
E was thus the night all.
To 19h50, it said my wife e to my fathers-in-law: I go to leave.
E I left house.
They were three pretty térreas houses.
E I was for the road the foot, the 20 meters of the church, that it was our fort e suddenly I heard.
e nothing more.
I did not hear nothing and I spoke with many people later e they had not heard the bomb she reached that them.
She will be that the people who were there they had felt the same? They had not heard the bomb that it reached them.
I fell of front.
I arose myself and I turned over e alone saw a curtain cinereous in the way of the wide road, of the double of the size of this bar.
It was a cinereous curtain brown e that was there.
In any shelter that we were, it always had somebody that it dealt with the diversion, to make to forget the anguish.
One decided that the stations of Meter they would not be shelters, but the people had used them e the authorities had had to accept.
We were contented and singing, as if it did not have war.
It had a canteen.
E I sang to liven up the people in the bombings.
Until a night was very me I was underneath of the chair praying cannons to start them.
I spoke with an artillery sergeant that was of service in Hyde Park e it said us, without hesitating, e cried when in it said this to them: They believe, when we were envoy for London we raise the weapons to the maximum and we go off e we knew that no projectile it obtained to abate an airplane.
But they do not say me that this did not give spirit to them.
E I find that it does not have nobody here that it can say the opposite.
When we heard the projectiles we thought:We apanhamos already them.
But they knew that she was alone for the moral, it was alone what they made.
The bombs in itself had that to fall, nothing could hinder.
During 76 mornings, crash crews they searched rubbles to the search of survivors.
A bomb fell in a block of apartments of four floors, e pulled out the façade.
Somebody said:"There velhinho has one that it does not go for the shelter.
" We go up and when we arrive there velhinho had one snoreing with 20 empty bottles in return of the bed e the bed almost in the street e not even woke up.
We saw one velhinha stuned e we said to it:It comes with us.
It left and dressed half of what she must have been a nightgown.
I said:He has that to dress something more, he has that to be decent.
It must have about 80 years e was completely idiot e said:I go to search something in house e when it left, brought a hat.
The people had obtained to go to work with capotados trams esburacadas roads e bombed railroads.
The journalists of the radio they had said to America and the world that London aguentava.
The spirit of the native of London it was valid affection and aid to them, but the United States they remained neutral.
While England was alone of September of 1940 the May of 1941, Half was London.
Hundreds of thousand of people they had been without house.
They ate, they lived and they slept in shelter centers.
The clothes and everything more had missing person with the houses, but the moral not.
If we wanted to be clean, we did not say:I go to take bath.
Because we had fear that alert bath sounded in the way it.
We took an earthen bowl of water and we washed ourselves, perhaps to wash the neck e we ran until the o shelter e we finished the bath another day.
We never took a bath of truth, it was to enter and to leave.
We become accustomed ourselves.
We become accustomed it everything.
It was not to invulgar to see.
window none, but immense spirit.
Or then:It forgives, we do not have the door of the front, valley the penalty not to beat, enters.
E posters were seen funny in the door of the houses.
They were things of that they took in them to think that this age something more.
We saw the more it, more encouraged we were to leave to the street e we knew that if we left to look job e we left the family stops backwards, we said:The Jones or the Smiths there of the quarter they can take account of them, if to happen some thing to me.
The plants had come back to function, of night and day, but the nocturnal workers they were interrupted by raides.
During the night, it did not have defenses against bombings German.
The impotence of the Aerial Command it worried Dowding.
I was a time the Redhill with it when London was being bombed to see a squadron commanded for one such of Jimmy Little, e it said me in the car: Max, I take the hands to the head to only think about the people that they are being bombed e I cannot make nothing.
For relief of the authorities, the Buckingham's palace also it are bombed.
Now the king, the queen could see itself e the people together in the same situation.
The king Jorge and Elizabeth queen they had gained the respect when visiting the reached zones.
They had arrived at the throne with the resignation chocking of the duke of Windsor.
Now, for the first time, they emerged as popular figures of proper right.
Also Churchill, with its exuberância, it persuaded adversaries politicians to forget the past it.
The normal native of London did not want to know of Winston Churchill as man or as politician, but as the man who it substituted Chamberlain.
It was a leader, without a doubt that he was.
E I find that whenever it opened the mouth it inspired confidence to the people, accepted it wants it as Conservative, but it was there, was in favor of them and against the common enemy.
But, to the times, he was badly received.
I remember a time, close to Green Street, Churchill visited an avenue there close e had a gigantic crater of the size of this bar e had women trying to take off the things of them of the houses in ruins e after seeing that, Churchill said:We aguentamos.
