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Down this road,
on a summer day in 1944,
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00:00:18,310 --> 00:00:20,688
the soldiers came.
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00:00:22,231 --> 00:00:24,525
Nobody lives here now.
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00:00:30,656 --> 00:00:33,951
They stayed only a few hours.
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00:00:34,035 --> 00:00:35,661
When they had gone,
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a community which had lived
for a thousand years... was dead.
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00:00:43,169 --> 00:00:48,007
This is Oradour-sur-Glane in France.
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00:00:49,050 --> 00:00:51,260
The day the soldiers came,
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00:00:51,343 --> 00:00:54,221
the people were gathered together.
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00:00:54,305 --> 00:00:58,017
The men were taken
to garages and barns.
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00:00:58,100 --> 00:01:01,729
The women and children
were led down this road...
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00:01:03,564 --> 00:01:07,026
and they were driven into this church.
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00:01:08,069 --> 00:01:13,574
Here, they heard the firing
as their men were shot.
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00:01:14,033 --> 00:01:16,535
Then they were killed too.
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00:01:17,661 --> 00:01:19,413
A few weeks later,
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many of those who had done
the killing were themselves dead -
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00:01:24,585 --> 00:01:26,712
in battle.
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00:01:29,924 --> 00:01:31,967
They never rebuilt Oradour.
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Its ruins are a memorial.
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00:01:36,555 --> 00:01:41,227
Its martyrdom stands for thousand
upon thousand of other martyrdoms
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00:01:41,310 --> 00:01:44,230
in Poland, in Russia,
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00:01:44,313 --> 00:01:47,817
in Burma, in China,
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00:01:47,942 --> 00:01:50,569
in a world at war.
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00:03:45,726 --> 00:03:48,062
Remember the dead.
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00:03:52,316 --> 00:03:58,697
In the Second World War, Britain
and her Commonwealth lost 480,000 dead.
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00:04:02,534 --> 00:04:06,330
120,000 of them
were from the Commonwealth.
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00:04:10,834 --> 00:04:15,756
60,000 were civilians -
men, women and children -
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00:04:15,839 --> 00:04:18,384
killed in air raids on Britain.
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00:04:22,513 --> 00:04:27,351
Compared to the slaughter of the
First World War, the total is not great.
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00:04:27,434 --> 00:04:29,144
But remember the dead,
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00:04:29,228 --> 00:04:34,191
each one a son, father, husband,
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00:04:34,275 --> 00:04:37,695
lover... brother.
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00:04:43,534 --> 00:04:47,496
We had a telegram to say
that he was missing on operations.
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00:04:47,579 --> 00:04:50,374
And it reads:
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00:04:50,499 --> 00:04:52,835
"Regret to inform
you that your husband,
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00:04:52,918 --> 00:04:55,963
Squadron Leader
Thomas Henry Desmond Drinkwater
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00:04:56,046 --> 00:04:59,049
is missing as the result
of air operations
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00:04:59,133 --> 00:05:04,096
on Thursday the 18th of May, 1944."
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00:05:04,179 --> 00:05:07,099
"Letter follows.
Any further information received
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00:05:07,182 --> 00:05:11,729
will be immediately
communicated to you."
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00:05:11,812 --> 00:05:16,817
"Pending receipt of written
notification from the Air Ministry,
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00:05:16,900 --> 00:05:19,528
no information should be given
to the press."
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00:05:55,814 --> 00:05:59,777
It's very funny, a battlefield.
The other day I watched a duck shoot.
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00:05:59,860 --> 00:06:03,322
The actual area extended
to about four square miles,
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00:06:03,405 --> 00:06:05,407
of which a fifth was in action.
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00:06:05,491 --> 00:06:08,577
All the rest was waiting.
And a battlefield is like that.
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00:06:08,660 --> 00:06:11,914
It's extraordinary
how inanimate the whole thing seems.
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00:06:11,997 --> 00:06:15,417
There's a bit of an action
going on in the right-hand corner.
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00:06:15,501 --> 00:06:18,545
For the rest,
there are people lying about, smoking.
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00:06:18,629 --> 00:06:21,340
And waiting, and sleeping...
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00:06:22,508 --> 00:06:24,885
and waiting,
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00:06:25,094 --> 00:06:26,887
and waiting.
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00:06:29,598 --> 00:06:33,352
It's one of the things
that films and books don't bring out-
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00:06:33,435 --> 00:06:35,604
Tolstoy, perhaps, is the exception -
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00:06:35,687 --> 00:06:38,941
a battlefield
where nothing seems to be happening.
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00:06:39,024 --> 00:06:41,985
The action is always over a hedge
somewhere else,
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00:06:42,069 --> 00:06:44,029
and it's the decisive thing.
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00:06:44,113 --> 00:06:47,282
And then they ask you if you
were there. Well, you weren't.
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00:06:48,534 --> 00:06:51,203
Paris. June, 1940.
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00:07:00,712 --> 00:07:03,465
They were there all right.
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00:07:03,590 --> 00:07:08,095
But for these soldiers,
no parade, no triumph.
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00:07:08,178 --> 00:07:11,432
Not the way we're used to seeing it
on the newsreels.
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00:07:19,398 --> 00:07:21,817
All rather quiet, really.
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00:07:21,900 --> 00:07:25,195
Nothing much to write home about.
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00:07:25,279 --> 00:07:29,783
Or perhaps this actually was
the scene that would stay with them,
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00:07:29,867 --> 00:07:33,704
the moment the soldiers
would always remember.
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00:07:46,633 --> 00:07:50,762
Looking back, you know,
it's even 28 years now.
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00:07:50,846 --> 00:07:53,932
I can hear it and I can see it,
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00:07:54,057 --> 00:07:56,226
I can smell it.
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00:07:56,310 --> 00:08:02,399
And I think anybody who was there
must have exactly the same impression,
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00:08:02,483 --> 00:08:07,404
that, you know, it is something
that they will always remember.
