01x04 - Second World w*r

[bunniefuu]

We've all seen the pictures and read
the stories in the history books

about the Kings and Queens with
their power and privilege

and silks and furs.

But in this series, I want to
discover the other side of history.

I'm already quite nervous.

The side we don't often hear about -

how ordinary British people
lived their lives.

From the Tudors...

You'll see
why it did attract my attention.

Disgusting!

...to the Victorians...

Throw a stone in Victorian London,
you will hit a drunken cab man.

There's that many of them.
We are not amused.

From the Georgians...

You take a saw. Oh, my God.

It's horrible,
just seeing you do that.

...to the people who really fought
the Second World w*r.

James could hear the ping of b*ll*ts
and the clatter of shrapnel.

One thing's for sure, these people
knew the meaning of the word tough.

I'll be finding the truth
about their daily lives.

What they ate...

How long would that have lasted?
Up to three years.

Ugh!
..how they made a living...

There's even value in a rat,
when it's dead.

...and those vital necessities
of life.

What did you do if you wanted a pee?
Go in the bucket.

The bucket? This is British history,
from the bottom up.

You've got to admit,
I am terrifying.

The Nazis were the most terrifying
enemies

in one of the nastiest wars
in history.

But taking them on wasn't
just down to men like him.

Britain fought the Second World w*r
with a bunch of ordinary

office workers, grocers, bakers,
and housewives.

We know the result,
but what was it really like

for ordinary Britons caught up
in it all?

Most of the people who still
remember the Second World w*r

were only children at the time.

But even though they were just kids,
a lot of them

still have vivid memories of
having to seek shelter

because their country was under
brutal attack.

AIR-RAID SIREN

In 1940, eight-year-old Babs Clark
and her family found themselves

in the thick of it all,
in London's East End.

So, what did Babe's mum do?

She grabbed the kids
and headed for the countryside.

Bye- bye.

Thousands of parents had
the same idea.

Nearly a million schoolchildren
were packed off to the country.

Babs and her mum
and sister Jean ended up in Torquay.

It was amazing.

They had a small cottage on a
farm...

...and went to a local school.

Best of all, they could play
on the beach every day,

safe from the bombs.

Or so they thought.

Babs, now in her eighties,

still remembers one particular
incident like it was yesterday.

There was a couple of planes
coming in from the sea,

and I was saying to my sister,

"I wonder what they are, jean?"

And it was two Messerschmitts,

and they machine-gunned the beach
we were on.

Course, we came home full of it,
telling my mum,

and I won't say the actual words
my mum said,

but in other words it was, "So and
so that for a game of soldiers -

"we're going back to London.
I'd rather have the bombs

"coming down than the bloody
Germans machine-gunning my kids!"

Babs and her mum and sister
hot-footed it

back to the family home
in Bethnal Green.

Which was yours? This one.

So, when you got back to London,
what was your house like?

It was all right, apart from the
fact we had to have a tarpaulin

over the roof.

Cos the roof had got
blown off during the Blitz.

And you still lived there?
Oh, yeah, yeah, course you did.

The family's unscheduled break
in Torquay may well have

saved their lives.

And after Hitler had had his way
with the East End,

it was even more fun than the beach.

If, well, a little dangerous.

More of a problem for growing kids
was food.

The Government was keen to make sure
nothing got wasted.

To make sure Britain didn't run out,

the amount of food everybody could
eat was rationed.

And every time you wanted
to buy something,

you got a stamp in this,
your ration book.

For Babs' mum,
it was a right old drag...

"Stuff this for a game of soldiers!"

...and provided for only
a limited menu.

This is what Babs would have been
allowed in her rations.

A couple of pints of milk,
some sugar, little bit of cheese,

some jam, some marge, some lard.

One egg and some egg powder.

This much meat and a few sweets.

It would make a lovely meal,
wouldn't it?

But it had to last Babs
a whole week.