E the women had said to it what she could make, without Popes in the language.
They had said:We are that we are aguentando.
You are the saved one.
Airplanes German launch bombs arsonists e leaves the city of London in flames.
It had 1500 fires inside and outside of the city.
The Cathedral of St.
Paul it was encircled with flames.
The fire of London was seen well.
The 100 distance km saw the fire.
In the night of fires, it was in a also ardia shelter that.
We had all to leave e we do not enter in panic.
We had that to go of the way of the curve until the o end of the Commercial Road for a plant that it had the shelter in the bilge, e when running had fires for all the side.
I felt the heat in the soil.
The water puddles were hot.
When arriving at the shelter, we sleep in shoulders ones of the others.
I slept the night all leant to the shoulder of another person.
Eventually, we use as much water that it finished and there we are, seeing fires, without being able to make nothing.
The center of the city of London it was destroyed.
But the cathedral survived.
Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, Swansea, Liverpool and others partilhavam the difficulties with London.
They were all to the reach of the German Air Force with bases in France e in the Netherlands.
It was more difficult the bombers British to arrive at Germany.
The government looked another form to take the war to the enemy.
We decide that the only place where we could face the enemy it was the desert of the North of Africa.
Basically, the Average East.
It did not have more nothing.
We could not wait to invade France in a next future, therefore, we could not to weaken the Germans.
The two alternatives, possibilities, were to bomb.
They were not alternative, were possibilities.
To bomb.
e to fight in the Average East.
Therefore, we start since soon to force, to pressure and to ask for more armament in the Average East e we had to take off the armament daqui, of the British defense.
It did not have another possibility.
In 10 of December of 1940, two divisions of the Commonwealth of General Wavell they had attacked the great army Italian in the North of Africa.
For great surprise of them, they had advanced with sufficient rapidity.
They dominated ortaleza after ortaleza.
It now seemed to have the possibility to reach the great German army through Yugoslavia and of Greece.
We find that one was possible to bring certain countries of the Balkans for the conflict with Hitler that the consequências they could be unexpected, we did not know that result this would have.
For the Cabinet of War e for the Ministry of the Defense, if the Greeks were if to defend against the Germans, we had to help in what he was possible.
I and the Dill were for the Cairo, after the victory of the Wavell to analyze this question.
When we arrive, the Wavell it said:Oxalá is not imported, but I found that not it could lose time e I started the movement of troops to be able to arrive at Greece.
The entrance in Greece intended to postpone a German attack.
For many Greeks, what it made was to speed up it.
They had resisted the Italians, but when the Germans had attacked in 6 of April of 1941, Greece was dominated in three weeks.
As Yugoslavia, that one joins the Allies.
they had been removed.
We have to admit that we do not reach the objectives the one that we considered in them.
With the aid of Yugoslavia, we do not obtain.
to lead an efficient campaign in the Balkans.
It is truth that Turkey it was a barrier in the defense, but we lose Greece e many men, courageous men had been captured.
Of this point of view, the rocking end was against us e was a time depressing, without a doubt.
In May of 1941, Germany e its allies they controlled almost all the continental Europe.
E in the North of Africa, a small one force commanded for Rommel, it had recaptured almost all the British territories.
The British had tried to keep Crete as naval base.
With complete aerial command, the Germans had attacked Crete with 16 a thousand parachutists.
It was first the great assault aerial in the history of the war.
Although serious decreases, had earned a vital aerodrome, Maleme, e therefore, more troops they could arrive of airplane.
With the support of great bombings, they gained land of a force more numerous of the Commonwealth.
One more time, the power aerial it won the battle.
Decreases of the Commonwealth:13 a thousand captured deceased, wounded or.
E plus an equal withdrawal to the ones of the Norway, France and Greece.
The British people interrogated itself the more he would have that to support.
Churchill found important to defend Crete at any cost.
When losing Crete, we lost the base in the Mediterranean, the naval base and aerial.
It continued to order telegrams the Wavell saying: Certainly it can excuse a dozen of tanks to defend the aerodrome of Maleme, that it was the main one of Crete, against the parachutists German.
Wavell answered that it did not have tanks, they were repairing the lizards or putting oil in the engines, in the Delta and it could not excuse nor a dozen.
We lose Crete.
It was a great disaster.
The House of commons she was insane and the country also.
The time for us was one me in the Spring of 1941.
He was waked up.
until 02h30 making transmissions it stops America and for there the rejection, e cochilava in the bilge of the transmission building e when it left morning, it gave a return and it thought: I find that we do not aguentamos plus this, because already we do not have nothing.
In these mornings it found: More two weeks of this e alone I will have destroços to the return.