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00:08:09,323 --> 00:08:12,993
There's much soldiers
don't want to forget.
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00:08:24,505 --> 00:08:28,175
At Mainz in West Germany, veterans
of the Deutsches Afrikakorps meet,
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00:08:28,300 --> 00:08:31,970
as they do every couple of years,
to relive the past.
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00:08:33,764 --> 00:08:36,141
There are wives and camp followers
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00:08:36,266 --> 00:08:40,854
and guests from Australia,
from Britain, from Italy.
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00:08:40,938 --> 00:08:44,191
Old comrades, old enemies,
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00:08:44,274 --> 00:08:46,276
old memories,
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and plenty of beer.
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00:08:50,739 --> 00:08:52,991
It's a funny thing about marines,
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or maybe a funny thing
about fighting men of all kinds,
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their minds have a tendency
to cloud out all of the unhappy things
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00:09:00,165 --> 00:09:02,543
and you think only of the happy things.
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00:09:02,626 --> 00:09:06,088
When I'm with other marines
and we talk about the war,
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00:09:06,171 --> 00:09:08,423
we talk about some of the funny things.
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00:09:08,507 --> 00:09:11,343
We never really dwell
on the unhappy ones.
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00:09:11,426 --> 00:09:15,514
And I think that would be true
of fighting men all over the world.
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00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:28,277
One of the things
about being in a tank battalion
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00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:32,072
was that you lived completely
with the crew of your tank
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00:09:32,155 --> 00:09:34,324
and completely with your troop.
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00:09:34,408 --> 00:09:38,620
And so, at night, for example,
when one came in to laager,
92
00:09:38,704 --> 00:09:41,039
one would dig a hole
and drive the tank over it
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00:09:41,123 --> 00:09:44,710
and you ate, slept
and did everything with your crew,
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00:09:44,793 --> 00:09:48,171
so that one got enormously fond of them
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00:09:48,255 --> 00:09:51,717
and one got to know each other
extremely well.
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00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:55,345
You knew they were making the right
decisions and you just drove on.
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00:09:55,429 --> 00:10:00,225
Apart from the fact you were young and
daft and would have gone anywhere.
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00:10:00,309 --> 00:10:03,395
We didn't really find time to, um,
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00:10:03,478 --> 00:10:07,482
well, have the sort of conversation
that we might have now sitting here.
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00:10:07,566 --> 00:10:13,071
I certainly never remember discussing,
well, the outcome of the war,
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00:10:13,196 --> 00:10:18,493
or whether the Germans were right
or we were right or anything like that.
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00:10:18,577 --> 00:10:23,665
It was just day to day,
honest-to-goodness living together,
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00:10:23,749 --> 00:10:25,584
and very pleasant it was.
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00:11:27,938 --> 00:11:32,901
We had a chap who was an
experienced butcher as the co-driver,
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00:11:32,984 --> 00:11:37,656
and he always arranged that there
should be two jerry cans of water
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00:11:37,739 --> 00:11:39,991
behind where the exhaust pipes
came out.
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00:11:40,075 --> 00:11:42,577
They'd be constantly
more or less on the boil.
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00:11:42,661 --> 00:11:46,540
And if, it seemed to me,
in the middle of a battle,
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whatever was happening,
and he spied a pig,
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00:11:49,543 --> 00:11:53,839
he would leap out, unscrew the great
hammer you have for breaking tracks,
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00:11:53,922 --> 00:11:56,425
and rush off,
bash this pig on the head,
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00:11:56,508 --> 00:12:00,971
drag it back, bring it in through
the side pannier door, um,
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00:12:01,054 --> 00:12:05,892
and get hold of these two cans of water
and light up the stove,
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00:12:05,976 --> 00:12:08,228
and boil the water and scrape the pig.
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00:12:08,311 --> 00:12:12,733
We'd have delicious pork chops any
time day or night and lived very well.
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00:12:12,816 --> 00:12:17,946
And it was partly the sort of...
the sort of scavenging of the crews
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00:12:18,029 --> 00:12:22,826
and the finding of the wine and the jam
and the eggs and all the other things,
118
00:12:22,909 --> 00:12:27,914
which helped make the comradeship
one of the things that made it such fun.
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00:12:31,793 --> 00:12:34,379
Fun. And fear.
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00:12:37,799 --> 00:12:41,553
I don't think I was frightened.
I was scared.
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00:12:41,636 --> 00:12:44,306
You know, when you're scared,
you're more alert.
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00:12:44,389 --> 00:12:47,809
It's like you're playing a game
with somebody through the woods.
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00:12:47,893 --> 00:12:52,522
You've got a gun, he's got a gun. Who's
gonna shoot first? It's like a duel.
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00:12:52,647 --> 00:12:56,067
Who's gonna turn
and pull the trigger first?
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00:13:08,497 --> 00:13:10,999
Fear and fun.
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00:13:12,125 --> 00:13:13,919
Moments, even, of beauty.
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00:13:20,592 --> 00:13:23,887
Well, I speak of the
"lust of the eye", a biblical phrase,
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00:13:23,970 --> 00:13:26,264
because much of the appeal of battle
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00:13:26,348 --> 00:13:29,851
is simply this attraction of the, uh,
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00:13:29,976 --> 00:13:32,771
outlandish, the strange.
131
00:13:32,854 --> 00:13:37,234
But there is, of course,
an element of beauty in this,
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00:13:37,317 --> 00:13:42,989
and I must say that this is surely,
from ancient times,
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one of the most enduring
appeals of battle.
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00:13:56,336 --> 00:14:00,841
One could be drawn into,
absorbed, by the spectacle.
135
00:14:00,924 --> 00:14:06,805
I think especially of southern France,
the terrific bombardment of our planes
136
00:14:06,888 --> 00:14:09,099
coming over the southern coast
of France.
137
00:14:09,182 --> 00:14:12,978
I literally expected the coast
to detach itself
138
00:14:13,061 --> 00:14:16,398
and... and go into the ocean.