The Government was full of useful
advice on how to make

everything go further.

But there was one thing that
wasn't in short supply for Babs

and her family - greens.

We... Hate... Spinach!

We had our allotment
and we grew a lot of veg,

and our allotment was in there.

My dad used to be quite proud
of that allotment,

what things he grew.

Yeah.

What did your mum make you?

Stew, we used to have a lot of
stews.

After tea, as night fell,
Babs and her mum and sister would

head down to the newly built
Bethnal Green Tube station.

East-Enders depended
on the underground as the best place

to hide from Hitler's bombs.

My mum got a bunk down here for us.

A bunk?

Yeah, it was a three-tier bunk.
Bottom, middle and top.

There was loads of space

because the rails hadn't yet been
laid in the new station.

But it's surprising the bunks
didn't collapse,

they'd been assembled
by Boy Scouts from a flat-pack.

How far down that tunnel did
you used to sleep?

I wouldn't like to say how
many yards,

but it was a good 10, 15 minute
walk. Really?

It was quite a way down.

And you didn't feel claustrophobic?

No, no. I mean, you had the bunks
either side and the walkway

in the middle, and I think it was
because we knew so many people,

my mum would stop and talk to them
and you got to your bunk in the end.

What did you do if you wanted a pee?

Go in the bucket. The bucket?

Yeah, they had buckets, every so far
along, with a curtain round it.

Very smelly.

Apart from the smell,
it all sounds rather jolly.

It was like an underground town.

With a library, doctor's surgery...

Say "ah".

...and a hall for weddings
or parties.

Every time a soldier came home,
they had a jolly shindig.

Did you feel safe here?

Yeah. But there again, you see,
I had my mum and my sister,

so I felt safe cos I was with them.

I wonder if you left anything
down there? Bit of chewing gum.

I stuck it on one of the walls.

Could still be there, couldn't it?
I reckon it still is there, yeah.

But the fun was about
to come to a juddering halt,

as, once again,
the realities of w*r hit home.

On 3rd March 1943, an incident
took place at Bethnal Green,

which, in moments, became
a major tragedy.

Coming up...
Disaster in the Underground,

and Babs' family are caught up
in the panic and turmoil...

There were
so many people down the stairs,

they were all falling on top 'em.

...and the young office boy

who left his fiancee and dad
for the front line.

In London's East End,
during the Second World w*r,

people like eight-year-old
Babs Clark

depended on the London Underground
for their survival.

But one evening in 1943,

something truly tragic happened
at Bethnal Green Tube.

It was a rainy night,
the air-raid siren went off at 8:17,

people started coming down into
the Tube, as they always did.

But at that moment,
anti-aircraft g*ns began to start

firing in Victoria Park,
just over the road there.

So more and more people came down.

And it was very dark,
they'd only got one light

because of the blackout.

And there weren't handrails here
then, like there are now.

And all the steps were
really slippy.

And a woman tripped over
with her son, and some old chap

fell on top of them and more
and more people kept pressing down

until they were right up to the
ceiling, crushing each other.

Although Babs survived, many didn't.

A memorial next to
Bethnal Green Tube station,

erected surprisingly recently,

in 2017, marks the worst British
civilian disaster in World w*r ll.



What do you remember
about that night?

I know I got pushed and I fell over
something, and somebody fell on me.

There were so many people
down the stairs, they were all

falling on top of them,
and I just heard my sister saying,

"Oh, don't pull me out yet,
I've got my little sister here."

And with that, whoever it was
pulled the pair of us out.

Didn't know what had happened
to my mum.

And my sister was going round asking

if people had seen anything of our
mum, which they hadn't, and then

an air-raid warden said to her,

"Go in that room,
she might be in there."

jean went in there,
and it was all dead bodies

she had to look at
to see if our mum was there.

Luckily, Babs' mum had survived.

And the next day,
life went on as usual.