In 10 of May of 1941, London suffered raide nocturnal more destructive of the war.
More than 3000 people they had died or they been wounded.
Hundreds of fires they had had of being ignored.
It seemed not to have at sight end for the death and the destruction.
Although not to know it, this age the point of the turn.
In April of 1941, Hitler congregated all commanders in France e during two hours spoke to us on the second part of the Battle of England.
It said us later, the two of us, to mine Mölders friend and me, that it only makes this to camouflage the offensive one against Russia.
This was in April of 1941.
Raide of 10 of May alone can to be considered a camouflage of the beginning of the Russian Campaign.
It enters the destroços of raide it was the House of commons.
During accurately one year, one year of disillusion and defeat, the government had kept Churchill in the power.
The battle most important is it earns.
England survives.
Now it was the time of Russia.
The 15 km, throughout coast of the canal, the German army wait for the order of attack of Hitler.
In beaches of Dunquerque, almost half million of men, British and Frenchmen, they face the surrender, or the minimum possibility of rescue for English boats.
The World in War Alone May of 1940 the May of 1941 It had groupings of troops that they had been congregated in a "V" in Indiana line to the measure that they were come close to the water.
Clearly that many of the soldiers they left with water for the neck e went up for the hunting-mines that they were come close.
Others, clearly, embarked in the beach in small small boats, but it did not have panic nor concern.
We found many small boats, many with a dozen of soldiers on board, that they returned for England courageous.
Many times, we ofereciamos in them to remove the soldiers of the small boat, to be able to go to search more and they said: They are not worried, we have ours 12 sailors e we return for England with them.
They go to search its.
We saw thousand of men in the beach of Margate.
The troops were in bad state, they were weak.
It has a man that I will never forget.
It entered on board, he had been without teeth, e held a metal ring with silenced bayonet.
We had that to take off weapons of everybody e we do not obtain that it released of it.
It grasped the weapon with the hands and were imprisoned.
A youngster was in the beach, entered in the boat and he found that he was the saved one.
E they found this exactly.
England, home and beauty.
We go for there! We are made an impression.
They were very tired e had finished there sleeping exactly.
Our duty was to hinder the enemy airplanes to reach these troops.
If enemy aviation had superiority in Dunquerque they would have massacreed in them in the beach.
It swims could be made.
They did not have weapons, nor antiaircraft artillery, the bombers German e the diving huntings Germans, the Stukas, they would have the killed one and not we would obtain to remove the troops.
The Germans had also tried to sink the ships.
They knew that the troops they did not go to swim until England, therefore, they had that to embark.
If the ships sank, the British army would be enclosed.
The RAF tried to keep German aviation far from beaches, six torpedo-boat destroyers and more than The Tactical Command lost almost half of the force in France, of Dunquerque.
Dunquerque was one great defeat.
But the efforts of the Royal Navy e of small boats they had saved 330 a thousand troops British and Frenchmen.
During one week the time was clean e German aviation was moved away.
I find sincerely that they they had thought that they did not go takes off them of there.
But thanks to God they had obtained.
The time was good, the sea seemed a calm lake e this helped all world.
If the sea was brave, not we would have the removed one in Dunquerque, because when the high waves they arrive at the beach, take everything.
An invasion of the German army at any time, all would have interrupted the operation.
Although the courageous efforts of the British and French troops that they moved away the Germans, I do not find that they would have soldier on barrack duty the advance of the German army if Hitler had desired thus it.
What it remained of Dunquerque one surrendered in 4 of June.
Hundreds of troops they had not been salutes.
it left to fight e the British first-minister, Churchill, directed it the world.
What General Weygand called the Battle of France, finished.
The Battle of England it now goes to start.
Hitler knows that it will have that winning in them in this island or to lose the war.
If facing, all Europe could be free e the life of the world will be able to advance for vast lands e sunnier.
But if to fail, the whole world will fall in an abyss of a new Age of the Darknesses.
We go then to dedicate to us to this new task e holding in them in way that if the British empire e its Commonwealth a thousand years to last, all will go to say: "They had never been so well.
" England prepared itself to face the immediate invasion.
A new withdrawal was effected of children of the South and the East where it could be waited a German invasion.
Some parents sent the children for other countries of boat.
But this finished in September when a German submarine a boat with 90 children sank.
To be prevented against the invasion, more than a million of men not used to advantage for the army they had been offered stops to create National Guarda.
They trained with woods because it did not have weapons for all e assayed cruel defenses against one it has attacked German.
The treinos seem to have impressed the reporter.
The agricultural workers they had become themselves into motociclistas.
The horses had given place the quick motions.
The infantry walks now with the two feet in air.