139
00:14:16,481 --> 00:14:21,152
But, uh, to watch this
was to forget that you had to...
140
00:14:21,236 --> 00:14:25,907
When it stopped,
you had to get into landing boats
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00:14:25,991 --> 00:14:28,159
and make off for the shore.
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00:14:28,243 --> 00:14:30,745
It was, uh, just at dawn,
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00:14:30,829 --> 00:14:33,999
and a terrific spectacle
in which I think everybody,
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00:14:34,082 --> 00:14:38,169
including, of course, myself,
was drawn into it,
145
00:14:38,253 --> 00:14:41,715
so that we forgot all about ourselves.
146
00:15:00,108 --> 00:15:02,319
A city falls.
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00:15:02,402 --> 00:15:06,031
In an hour, a soldier,
senses quickened, time speeded up,
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00:15:06,114 --> 00:15:09,993
might kill and make love
and face death again.
149
00:15:10,076 --> 00:15:15,040
One room had a piano and I was sitting
at the piano playing with one finger.
150
00:15:15,123 --> 00:15:18,209
This British soldier, a real, uh...
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00:15:18,293 --> 00:15:22,631
You couldn't have made a better cartoon
of a typical British infantryman.
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00:15:22,756 --> 00:15:26,843
He was grimy, he was dirty,
he had his helmet on,
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00:15:26,927 --> 00:15:29,012
he had his Enfield rifle,
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00:15:29,095 --> 00:15:31,848
he had grenades festooned on him,
155
00:15:31,932 --> 00:15:35,185
and he had this young
15-year-old Italian chick with him,
156
00:15:35,268 --> 00:15:41,775
a very buxom young lass who did not
look inexperienced in spite of her age.
157
00:15:41,900 --> 00:15:46,196
And he nodded very politely to me
and then ignored me totally
158
00:15:46,279 --> 00:15:49,741
and went to a cupboard over
in the corner and found some, uh,
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00:15:49,824 --> 00:15:52,661
nice, uh...
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00:15:53,787 --> 00:15:55,914
lace, uh,
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00:15:56,039 --> 00:15:58,875
table napery or nappery. Whatever.
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00:15:58,959 --> 00:16:02,462
He found a, uh, doily,
which he placed on the floor.
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00:16:02,545 --> 00:16:06,716
He was very delicate, because
the room was full of plaster dust
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00:16:06,800 --> 00:16:10,804
and proceeded to cohabit with this girl
on the doily.
165
00:16:10,887 --> 00:16:13,431
It was very delicate of him, you know.
166
00:16:13,515 --> 00:16:16,977
And I'm sitting there picking out
a tune on the piano watching...
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00:16:17,060 --> 00:16:20,522
The whole thing was a weird scene.
168
00:16:20,605 --> 00:16:23,775
And I felt,
"Would it be better if I left?"
169
00:16:23,858 --> 00:16:27,195
Then I felt, "It would be too..."
I was trying to do the polite thing.
170
00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:29,906
I was trying to, uh...
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00:16:29,990 --> 00:16:33,451
They never, in a sense,
gave me a chance to leave, really.
172
00:16:33,535 --> 00:16:36,079
And so, they left.
173
00:16:36,162 --> 00:16:40,500
The girl smiled over her shoulder at me
and the soldier said, "So long, Yank,"
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00:16:40,583 --> 00:16:45,547
or something like that,
went back out and back to battle.
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00:16:46,589 --> 00:16:50,218
It was a weird sort of a...
Probably, in many ways,
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probably the weirdest and strangest
and most sort of dreamlike thing
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00:16:54,222 --> 00:16:56,224
I can remember out of the whole war,
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00:16:56,307 --> 00:16:59,436
this little episode
which lasted about five minutes.
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00:17:06,735 --> 00:17:09,571
Good to remember the good days.
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00:17:14,784 --> 00:17:19,039
The soldiers were welcome.
Everyone was happy.
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00:17:19,122 --> 00:17:21,249
The wine was red.
182
00:17:24,878 --> 00:17:26,588
Wynford Vaughan-Thomas
183
00:17:26,671 --> 00:17:30,300
remembers the liberation
of the Burgundy vineyards.
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00:17:31,384 --> 00:17:33,636
The French army paused.
185
00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:36,014
The Americans couldn't understand it.
186
00:17:36,097 --> 00:17:39,309
They were in the mountains.
I remember General Patch saying,
187
00:17:39,392 --> 00:17:42,353
"You know about the French.
Why aren't they advancing?"
188
00:17:42,437 --> 00:17:45,273
"They're at this place, Châlons."
I looked at the map.
189
00:17:45,356 --> 00:17:47,025
There's a Châlons sur Saône
190
00:17:47,108 --> 00:17:49,694
at the beginning
of the Burgundy vineyard country.
191
00:17:49,778 --> 00:17:52,947
I go across and there was
de Lattre de Tassigny,
192
00:17:53,073 --> 00:17:56,117
Monsalbert and their staff
looking at the problem.
193
00:17:56,201 --> 00:17:59,746
They had Larmat's Atlas Vinicole
de la France in front of them.
194
00:17:59,829 --> 00:18:02,749
And they were studying it
because it would be tragic
195
00:18:02,832 --> 00:18:06,252
if they fought through
Beaune and Nuits St George
196
00:18:06,336 --> 00:18:09,798
and the great vineyards of Burgundy.
197
00:18:09,881 --> 00:18:13,259
France would never forgive them.
And they were paused.
198
00:18:13,343 --> 00:18:15,595
A young sous-lieutenant said:
199
00:18:15,678 --> 00:18:19,516
"Courage, my generals, I've found
the weak spot of the German defences."
200
00:18:19,599 --> 00:18:23,561
"Every one is on a vineyard
of inferior quality."
201
00:18:23,645 --> 00:18:26,189
De Lattre made his decision,
"J'attaque."
202
00:18:26,314 --> 00:18:30,985
And for three days,
we fought our way through the cellars.