She still got us up the next
morning, for me to go to school.

And the headmaster was in assembly,
and he said, "There's been

"a bad accident at Bethnal Green
Tube station."

And he said, "Any of you children
that were in it, you can

"go home for the day."

Well, half the school come home with
us! They all marched out!

Did you ever use that shelter again
or was it closed down?

Oh, no, we used it
the following night.

Babs and her family just kept calm
and carried on.

The German bombing campaign
deliberately set up to

undermine our morale,

but, talking to Babs, I get a real
sense of the conviction

and determination that was shared
by almost everyone.

And I reckon it was that, as much
as anything, that got us through.

Many, though,
faced a different kind of danger.

Hundreds of thousands of ordinary
young men were learning

how to fight and to k*ll.

James Palmer was one of them.

James Palmer lived
in Hulme, Manchester with his dad.

He was very larky,
very jokey as a lad.

"Oh, by 'eck,
do you think they're impressed?!

"I should flipping well hope so!
Very good, what's next?"

By 1939, he was working
as an office boy in a garage.

He spent a lot of time
with his girlfriend Muriel.

And he was just about to turn 21.

James's birthday was on July 1st.

But it was a slightly glum affair.

w*r was on the horizon
and young men between the ages of 20

and 22 were being recruited by the
Government to boost Army numbers.

James must have opened his birthday
cards with mixed feelings.

Especially as one of the cards
wasn't a card at all.

It was his call-up notice.

Within two weeks, James was being
seen off at the station

by his girlfriend and his dad.

James's parting from his father was
emotional for both men.

His dad had served in the First w*r

and had seen the horrors
of the b*ttlefield first-hand.

And when his wife had died, he'd
devoted himself to looking after

his son - and now
he was going to have to let him go.

He must have been worried sick.

He knew all about w*r.

James wrote in his diary
on the day he left...

Muriel was in tears,
clinging to my arm.

Dad turned away as she kissed me.

A lump in my throat prevented me
from saying much.

I was on my way
to God knows where or what.

Where James was actually headed
was Warminster,

to join the 13th Tank Regiment.

On his first day, James was
presented with loads of stuff.

I'm meeting Alex Jones,
a w*r veteran and Army historian,

to find out more.

So he would suddenly have been
responsible for all this?

Absolutely. As soon as he arrived,
he would have been given

a kit bag in the QM Stores.

And, of course, if the Army gives
someone kit and equipment,

you know there's going to be
inspections coming up.

He'd have had to have bulled
his boots, he would have had to

have pressed his kit,
he would have had to have blancoed

the webbing as well, so given it
this kind of nice green protective

layer, which all the soldiers
thought was utterly pointless.

"Don't say a word,
absolute silence."

So, this is what his set-up would
have been like.

He's not real, by the way.
Just in case you were wondering.

He'd have had a cupboard like this,
with all his stuff in it,

and his uniforms laid out.

And he'd have had
a regulation blanket,

everything shipshape,
all out there for the world to see.

But amidst all this boysy jollity,
James met the corporal in charge.

Jock - a regular soldier.

On the first night,
the lights go out, darkness,

you're supposed to go to sleep.

But some of the recruits
keep on talking, and Jock tells them

to shut up. But they don't - in
fact, they're talking even louder.

And Jock goes...

IN SCOTTISH ACCENT: "When I tell you
to do something, you do it!"

And it goes completely silent.

And then one of the recruits
says, "Get stuffed!"

And then all hell breaks loose -
Jock grabs him

and punches him straight in the
face, and knocks him out cold.

Welcome to the w*r, James.

But it wasn't only this
mouthy private

who got a rude shock from Army life.

James and the new soldiers like him

were complete fishes out of water,
weren't they?

They really were, cos
they didn't have any prior military

training, maybe the only experience
they had were the stories maybe

from their fathers.
We know james's father

was a veteran of the Somme, for
example.

Yeah. What would his training have
been?