They are part of the courageous one it keeps mounted British, desirous to receive Adolph when to come to take a tea with cookies.
We see the one training battalion of sidecars, a quick and certeira force that it will badly make the enemy.
They learn to support everything with conditions that will be able to find.
They go going up and I descend, but in contrast of the Hunos, they are always in the good way.
The army brought metal rings of Dunquerque, but all the remaining portion it are abandoned in France.
In June, the only division equipped in England she was the Canadian.
I remember to go to the Southeast of England in June where General Thorne commanded, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, this area, a possible area of aterrisagem of the Germans, if they risked, e I remember to send to circulate the Winston, still must exist, e I wrote more or less this: The troops were livened up e trained well, but, clearly, it does not have any antitank weapon, no antitank weapon e no tank.
This in an area where if it waited that the Germans invaded.
The state was this of things, we were badly.
The king practiced shot to the target, e was contented for the country to be and without allies to only please.
The head of the Aerial Command, Sir Hugh Dowding, agreed.
It had lost many airplanes to help the Frenchmen.
Plates and signals had been removed to confuse the Germans.
The result was to confuse the British travellers.
The barriers antitank they would make the life of the Germans hard in case that they tried to cross for the line-railway one.
The campestre landscape disappeared under the barbed wire.
The beaches were with traps below of the water level.
J.
B.
Priestley remembers of one it visits to the coast.
In one day hot of Summer, in the end of the Summer, to one of beaches in the coast of Kent.
The last time that is there was full, the full beaches of people e was time of the Fair.
E to see it, on this day strange, limpid and empty, the desert beaches, an immense barbed wire for all the side, at the time, I felt that it was a species of symbol of what the people felt, that they were prepared to abandon this, in order to continue with the war.
Churchill was in all place.
Already was not one suspected politician, but the alive image of British resistance.
It was a situation of that liked, to show to colleagues one image lived of itself exactly leading the defense of a destroyed government.
As soon as Churchill if he became first-minister the rhythm in the government moved.
The people had started to think fast and to act fast.
Some employees saw themselves running for the corridors.
Physically, proper Churchill he was very energetic.
It made the onslaughts extraordinarier and energetic.
When inspecting the troops, it marched in great speed exceeding the young behind it.
I remember that a night said that it went to inspect new workmanships e although to have 65 years, it jumped a wall of bricks, e fell of foot in a swimming pool of liquid cement.
E with an impertinence, that it surprises now me, said to it: I find that it found its Waterloo.
therefore he was imprisoned in the cement.
E it answered:How if atreve? When very, my Blenheim.
In the armament plants, men and women worked to fill the imperfections of the British defense.
The production went up in June e went down due to the fatigue.
But the great effort gave it has supported to the critical times.
The production of huntings duplicated.
One hundred Spitfires and Hurricanes per week they fulled the forces of Dowding.
The new minister of the aerial production, Lord Beaverbrook, it made the common citizen to participate in the battle of the production.
My father was one master of the propaganda.
And Pans had the action "Pots" where if it asked for to deliver the tachos, pans and gratings.
Stanley Baldwin not it delivered the gate of it, but the majority of the people delivered everything what it had in metal.
All we knew that they did not become airplanes of tachos and pans, but it was good, all capsize that it was a critical situation.
The reply to this action it was enormous.
They had mounts and mounts of tachos and pans e did not know what to make with them.
But, as it said, it was excellent making propaganda.
But where it was the German invasion? In June of 1940, Hitler not it thought about invading England.
He was busy festejando the French victory e waited that England, as France, if it delivered.
Berlin received it as to a hero, e came back back in 6 of July with admiral Raeder e other commander-head.
But the German navy it seemed to have plain for the invasion.
When Hitler if it interested in the subject, the army makes other plans e criticized of the navy.
Both had been turned toward Goering, head of the Luftwaffe, to control the airspace, vital for an invasion.
Goering found that only the Luftwaffe it obtained to defeat England.
The quarrels between departments had been drawn out.
The army wanted 40 divisions between Ramsgate and Lyme Bay forming a line between Maldon, in the Essex, until the estuary of Severn, isolating London.
Later, they had passed to positioning of nine divisions between Folkstone and Brighton, supported for two aerial divisions.
To all, 200 a thousand men.
In September, England it exceeds its weakness e had 16 divisions available in the Southeast.
An armed of German invasion it was congregated in the ports to the North.
They had been constructed aterrisagem tracks e the modified boats stops to carry amphibious troops and tanks.
The army found that the fleet was reduced, the navy found that exactly this fleet was difficult to protect.
Both agreed that aerial supremacy was vital.