203
00:18:31,069 --> 00:18:35,406
And on the third day I emerged
bewildered, looking towards Dijon
204
00:18:35,490 --> 00:18:37,951
and I realised we'd liberated Burgundy.
205
00:18:45,667 --> 00:18:49,045
The poets saw beneath the skin.
206
00:18:49,129 --> 00:18:52,215
Vergissmeinnicht - Forget me not.
207
00:18:54,134 --> 00:18:57,262
"Three weeks gone
and the combatants gone
208
00:18:57,345 --> 00:19:01,057
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again,
209
00:19:01,141 --> 00:19:04,477
and found the soldier
sprawling in the sun.
210
00:19:06,020 --> 00:19:08,857
The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing.
211
00:19:08,940 --> 00:19:12,485
As we came on that day,
he hit my tank with one
212
00:19:12,569 --> 00:19:15,446
like the entry of a demon.
213
00:19:15,530 --> 00:19:20,577
Look. Here in the gunpit spoil the
dishonoured picture of his girl
214
00:19:20,660 --> 00:19:26,708
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht.
In a copybook gothic script.
215
00:19:28,042 --> 00:19:35,592
We see him almost with content, abased,
and seeming to have paid and mocked at
216
00:19:35,675 --> 00:19:40,013
by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.
217
00:19:41,598 --> 00:19:46,686
But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
218
00:19:46,769 --> 00:19:49,189
the dust upon the paper eye
219
00:19:49,272 --> 00:19:52,775
and the burst stomach like a cave.
220
00:19:52,859 --> 00:19:55,528
For here the lover and killer are
mingled
221
00:19:55,612 --> 00:19:58,406
who had one body and one heart.
222
00:19:58,489 --> 00:20:04,370
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.
223
00:20:08,333 --> 00:20:11,794
Remember the war poet, Keith Douglas,
224
00:20:11,878 --> 00:20:14,756
killed in Normandy in 1944.
225
00:20:19,719 --> 00:20:22,513
Away from the front, beyond the battle,
226
00:20:22,597 --> 00:20:26,392
the soldiers came and went as strangers.
227
00:20:26,476 --> 00:20:29,437
After a few weeks in the line,
228
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:33,900
I got away one afternoon
and climbed up into the Apennines
229
00:20:33,983 --> 00:20:36,903
and met the old hermit.
230
00:20:36,986 --> 00:20:39,155
We sat down and began to talk,
231
00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:43,576
and of course the artillery
in the valley below opened up
232
00:20:43,660 --> 00:20:46,621
and he began to ask me questions
about the war.
233
00:20:46,704 --> 00:20:51,209
And I gradually became aware
that he didn't know what was going on.
234
00:20:51,292 --> 00:20:54,879
My attempts to explain
what was going on faltered,
235
00:20:54,963 --> 00:20:59,968
not only because of my...
rather poor Italian,
236
00:21:00,051 --> 00:21:05,473
but because I suddenly realised that
I couldn't possibly explain to him...
237
00:21:06,641 --> 00:21:12,480
why Americans, Britishers,
were fighting in Italy against Germans
238
00:21:12,605 --> 00:21:14,857
with Italians on both sides.
239
00:21:14,941 --> 00:21:17,568
It seemed an impossible task.
240
00:21:17,694 --> 00:21:20,989
Even had he been speaking
my own language,
241
00:21:21,072 --> 00:21:26,536
I wouldn't have been able to tell him
what the war was about,
242
00:21:26,619 --> 00:21:29,205
because I didn't really know myself,
243
00:21:29,289 --> 00:21:32,667
in any deeper sense,
what the war was about.
244
00:21:40,258 --> 00:21:46,514
In a sense, the people I fought with
in the war were, in my view, all heroes,
245
00:21:46,597 --> 00:21:49,100
in the sense that they were...
246
00:21:49,183 --> 00:21:52,603
tremendous believers
in what we were trying to do.
247
00:21:52,687 --> 00:21:57,275
There was an amazing spirit
of dedication to the task in hand.
248
00:21:57,358 --> 00:22:02,363
This was very moving,
and a tremendous inspiration.
249
00:22:02,447 --> 00:22:05,867
Whose idea it was, of course,
you can never trace,
250
00:22:05,950 --> 00:22:07,660
but it was a sort of infection.
251
00:22:07,744 --> 00:22:10,288
This applied to people
from all over the world,
252
00:22:10,371 --> 00:22:15,209
and Bomber Command was an
extraordinarily cosmopolitan command.
253
00:22:15,293 --> 00:22:17,378
I think, by the time I was in it,
254
00:22:17,462 --> 00:22:20,965
about 40% of it came from overseas,
255
00:22:21,049 --> 00:22:23,718
mostly from New Zealand,
Australia, Canada,
256
00:22:23,801 --> 00:22:27,764
but also from many other countries
and not all, by any means, British.
257
00:22:27,847 --> 00:22:32,226
I mean, there were lots of Czechs
and Poles serving in Bomber Command.
258
00:22:32,310 --> 00:22:35,855
And the spirit of dedication was,
as I say, moving.
259
00:22:35,938 --> 00:22:39,692
But where it really came from
is something I've never understood.
260
00:22:39,776 --> 00:22:42,195
The task in hand inspired the idea.
261
00:22:42,278 --> 00:22:45,239
In that sense,
I think this was a heroic idea.
262
00:22:53,581 --> 00:22:56,584
It's just now and again
the nightmare in the night,
263
00:22:56,667 --> 00:22:58,753
where you just remember somebody who...
264
00:22:58,836 --> 00:23:01,297
You turn around
on the deck of a destroyer
265
00:23:01,381 --> 00:23:03,883
and next minute he wasn't there.
266
00:23:03,966 --> 00:23:06,427
You know, he'd gone, swept away.
267
00:23:14,852 --> 00:23:16,562
Casualties were bad at any time,
268
00:23:16,646 --> 00:23:19,857
but particularly in the last two months
of the war.