Well, James, when he first turned
up, would have undertaken



It also would have consisted
of anti-gas training.

The Army was very
concerned about the gas threats.

Behind you, there is a pretty
fearsome-looking instrument.

Presumably he would have been
trained on that?

Yes, this is the Vickers machinegun,

which would have been the standard
armament in a lot

of British light tanks at the start
of the w*r.

James recounts when he first
gets his chance to sh**t on a

live range, he's so excited he just
fires off all the rounds at once.

He's going, "Blam, blam, blam, blam,
blam," forever and ever?

Well, no, because all he has, given
the cuts to training allowances,

is 20 rounds to practise with.

Which, at about 500 rounds a minute,

meant that James would be out
of a*mo

in, ooh, about two seconds.

"Oh."

Perhaps because of his enthusiasm,

James was assigned to be a gunner
on a tank.

Then in late May 1940,
the call finally came.

James was going to fight in France.

He was given 48 hours leave
and then, he was off.

He spent his last day in Britain
with his girlfriend, Muriel,

and his father,
before heading across the Channel.

When he landed, the German army was
only a few miles away,

and his tank troop soon found itself
under attack.

As we topped the rise, anti-tank
g*ns hit us from the right flank.

Four of our tanks were ablaze
before we had gone ten yards.

We were sitting ducks.

It was sheer m*rder.

I saw some men running
amongst the trees,

with their clothes burning
like torches.

Men were dragging their pals through
the mud,

away from the burning tanks,

and the smell of burning flesh
was catching my throat.

James crouched, and he could hear
the ping of b*ll*ts,

and the clatter of shrapnel.

But his tank driver pressed on and
on, through the hailstorm of fire,

and eventually he reached
the other side of the valley.

Their first action had been
a disaster, though.

Only 4 of the 25 lads
in james's troop were still alive.

Soon, his regiment was
desperately retracing the path

back to the coast
as they Army retreated via Dunkirk.

They were off back to Blighty
almost as soon as they'd left.

James returned to Manchester and
proposed to Muriel.

She said yes.

But now James had a w*r to win.

He'd be in some of its most crucial
battles before life would

return to anything like normal,

and he and his new fiance, Muriel,
could finally tie the knot.

Coming up...
The truck-driving grocer's daughter

who rubbed shoulders with royalty.

Little did she know, though,

what use her driving skills
would be, once the w*r started.

And life under German occupiers
in the Channel Islands.

They had fixed bayonets and
they went through the toy basket,

under the bed - wicker toy basket -

and it went right through
my panda bear's stomach.

For many ordinary Brits, taking
on Hitler's fearsome w*r machine

demanded a brazen response.

And women especially
suddenly found themselves doing

all sorts of things
they'd never imagined doing.

Women like Eileen Heron.

In 1939, Eileen was 23,
but she still lived at home

because she worked for her family's
grocery business in Folkestone,

where she served behind the counter
and drove the delivery van.

Eileen was a bit of a pioneer.

When she was only 20, she'd
been among the first women to take

the newly introduced driving test.

Little did she know, though,

what use her driving skills
would be, once the w*r started.

Just three months into it,


the Auxiliary Territorial Service,
or ATS - the women's infantry.

And Eileen decided to do her bit,
and join them.

The Army welcomed her
with an armful of jabs...

"Just a scratch! Agh!"

"from a needle already blunted
by the other recruits.

She shared a freezing Nissen hut
with around 20 other women,

but at least they could help
each other take their medicine...

...before settling down on a lumpy
mattress.

"Oh, night-night."

I wonder if Eileen regretted
her decision

as she sat in her freezing-cold
barracks.

There was 3 feet of snow
on the ground

and, OK, the recruits were given a
bucket of coal a day, but one bucket

was hardly going to make any impact
at all in a tin building.

At the end of the first week, she
trudged all the way to the nearest

town for a hot bath at the swimming
pool and a nice cup of cocoa.