The invasion, with the name Operation Lion-do-Sea, was for September.
The plans had not made an impression the Luftwaffe, on who everything depended.
In my opinion, the plan was not serious.
Mainly, because the navy did not want.
to have the responsibility e the navy asks for first to the Air Force to establish absolute the aerial superiority in to be invaded area.
The preparation that the navy it develops was not convincing.
E our preparation, mainly mine, it was to be one of the two sections transferred to England e our preparations they had been ridicule.
The Air Force was not trained nor prepared to lead an aerial attack independent on England.
With the meeting of forces of the invasion, the targets of the Luftwaffe had been merchant boats and ports, mainly in narrow seas of the Canal.
Dover was known as the Esquina of the Hell.
It had always something stops the reporter, as for example, Charles Gardner of the BBC.
Now the Germans are bombing ships.
It has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
One of them dives for the target.
Not, it failed.
It has ten ships e it did not make right none.
There they come, in perforated flight.
We see the bombs to leave the machines e to come in our direction.
We hear the reply now of our side.
It has a shoot out.
One hears the noise of the machine guns.
This was a bomb, as they can imagine.
Another bomb goes to fall.
It fell.
The target failed.
Not yet they had made right in nothing.
We reach a Messerschmit.
He is pretty, it goes to fall now.
I find that this was the first one.
An authentic perforated flight.
I go to walk to be able to see better.
Here it comes.
It goes to enter of belly in the sea and bum! Well! Never vi nothing so good as this.
The huntings of the RAF they had given handle of them exactly.
They had not come back to sail in convoy e ports as Dover sufficiently they had been reached.
While the cities they suffered decreases, Dowding not yet shows the total force of its huntings.
What he was fantastic in the Aerial Command it was that when the war it blew up in September of 1939, we had a system that it covered the country all in the aerial defense.
The system had as base radars, or as we called at the time, RDF.
We had a net of stations of radar for all the coast that they covered one distance of 160 km.
They had passed to land all the information for the quartéis of the Aerial Command.
The radar earned Battle of England, because without it we would have that to have done patrols e with the limited number of airplanes and pilots it would not be possible.
Thus, we could wait in land, the radar observed everything e for some controls we knew when to take off in the hour where the Germans they were in Calais or Abbeville.
Therefore, we do not waste fuel, time nor energy.
By the way, we slept between the patrols, we took off and we followed for the German formations with the altitude data, distance e the number of airplanes, what it was very important.
In 13 of August, Goering moved of tactics.
It commanded an attack the stations of radar and aerodromes of huntings that the Aerial Command it had to defend.
When bombing aerodromes that they defended London and the Southeast, British huntings attacked the bombers German.
To fight on England placed the Luftwaffe in disadvantage.
One expected that it earned a alone decisive battle, but it was not equipped for this.
The bombers German they could not take many bombs.
The huntings alone had fuel to fly over during half hour, while the British huntings, close to the bases, they could aterrisar and replenish e to come back toward the battle.
Our reach was very, much limited e alone we could cover a small one part of the British islands, including London, but we only could fly over London during ten minutes it stops later coming back toward the base.
This limited reach of the huntings in our escort it was perhaps the main point that it prevented offensive an aerial one against England.
The private services they had deceived the pilots how much to the damages in the aerodromes.
They said that eight had been virtually destroyed.
In the truth, none he had been destroyed e the ones that had been damaged immediately they had been repaired.
The pilots German when facing a resistance that did not wait they had been pessimistic how much to the victorious result.
Our team of combat she was vain of whom not we could gain the battle, e we could not force England to the surrender when attacking, without an operation.
led for the army or for the navy.
Therefore, we asked for that the High Command it commanded the invasion, the Lion-do-Sea Operation.
Mere 1400 pilots e its land staff they were between England e the invasion.
They had an enormous one responsibility, great excessively to think itself about it.
The expression that they showed to the world she was easied.
I find that they had faced the situation very calmly of the point of view of the physical integrity of them.
They played soccer, they did not make nothing, some slept, others read books, they heard radio and this age our life.
It wanted to abate airplanes, but not to abate Germans.
Serious that it did not want.
We heard histories of Germans who abated our colleagues of parachute e we found this horrible one, but we did not know if it was truth or not.
I had a situation where the parachute of a German was imprisoned in my wing.
It left the bomber e was imprisoned in my wing.
E I had all the care of the world to take off it in security from there when capsizing the airplane and taking off it from there.
If it had good ways between the Germans and the British? Clearly that not.
Not of my part.
It hated them.
They wanted to make of enslaved us.
The climax of the battle came in the end of August and at the beginning of September.
On the results the decision depended of Hitler to launch the invasion.