269
00:23:19,941 --> 00:23:24,445
There were men you'd been with for five
years. They were not just colleagues.
270
00:23:24,529 --> 00:23:26,906
You were close.
You knew all about them,
271
00:23:26,989 --> 00:23:31,285
and you saw them getting knocked off
in the last few days, particularly sad.
272
00:23:46,342 --> 00:23:51,764
"I am commanded by the Air Council to
state that in view of the lapse of time
273
00:23:51,848 --> 00:23:55,893
and the absence of any further news
regarding your husband,
274
00:23:56,018 --> 00:23:59,981
Acting Squadron Leader
THD Drinkwater DFC,
275
00:24:00,064 --> 00:24:02,900
since the date on which
he was reported missing,
276
00:24:02,984 --> 00:24:07,029
they must regretfully conclude
that he has lost his life
277
00:24:07,155 --> 00:24:11,701
and his death had now been presumed
for official purposes
278
00:24:11,784 --> 00:24:17,206
to have occurred
on the 18th of May, 1944."
279
00:24:24,213 --> 00:24:26,591
I don't think any of us were, you know,
280
00:24:26,674 --> 00:24:28,426
patriotic men in the sense
281
00:24:28,509 --> 00:24:32,889
that we would stand rigidly
to attention and wave flags.
282
00:24:35,141 --> 00:24:40,021
We were just glad to be alive
and, in some way, you know,
283
00:24:40,104 --> 00:24:44,650
we were rather proud that this kind
of army we'd been in for so long,
284
00:24:44,734 --> 00:24:49,197
which had done so many daft things and
where we'd been bellowed and shouted at
285
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:52,783
and, uh, generally mucked around
286
00:24:52,867 --> 00:24:55,495
and spent thousands of hours
on exercises
287
00:24:55,620 --> 00:24:59,248
and standing about in the rain
and the mud and the snow,
288
00:24:59,332 --> 00:25:03,753
had finally managed to bring off what,
289
00:25:03,836 --> 00:25:08,424
when you look at it in fairly cold
light, was a pretty big adventure.
290
00:25:26,943 --> 00:25:31,489
I couldn't understand
why people went to Cenotaph ceremonies.
291
00:25:31,572 --> 00:25:36,619
I go now, and I'm proud to go, because I
remember the people who didn't come back
292
00:25:36,702 --> 00:25:39,622
and out of it comes
this terrible feeling in my mind
293
00:25:39,705 --> 00:25:44,252
of waste and yet of proud comradeship.
294
00:25:57,890 --> 00:26:01,227
You're lying in a trench
and the shells come down.
295
00:26:01,310 --> 00:26:04,146
You're frightened to death.
The chap next to you says:
296
00:26:04,272 --> 00:26:07,108
"Have a cigarette, mate.
It'll go. It's like rain."
297
00:26:07,233 --> 00:26:09,318
You realise he's a better man than you.
298
00:26:09,402 --> 00:26:11,404
He's given you the strength to go on,
299
00:26:11,487 --> 00:26:14,323
and that is what you remember
out of the war.
300
00:26:14,407 --> 00:26:16,993
It's the comradeship.
301
00:26:40,975 --> 00:26:43,394
Remember the comradeship,
302
00:26:43,477 --> 00:26:46,230
and remember the suffering.
303
00:26:49,025 --> 00:26:52,403
Another road, another village -
304
00:26:52,486 --> 00:26:54,572
same orders.
305
00:26:59,285 --> 00:27:01,329
Soldiers.
306
00:27:01,412 --> 00:27:04,415
Some seeing, not feeling,
307
00:27:04,498 --> 00:27:07,001
others enjoying their work.
308
00:27:16,052 --> 00:27:19,096
It's one of the
melancholy aspects of human nature.
309
00:27:19,180 --> 00:27:25,686
You notice it with boys who love to
break windows to hear the glass tinkle,
310
00:27:25,770 --> 00:27:30,107
but there are a great many soldiers
311
00:27:30,191 --> 00:27:33,027
who take a great pleasure
312
00:27:33,110 --> 00:27:35,863
in destroying people,
313
00:27:35,988 --> 00:27:38,074
wasting things.
314
00:27:46,666 --> 00:27:52,588
I find this aspect of human nature
not discussed enough,
315
00:27:52,672 --> 00:27:56,467
but it is surely one
of the causes of warfare.
316
00:28:22,076 --> 00:28:24,203
Remember the dead.
317
00:28:26,205 --> 00:28:31,210
In the Second World War she started,
Germany lost nearly five million dead.
318
00:28:31,293 --> 00:28:33,963
Two and a half million
were killed in action,
319
00:28:34,046 --> 00:28:37,508
one and a half million
died in Russian prison camps.
320
00:28:37,591 --> 00:28:42,054
Half a million German civilians
died in Allied bombing raids,
321
00:28:42,138 --> 00:28:45,558
another half million at the war's end.
322
00:28:46,934 --> 00:28:51,272
Remember the dead
and the scarred survivors.
323
00:28:57,153 --> 00:29:00,197
The effect of war
on people who take part in it
324
00:29:00,281 --> 00:29:03,033
is, of course, extremely various.
325
00:29:03,117 --> 00:29:07,872
Lots of people are maimed, completely,
either mentally or physically.
326
00:29:07,955 --> 00:29:12,793
But I suppose the majority of those
who survive, survive apparently intact.
327
00:29:12,877 --> 00:29:14,837
But there must be marked effects,
328
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,715
and in some ways the effects
are very good on people,
329
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:21,719
because they feel that
they've been able to fulfil themselves.
330
00:29:21,844 --> 00:29:26,557
A lot of people go through life without
ever feeling a sense of fulfilment,
331
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:30,144
but those who take part
in hectic war operations
332
00:29:30,227 --> 00:29:32,229
usually get a sense of fulfilment,
333
00:29:32,313 --> 00:29:36,066
to some extent, especially if they
believe in what they're trying to do,
334
00:29:36,150 --> 00:29:40,404
which I think in war
people tend to do very readily.