But getting used to un-sumptuous
living conditions was the easy bit.

Eileen was in the Army now,

and there was a whole new world
of pain to embrace.

For the new recruits,
training was intense and relentless.

From the shrill sound
of the bugle at 6am...

The whole day was a long
list of drills...

...physical exercises,
and skills training.

And all for a measly


two-thirds of what a man
of the same rank would have got.

But Eileen was special,
she was a high-value recruit

because she had
something the Army needed -

she could drive a truck.

So-called Tilly trucks were used
as anything from ambulances

to carriers of vital military
equipment.

And I'm having a go on one.

The clutch and the accelerator
and the braking is great,

but the steering - phwoar.

Oh! It leaves lot to be desired
compared with today's cars.

Every time I go round a corner,
I feel it in my biceps.

But these were brilliant vehicles,
they were so adaptable,

real dogsbodies vehicles.

But the downside was that they were
very bumpy and uncomfortable.

I'm having a great time, but I'm
only doing it for one morning.

Eileen had to do it
month after month.

Poor old Eileen,
she must have been knackered.

In fact, she called it her
wretched Tilley.

That was a really good drive. It was
nice and simple, you know, there's

only sort of four or five little
things to push and pull on it.

But the vis is not very good at all,

it must have been very
difficult at night.

Absolutely, and especially
because of the blackouts.

Headlights would have been just
a glimmer of light

coming from that,
and obviously the threat of invasion

was at its height, so all of the
signposts have all been taken down.

So you'd have to rely on map reading
and knowing where they were going.

Juliette Pattinson is
an historian of the ATS.

She knows all about everyday life
for women like Eileen.

Well, they're in barracks,

so they're going to be having mass
catering,

hearty, nutritious meals that
could be feeding hundreds of people.

They actually got better rations
than the ordinary civilian,

but... So I think she would have
been well fed.

And the rest of the time
when she wasn't working?

She worked long hours,
but she would always have time off,

and they would go to the cinema,
there would always be

dances on a Saturday, women
were very much in demand at the

local Army barracks, so I think
they played hard and worked hard.

There's lots of nice accounts, where
women talk about wearing

a bit of lipstick, wearing
non-regulation underwear, cos

nobody's going to notice they're not
wearing their khaki pants.

Um, so there are opportunities
for these women to individualise

the muddy green/grey dull uniform.

There was a slogan that
beauty is a duty too.

So you have these manufacturers,

whether it's of toothpaste
or breakfast cereal or shampoo,

and it would be very much, you know,
the woman in the ATS, like Eileen,

who would be applying a particular
kind of face cream, for example.

There was this expectation
that women would pay attention

to their appearance,

because actually it would have
a knock-on effect on male morale.

I bet if I said to you
beauty is a duty too now,

you'd smack me in the nose!

I'm not going to answer
that question!

Eileen might not have enjoyed
driving her Tilly very much,

but she was obviously pretty good
at it because soon, she was made a

driving instructor and was promoted
to the rank of Lance Corporal.

This meant she now
had 25 trainees under her,

and a lot more responsibility.

Under Eileen,
hundreds of women learned to drive

and maintain motorbikes,
ambulances and trucks,

helping the w*r effort
to smash the Nazis.

But she was about to experience
something even more exciting.

PHONE RINGS

One day, Eileen was ordered to go
to her commandant's office,

and he told her a secret.

Apparently, a new subaltern,
which was the equivalent of a second

lieutenant, was going to be working
alongside her and her friends.

But this was no ordinary subaltern.

Her name was Princess Elizabeth.

Eileen and Princess Elizabeth were

soon mending the Tilly trucks
together.

By day, Subaltern Elizabeth
mucked in with the other girls,

but at night
she turned back into a princess

and went to sleep in her castle.

OWL HOOTS

Eileen wrote at the time that the
Princess was "quite striking.