But the aerial battle was enters some individuals of each side.
In certain way, the aerial battles they were extraordinary, because although to have many airplanes in the sky, when fight with one airplane in particular, the sky was empty.
I find that never we think that we went to die.
The death was something that was forgotten in our mind.
If it was not, we were with fear and worried.
If a colleague disappeared, we thought that the poor colleague it had died and it was therefore.
Clearly that on the inside, we felt much the death of a colleague.
But we did not think about the death.
To the times, it gave to see when a colleague went to die.
It uncontrolled.
TARGET LOG BOOK PILOTS IN FLIGHT Mine better friend died.
It was going off against a Messerschmit e was another one for backwards going off against it.
I went off against it and I did not obtain to make nothing.
E the vi to fall.
This affected us, but we had that to exceed.
The death of the friends it affected us sufficiently.
But we do not hate to prevent them.
In the last week of August e in the first one of September, Aerial command had died.
Six aerodromes in the Southeast they had been disactivated during days.
Against the shots of huntings German e bombing England lost more huntings that Germany.
Almost 500 in two weeks.
In the last week of August e the first one of September.
These two weeks we had been the worse ones for, because in the last week of August, the Germans had reached the aerodromes without dó nor mercy.
Day 31 of August was perhaps ours worse day.
The Aerial Command almost it was defeated.
Dowding wise person of this.
It was this worried that it, to attack the aerodromes in such a way.
It was thinking how much time more would aguentaria.
It, the Aerial Command.
Because still it had that to deal with the problem to deny the aerial superiority to the Germans e when destroying the aerodromes they could reach the Aerial Command.
In day 6 of September, the king and the queen they had visited the Command Aerial e many people had commented that Dowding seemed tired.
In the following day, in 7 of September, when it was emitted an alert one of invasion, imminent invasion, the day was surprising calm.
We start all to think in what it would go to happen to follow.
In the end of the afternoon, the Germans had initiated, what many of the pilots that they deal with this onslaught, they consider the attack more weighed that already they had seen.
Later Dowding happened what it described as the miracle: the aerodromes had not been attacked, London was attacked and aerodromes had been saved.
To 16h55, the buzzers had sounded e I was for mine varanda, that it has seen for the river, e the sky was full of airplanes.
Inside of one minutes, the bombs had started to fall in the dock berth of Millwall e I obtained to see them.
It continued thus during some time.
In that first Saturday, they had destroyed everything of Silvertown Way until Silvertown.
By the way, all the Tidal Basin, Custom House, until Silvertown it was destroyed.
They do not have doubts.
If that type of bombing it continued of day.
They reached everything what it was important.
Gas shipyards, deposits, refineries, everything what it was important.
Almost all the bombs they made right in the zone of the target.
In this night, 250 bombers had returned.
The dock berths and warehouses in flames they were a inconfundível target.
But the tactics change of Goering it alliviated the pressure.
The Aerial Command regrouped.
Ardia London.
After the incursion of 7 of September, many firemen had worked The majority was without nothing, it said one, but we looked in return e we saw the others working.
In 15 of September, the Luftwaffe it mounted another diurne attack, without waiting resistance.
But of this time, the Spitfires e the Hurricanes waited them.
In this day, 15 of September, England earns aerial control during the day.
Royal Air Force earns the Battle of England.
September of 1940.
Now it did not have diurne attacks e would not have invasion before the Spring.
But the cities were white of nocturnal bombings.
During 76 followed nights, London was bombed.
The line for the shelters to dusk became a ritual.
Alert the nocturnal one, and of morning the alert one of attack end, they were part of the life of the native of London.
I heard the night airplanes e seemed me that they tried to knock down the houses.
I heard and I arrepiava myself: The next one is mine.
They played six bombs of each time.
One, two, three, four.
This is mine.
Not.
They had failed.
E was thus the night all.
To 19h50, it said my wife e to my fathers-in-law: I go to leave.
E I left house.
They were three pretty térreas houses.
E I was for the road the foot, the 20 meters of the church, that it was our fort e suddenly I heard.
e nothing more.
I did not hear nothing and I spoke with many people later e they had not heard the bomb she reached that them.
She will be that the people who were there they had felt the same? They had not heard the bomb that it reached them.
I fell of front.
I arose myself and I turned over e alone saw a curtain cinereous in the way of the wide road, of the double of the size of this bar.
It was a cinereous curtain brown e that was there.
In any shelter that we were, it always had somebody that it dealt with the diversion, to make to forget the anguish.
One decided that the stations of Meter they would not be shelters, but the people had used them e the authorities had had to accept.
We were contented and singing, as if it did not have war.