335
00:29:40,488 --> 00:29:44,825
On the other hand, I think there are
very bad effects, obvious bad effects.
336
00:29:44,909 --> 00:29:47,286
Perhaps one of the less obvious ones
337
00:29:47,369 --> 00:29:49,872
is that people who undertake
these operations
338
00:29:49,955 --> 00:29:52,917
I think have a tendency
to feel afterwards
339
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,712
that society owes them
something very special.
340
00:29:56,796 --> 00:30:01,425
And when the war is over, they tend to
go home or back to where they came from
341
00:30:01,509 --> 00:30:04,637
and expect people to look up to them
and to look after them,
342
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:09,350
which is not what people are going to
do at all, nor what people ought to do.
343
00:30:17,650 --> 00:30:19,735
Remember the mud.
344
00:30:19,819 --> 00:30:22,696
You get used to it, of course.
345
00:30:22,780 --> 00:30:25,282
You get used to anything...
346
00:30:27,743 --> 00:30:30,204
easily hardened to other suffering.
347
00:30:32,706 --> 00:30:35,918
It's a curious thing.
You could equate it to television
348
00:30:36,001 --> 00:30:38,379
and what it's done to us, in many ways.
349
00:30:38,462 --> 00:30:40,798
The realities of the situation
350
00:30:40,881 --> 00:30:43,634
people are still wanting
to sweep under the carpet.
351
00:30:43,717 --> 00:30:47,680
I turned round to my kids during the
napalm bombing in Vietnam and I said:
352
00:30:47,763 --> 00:30:49,139
"Just don't sit there.
353
00:30:49,223 --> 00:30:53,310
"That is a real child, that burning
torch running across a field."
354
00:30:53,394 --> 00:30:56,063
But it means nothing to them.
355
00:30:57,106 --> 00:31:02,194
That is a real man scrambling
for a potato, soon to starve to death.
356
00:31:17,042 --> 00:31:19,169
Remember the dead.
357
00:31:20,296 --> 00:31:23,799
In the Second World War,
two and half million Japanese died.
358
00:31:23,883 --> 00:31:26,552
Among them, half a million civilians.
359
00:31:30,764 --> 00:31:33,142
Japanese fighting men
fought to the death.
360
00:31:33,225 --> 00:31:38,689
Nearly 20 Japanese soldiers were killed
for every one wounded or maimed.
361
00:31:40,107 --> 00:31:46,030
We had this orthopod,
or orthopaedic surgeon, from Baltimore,
362
00:31:46,113 --> 00:31:52,077
and, uh... he gave me the definition
that I've used all these many years
363
00:31:52,202 --> 00:31:56,332
of sympathy for the disability.
364
00:31:56,415 --> 00:31:58,959
He said, "Son, you know
where you find sympathy?"
365
00:31:59,043 --> 00:32:03,631
He said, "You find it in the dictionary
between 'Shit' and 'Syphilis'."
366
00:32:03,714 --> 00:32:06,592
And I've remembered that
all these many years.
367
00:32:17,978 --> 00:32:20,731
Remember the civilians
who got in the way.
368
00:32:21,982 --> 00:32:25,235
You could miss seeing them
from a bomber,
369
00:32:25,319 --> 00:32:28,447
but on the ground the soldiers knew.
370
00:32:31,450 --> 00:32:36,497
One of the things that seemed to
me to cause most guilt in World War II
371
00:32:36,580 --> 00:32:41,877
was this failure to discriminate between
combatants and non-combatants.
372
00:32:41,961 --> 00:32:46,674
I felt, even then,
as many other soldiers did,
373
00:32:46,757 --> 00:32:52,179
that we were guilty of
indiscriminate terroristic bombing.
374
00:32:52,262 --> 00:32:58,227
Many soldiers had to kill innocent
women and children, non-combatants.
375
00:33:03,607 --> 00:33:06,694
In this sense, there is such a thing
as collective guilt
376
00:33:06,777 --> 00:33:11,323
insofar as this decision
was made at the highest levels
377
00:33:11,407 --> 00:33:14,410
and approved by many people,
378
00:33:14,493 --> 00:33:17,663
both soldiers and... and civilians.
379
00:33:27,881 --> 00:33:30,509
Remember the dead.
380
00:33:30,592 --> 00:33:35,222
In the Second World War, America
was not invaded or even bombed,
381
00:33:35,305 --> 00:33:38,934
but the United States
lost 300,000 fighting men,
382
00:33:39,059 --> 00:33:42,771
killed in action far from home.
383
00:33:45,274 --> 00:33:47,735
Well, what I found when I came home,
384
00:33:47,818 --> 00:33:51,280
and I've been rather disgusted
with myself ever since,
385
00:33:51,363 --> 00:33:53,907
was that, uh...
386
00:33:54,992 --> 00:33:58,495
the readjustment to their kind of life,
387
00:33:58,579 --> 00:34:02,124
the life that I led before myself,
388
00:34:02,249 --> 00:34:04,418
was virtually impossible,
389
00:34:04,501 --> 00:34:09,298
because however much you hate
being in a war,
390
00:34:09,381 --> 00:34:12,384
the things that you come back to
seem very, very trivial.
391
00:34:12,468 --> 00:34:16,764
Reporting the council talking about
a new gents' lavatory, things like this,
392
00:34:16,847 --> 00:34:19,183
don't seem to matter at all.
393
00:34:19,266 --> 00:34:22,478
And, of course, these things matter
to the people around you.
394
00:34:22,561 --> 00:34:26,690
And I shut up, I shut myself in,
for about a year.
395
00:34:26,774 --> 00:34:30,069
I must have behaved extremely badly,
I'm well aware of it.
396
00:34:30,152 --> 00:34:33,864
And I've never forgotten it, and
I've never ceased to feel sorry for it,
397
00:34:33,947 --> 00:34:38,035
because it must have made life pretty
intolerable for the people around me.