It had a canteen.
E I sang to liven up the people in the bombings.
Until a night was very me I was underneath of the chair praying cannons to start them.
I spoke with an artillery sergeant that was of service in Hyde Park e it said us, without hesitating, e cried when in it said this to them: They believe, when we were envoy for London we raise the weapons to the maximum and we go off e we knew that no projectile it obtained to abate an airplane.
But they do not say me that this did not give spirit to them.
E I find that it does not have nobody here that it can say the opposite.
When we heard the projectiles we thought:We apanhamos already them.
But they knew that she was alone for the moral, it was alone what they made.
The bombs in itself had that to fall, nothing could hinder.
During 76 mornings, crash crews they searched rubbles to the search of survivors.
A bomb fell in a block of apartments of four floors, e pulled out the façade.
Somebody said:"There velhinho has one that it does not go for the shelter.
" We go up and when we arrive there velhinho had one snoreing with 20 empty bottles in return of the bed e the bed almost in the street e not even woke up.
We saw one velhinha stuned e we said to it:It comes with us.
It left and dressed half of what she must have been a nightgown.
I said:He has that to dress something more, he has that to be decent.
It must have about 80 years e was completely idiot e said:I go to search something in house e when it left, brought a hat.
The people had obtained to go to work with capotados trams esburacadas roads e bombed railroads.
The journalists of the radio they had said to America and the world that London aguentava.
The spirit of the native of London it was valid affection and aid to them, but the United States they remained neutral.
While England was alone of September of 1940 the May of 1941, Half was London.
Hundreds of thousand of people they had been without house.
They ate, they lived and they slept in shelter centers.
The clothes and everything more had missing person with the houses, but the moral not.
If we wanted to be clean, we did not say:I go to take bath.
Because we had fear that alert bath sounded in the way it.
We took an earthen bowl of water and we washed ourselves, perhaps to wash the neck e we ran until the o shelter e we finished the bath another day.
We never took a bath of truth, it was to enter and to leave.
We become accustomed ourselves.
We become accustomed it everything.
It was not to invulgar to see.
window none, but immense spirit.
Or then:It forgives, we do not have the door of the front, valley the penalty not to beat, enters.
E posters were seen funny in the door of the houses.
They were things of that they took in them to think that this age something more.
We saw the more it, more encouraged we were to leave to the street e we knew that if we left to look job e we left the family stops backwards, we said:The Jones or the Smiths there of the quarter they can take account of them, if to happen some thing to me.
The plants had come back to function, of night and day, but the nocturnal workers they were interrupted by raides.
During the night, it did not have defenses against bombings German.
The impotence of the Aerial Command it worried Dowding.
I was a time the Redhill with it when London was being bombed to see a squadron commanded for one such of Jimmy Little, e it said me in the car: Max, I take the hands to the head to only think about the people that they are being bombed e I cannot make nothing.
For relief of the authorities, the Buckingham's palace also it are bombed.
Now the king, the queen could see itself e the people together in the same situation.
The king Jorge and Elizabeth queen they had gained the respect when visiting the reached zones.
They had arrived at the throne with the resignation chocking of the duke of Windsor.
Now, for the first time, they emerged as popular figures of proper right.
Also Churchill, with its exuberância, it persuaded adversaries politicians to forget the past it.
The normal native of London did not want to know of Winston Churchill as man or as politician, but as the man who it substituted Chamberlain.
It was a leader, without a doubt that he was.
E I find that whenever it opened the mouth it inspired confidence to the people, accepted it wants it as Conservative, but it was there, was in favor of them and against the common enemy.
But, to the times, he was badly received.
I remember a time, close to Green Street, Churchill visited an avenue there close e had a gigantic crater of the size of this bar e had women trying to take off the things of them of the houses in ruins e after seeing that, Churchill said:We aguentamos.
E the women had said to it what she could make, without Popes in the language.
They had said:We are that we are aguentando.
You are the saved one.
Airplanes German launch bombs arsonists e leaves the city of London in flames.
It had 1500 fires inside and outside of the city.
The Cathedral of St.
Paul it was encircled with flames.
The fire of London was seen well.
The 100 distance km saw the fire.
In the night of fires, it was in a also ardia shelter that.
We had all to leave e we do not enter in panic.
We had that to go of the way of the curve until the o end of the Commercial Road for a plant that it had the shelter in the bilge, e when running had fires for all the side.
I felt the heat in the soil.
The water puddles were hot.
When arriving at the shelter, we sleep in shoulders ones of the others.
I slept the night all leant to the shoulder of another person.
Eventually, we use as much water that it finished and there we are, seeing fires, without being able to make nothing.
The center of the city of London it was destroyed.
But the cathedral survived.
Manchester, Coventry, Birmingham, Swansea, Liverpool and others partilhavam the difficulties with London.
They were all to the reach of the German Air Force with bases in France e in the Netherlands.
It was more difficult the bombers British to arrive at Germany.
The government looked another form to take the war to the enemy.
We decide that the only place where we could face the enemy it was the desert of the North of Africa.
Basically, the Average East.
It did not have more nothing.
We could not wait to invade France in a next future, therefore, we could not to weaken the Germans.
The two alternatives, possibilities, were to bomb.
They were not alternative, were possibilities.
To bomb.
e to fight in the Average East.
Therefore, we start since soon to force, to pressure and to ask for more armament in the Average East e we had to take off the armament daqui, of the British defense.
It did not have another possibility.
In 10 of December of 1940, two divisions of the Commonwealth of General Wavell they had attacked the great army Italian in the North of Africa.
For great surprise of them, they had advanced with sufficient rapidity.
They dominated ortaleza after ortaleza.
It now seemed to have the possibility to reach the great German army through Yugoslavia and of Greece.
We find that one was possible to bring certain countries of the Balkans for the conflict with Hitler that the consequências they could be unexpected, we did not know that result this would have.
For the Cabinet of War e for the Ministry of the Defense, if the Greeks were if to defend against the Germans, we had to help in what he was possible.
I and the Dill were for the Cairo, after the victory of the Wavell to analyze this question.
When we arrive, the Wavell it said:Oxalá is not imported, but I found that not it could lose time e I started the movement of troops to be able to arrive at Greece.
The entrance in Greece intended to postpone a German attack.
For many Greeks, what it made was to speed up it.
They had resisted the Italians, but when the Germans had attacked in 6 of April of 1941, Greece was dominated in three weeks.
As Yugoslavia, that one joins the Allies.
they had been removed.
We have to admit that we do not reach the objectives the one that we considered in them.
With the aid of Yugoslavia, we do not obtain.
to lead an efficient campaign in the Balkans.
It is truth that Turkey it was a barrier in the defense, but we lose Greece e many men, courageous men had been captured.
Of this point of view, the rocking end was against us e was a time depressing, without a doubt.
In May of 1941, Germany e its allies they controlled almost all the continental Europe.
E in the North of Africa, a small one force commanded for Rommel, it had recaptured almost all the British territories.
The British had tried to keep Crete as naval base.
With complete aerial command, the Germans had attacked Crete with 16 a thousand parachutists.
It was first the great assault aerial in the history of the war.
Although serious decreases, had earned a vital aerodrome, Maleme, e therefore, more troops they could arrive of airplane.
With the support of great bombings, they gained land of a force more numerous of the Commonwealth.
One more time, the power aerial it won the battle.
Decreases of the Commonwealth:13 a thousand captured deceased, wounded or.
E plus an equal withdrawal to the ones of the Norway, France and Greece.
The British people interrogated itself the more he would have that to support.
Churchill found important to defend Crete at any cost.
When losing Crete, we lost the base in the Mediterranean, the naval base and aerial.
It continued to order telegrams the Wavell saying: Certainly it can excuse a dozen of tanks to defend the aerodrome of Maleme, that it was the main one of Crete, against the parachutists German.
Wavell answered that it did not have tanks, they were repairing the lizards or putting oil in the engines, in the Delta and it could not excuse nor a dozen.
We lose Crete.
It was a great disaster.
The House of commons she was insane and the country also.
The time for us was one me in the Spring of 1941.
He was waked up.
until 02h30 making transmissions it stops America and for there the rejection, e cochilava in the bilge of the transmission building e when it left morning, it gave a return and it thought: I find that we do not aguentamos plus this, because already we do not have nothing.
In these mornings it found: More two weeks of this e alone I will have destroços to the return.
In 10 of May of 1941, London suffered raide nocturnal more destructive of the war.
More than 3000 people they had died or they been wounded.
Hundreds of fires they had had of being ignored.
It seemed not to have at sight end for the death and the destruction.
Although not to know it, this age the point of the turn.
In April of 1941, Hitler congregated all commanders in France e during two hours spoke to us on the second part of the Battle of England.
It said us later, the two of us, to mine Mölders friend and me, that it only makes this to camouflage the offensive one against Russia.
This was in April of 1941.
Raide of 10 of May alone can to be considered a camouflage of the beginning of the Russian Campaign.
It enters the destroços of raide it was the House of commons.
During accurately one year, one year of disillusion and defeat, the government had kept Churchill in the power.
The battle most important is it earns.
England survives.
Now it was the time of Russia.