398
00:34:38,118 --> 00:34:42,331
But it was just that I couldn't...
I couldn't... communicate.
399
00:34:42,414 --> 00:34:44,833
I had lost my sense of communication
400
00:34:44,917 --> 00:34:48,045
with the people that I had known
for all those years,
401
00:34:51,006 --> 00:34:56,762
because I had begun to understand
an entirely new breed of people
402
00:34:56,845 --> 00:35:00,766
who were all thrown together, um...
403
00:35:00,849 --> 00:35:02,768
in a common thing. I think that was it.
404
00:35:07,481 --> 00:35:10,776
More roads to more villages.
405
00:35:10,859 --> 00:35:13,445
More orders to obey.
406
00:35:18,158 --> 00:35:22,121
"Corporal, take two men
and clear the village."
407
00:35:22,204 --> 00:35:25,499
"Leave the men behind for now."
408
00:35:25,582 --> 00:35:28,627
"Move the women and children."
409
00:35:28,710 --> 00:35:33,507
"Corporal, hurry the goodbyes up,
will you?"
410
00:36:21,305 --> 00:36:24,766
I think it has taught me,
all the rest of my life,
411
00:36:24,850 --> 00:36:30,022
that there is a line
which a man dare not cross,
412
00:36:30,105 --> 00:36:36,111
a line which separates
the reasonably just and human
413
00:36:36,195 --> 00:36:39,072
from the mere functionary.
414
00:37:06,099 --> 00:37:11,396
The corporal and the soldiers
have wives and children too.
415
00:37:29,873 --> 00:37:33,252
Remember the Russian dead.
416
00:37:33,335 --> 00:37:36,838
In the Second World War, the
Soviet Union, already bled by Stalin,
417
00:37:36,922 --> 00:37:39,841
lost... 20 million dead.
418
00:37:39,925 --> 00:37:43,220
Millions in action on Russian soil -
419
00:37:43,303 --> 00:37:45,764
the bloody defeats of '41 and '42,
420
00:37:45,847 --> 00:37:49,351
the bloody victories of '43 and '45.
421
00:37:51,937 --> 00:37:54,856
And millions of prisoners of war
died in German hands,
422
00:37:54,940 --> 00:37:58,902
deprived of food, clothing, shelter.
423
00:37:58,986 --> 00:38:02,698
For these prisoners, no escape.
424
00:38:02,781 --> 00:38:04,783
About a million were shot.
425
00:38:04,866 --> 00:38:09,621
And millions of Russian civilians
died from shooting, bombing, shelling,
426
00:38:09,705 --> 00:38:14,293
forced winter marches,
engineered starvation.
427
00:38:14,418 --> 00:38:16,712
20th-century total war.
428
00:38:38,108 --> 00:38:40,402
Remember the Russian dead...
429
00:38:41,445 --> 00:38:43,572
the 20 million.
430
00:38:54,541 --> 00:38:57,544
Soldiers, remember the dead.
431
00:38:58,670 --> 00:39:00,797
Remember all the others.
432
00:39:03,008 --> 00:39:08,722
15 million Chinese died in the
Second World War, most from starvation.
433
00:39:08,805 --> 00:39:13,268
And in occupied Europe, more than
a million and a half Yugoslavs died
434
00:39:13,352 --> 00:39:16,563
for a country
that never stopped fighting.
435
00:39:16,646 --> 00:39:21,985
And three million Poles
and more than five million Jews.
436
00:39:22,069 --> 00:39:26,740
And over half a million Frenchmen
and women, many in the Resistance.
437
00:39:26,823 --> 00:39:32,871
And brave men and women in Norway
and Holland and Denmark and Belgium.
438
00:39:32,954 --> 00:39:35,624
And hundreds of thousands
in Czechoslovakia,
439
00:39:35,707 --> 00:39:39,044
Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary.
440
00:39:39,169 --> 00:39:41,713
And over 300,000 Greeks.
441
00:39:41,797 --> 00:39:43,507
And half a million Italians
442
00:39:43,590 --> 00:39:47,928
in a country that was fought over
and fought on both sides.
443
00:39:48,011 --> 00:39:52,391
And Spaniards in Russia
and Indians in Burma.
444
00:39:52,474 --> 00:39:55,310
Remember them all.
445
00:39:55,394 --> 00:39:58,897
55 million dead.
446
00:40:03,819 --> 00:40:07,906
"I did not know death
had undone so many."
447
00:40:09,991 --> 00:40:12,077
Mothers and daughters,
448
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,788
fathers and sons.
449
00:40:44,776 --> 00:40:48,488
The young are too young to remember,
450
00:40:48,572 --> 00:40:51,450
perhaps too young to understand.
451
00:40:53,326 --> 00:40:57,914
One of the great effects
of war upon people who take part in it
452
00:40:57,998 --> 00:41:00,625
is the extent to which it tends
to cut them off
453
00:41:00,709 --> 00:41:04,796
from both their elders
and their own children.
454
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,425
And, um, the same thing applies,
in a different way,
455
00:41:08,508 --> 00:41:10,510
as between a father and a son.
456
00:41:10,594 --> 00:41:15,432
I mean, I feel this myself
in my own relationship with my parents
457
00:41:15,515 --> 00:41:18,310
at the time of the war
and with my children today,
458
00:41:18,393 --> 00:41:22,939
that, in a sense,
they neither can nor wish to envisage
459
00:41:23,023 --> 00:41:25,609
the circumstances
in which we lived in the war.
460
00:41:25,692 --> 00:41:30,655
And we have a rather arrogant feeling
that they ought to wish to understand
461
00:41:30,739 --> 00:41:33,700
these dreadful things that happened,
but they don't.
462
00:41:33,783 --> 00:41:37,496
And this cuts one off both from
the older and the younger generation.
463
00:41:37,579 --> 00:41:40,707
People are, in any case,
cut off from these generations.
464
00:41:40,790 --> 00:41:44,169
There is a generation gap
under any circumstances,
465
00:41:44,252 --> 00:41:47,923
but I think war,
as in so many other aspects of life,
466
00:41:48,006 --> 00:41:51,551
tends to emphasise
those sort of considerations,
467
00:41:51,635 --> 00:41:56,598
and very much so in creating
and nourishing a generation gap.
468
00:42:11,863 --> 00:42:13,949
Nuremberg.
469
00:42:14,699 --> 00:42:20,038
Here on this ground, Adolf Hitler
spoke to the National Socialist Party
470
00:42:20,121 --> 00:42:23,124
and to the German nation, 40 years ago.
471
00:42:29,881 --> 00:42:33,301
40 years on, West Germany's chancellor,
472
00:42:33,385 --> 00:42:37,389
twice elected by popular vote,
is Willy Brandt.
473
00:42:39,015 --> 00:42:42,644
Brandt was a traitor
to Hitler's Germany.
474
00:42:42,727 --> 00:42:46,064
He fought in the Norwegian Resistance.
475
00:42:47,065 --> 00:42:50,860
In Warsaw, as in Jerusalem,
476
00:42:50,944 --> 00:42:52,988
he remembers the dead.
477
00:42:58,326 --> 00:43:00,912
Of all Germans alive today,
478
00:43:00,996 --> 00:43:05,667
half were not born
when the Second World War began.
479
00:43:11,423 --> 00:43:14,259
We have things to remember him by.
480
00:43:14,342 --> 00:43:17,929
We've got one here
from Buckingham Palace.
481
00:43:18,013 --> 00:43:23,935
"The Queen and I offer you our heartfelt
sympathy in your great sorrow."
482
00:43:24,019 --> 00:43:28,440
"We pray that your country's gratitude
for a life so nobly given
483
00:43:28,523 --> 00:43:33,445
in its service may bring you
some measure of consolation."
484
00:43:42,954 --> 00:43:46,625
1939-45.
485
00:43:46,708 --> 00:43:50,420
E Bickerstone, J Curtis,
486
00:43:50,503 --> 00:43:54,257
E Fraser, L Humphrey,
487
00:43:54,341 --> 00:43:57,802
G Nixon, A Schofield,
488
00:43:57,886 --> 00:44:01,723
I Chandler, A Flower,
489
00:44:01,806 --> 00:44:05,560
S Horan, C Nixon...
490
00:45:11,042 --> 00:45:14,170
They were very young.
491
00:45:14,254 --> 00:45:17,132
They did not ask to die as heroes.
492
00:45:20,844 --> 00:45:25,014
They would rather have lived
for those that loved them,
493
00:45:25,098 --> 00:45:27,392
those they loved.
494
00:45:57,797 --> 00:46:01,384
And this was the last
letter he ever wrote to his wife...
495
00:46:01,468 --> 00:46:04,846
"Darling, let me tell you again
I love you."
496
00:46:04,929 --> 00:46:11,060
"This past weekend has made me
so pleased that you are my wife
497
00:46:11,144 --> 00:46:14,022
because I am so in love with you
498
00:46:14,105 --> 00:46:17,650
and I know I shall love you
for the rest of my life."
499
00:46:17,734 --> 00:46:21,362
"And darling, thank you for loving me."
500
00:46:21,446 --> 00:46:26,034
"My sweet, I am sure you have
got something belonging to me
501
00:46:26,117 --> 00:46:30,914
because I am always so happy
when I am with you,
502
00:46:30,997 --> 00:46:36,085
but as soon as we are apart,
I just go as flat as can be."
503
00:46:36,169 --> 00:46:41,549
"I am like a man with no brain,
but only a memory for you."
504
00:46:41,633 --> 00:46:44,761
"Oh, darling, it is terrible."
505
00:46:44,844 --> 00:46:48,181
"Please don't think
I am sloppy or stupid,
506
00:46:48,264 --> 00:46:52,393
though I may be,
but I just can't get over it."
507
00:46:52,477 --> 00:46:55,563
"Perhaps I am a bit tired tonight,
508
00:46:55,688 --> 00:46:59,234
and after a night's rest
I shall be better
509
00:46:59,317 --> 00:47:03,279
and able to write you a nice letter."
510
00:47:03,363 --> 00:47:06,366
"Anyway, I'll see."
511
00:47:06,449 --> 00:47:11,246
"I'm afraid, darling, my operational
flying days are nearly over."
512
00:47:11,329 --> 00:47:15,708
"The wing commander
has told me twice already this evening
513
00:47:15,792 --> 00:47:19,754
that I can't go on so many shows
in future,
514
00:47:19,838 --> 00:47:22,841
and he is very concerned about it."
515
00:47:22,966 --> 00:47:27,470
"He said, 'Out of fairness
to you and your wife,
516
00:47:27,554 --> 00:47:34,310
I don't intend for you to stay on ops
much longer, even if you want to."'
517
00:47:34,394 --> 00:47:38,189
"You see, there was something
in what I said."
518
00:47:38,273 --> 00:47:41,109
"But, hell,
I am going to miss this life."
519
00:47:41,192 --> 00:47:43,653
"I have had over three years of it
520
00:47:43,736 --> 00:47:47,532
and the trouble is now
that I know nothing else."
521
00:47:49,367 --> 00:47:52,829
"My sweet, I must off to bed now."
522
00:47:52,912 --> 00:47:56,124
"I can hardly see what I'm writing."
523
00:47:56,249 --> 00:47:59,502
"I love you, my own precious darling,
524
00:47:59,586 --> 00:48:03,339
more than anything else in this world."
525
00:48:03,423 --> 00:48:05,842
"Yours forever, Tom."
526
00:48:51,095 --> 00:48:54,807
At the village of Oradour-sur-Glane,
527
00:48:54,891 --> 00:48:57,352
the day the soldiers came,
528
00:48:57,435 --> 00:49:02,607
They killed more than
600 men, women and children.
529
00:49:05,818 --> 00:49:07,904
Remember.
60557
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