"Pretty with lovely eyes
and a charming smile."

But more
celebrities were about to appear.

One day, King George VI
and his wife turn up to have a

look at exactly what it is
their daughter, Princess Elizabeth,

is doing, and it's,
it's all pomp and circumstance.

Until suddenly, King George leans
under the bonnet,

starts fiddling away with the
engine, Lord knows what he's doing.

"One wonders what this bit does?"

Elizabeth's panicking, everyone else
is laughing, then Elizabeth

gets HER hands out and says,
"Look, Dad, they're all oily."

Everyone seems to have seen
the funny side.

Eileen later wrote that,

"The Queen was very interested
to see who these girls were,

"consorting with her elder daughter.

"And the King was absolutely
charming."

The visit was filmed at length

and became a very effective piece
of wartime propaganda.

For most ordinary people at that
time, the King and Queen had become

powerful symbols of the kind of
country that they were fighting for.

So, when their daughter, Princess
Elizabeth was seen amongst them,

mucking in, getting her hands dirty,

it must've sent
a really powerful message.

When the Nazis finally
threw in the towel,

Victory in Europe was celebrated
with a party to end all parties.

Eileen and the other women
of the ATS let rip outside

Buckingham Palace.

And even Princess Elizabeth snuck
out incognito

to gate-crash the party.

Four years before those joyful
celebrations,

it had only been that
bit of muddy water

we call the English Channel
that held the n*zi foe at bay.

But some rather unlucky Brits
didn't even have that.

It's easy to forget that over 60,000
British people lived under

n*zi control
here in the Channel Islands...

"from June 1940
all the way through to 1945.

The German invaders were excited
to have claimed a little

piece of Britain.
I suppose that, for them,

compared to fighting, say, on the
Russian front...

♪ Hello, sunshine, hello, sky... ♪

...it was almost a holiday.

But not so for the locals.

"Just keep walking."

There may not have been any
fighting,

but the very feeling of being

British, and any connection with
Britain was under attack.

Can you imagine what life would have

been like here
during the German occupation?

Wouldn't have been a lot of happy,
smiling faces, I can tell you that.

One ordinary Briton, Hubert Lanyon,

was the only baker on the small
island of Sark, just off Guernsey.

He lived there
with his wife and four kids,

including five-year-old Maisie.

I just remembered being told,
oh, the Germans are coming,

the Germans are coming, and then
when they arrived, they marched,

and they used to sing...
beautiful songs, and it just echoed

all around the island. It was really
lovely to hear them singing.

And of course,
we were a bit apprehensive,

but once we got to know them, the
ordinary soldier was quite friendly.

But, for Hubert, the new regime
changed everything overnight.

He even had to share his baker's
oven with the Germans.

They had half the week
and he had half the week and, as w*r

went on, the provisions came from
France. The flour was terrible

quality, it was full of bits
of wood...

"stones, and rat droppings.

To make things worse,
the departing British Army had taken

a lot of the Channel Islands'
food supplies with it.

And there wasn't much left.

We could manage to grow vegetables
which was, you know, a saving grace.

We didn't have meat, we
didn't have much meat, just rabbit.

But, er, whatever animal was k*lled
had to be shared

with the Germans,
the Germans had their proportion,

and there was so much left
for the islanders. Yeah.

So the local people started
to think outside the box,

and go in search of new culinary
experiences.

II

The beach was awash with seaweed,
which they harvested

and boiled up to make jelly.

It wasn't too bad, if it was
flavoured with blackberries

or frankly anything
they could lay their hands on.

As time went by, the food shortages
got worse and worse.

The fishermen were only allowed
to go about a mile out to sea

because the Germans were frightened
that they would run away.

Basic commodities like soap began
to disappear off the shelves.

What little there was
was reserved for newborn babies.

Moss replaced cotton wool
in the hospitals.

Some people said they couldn't
recognise their friends

and colleagues in the street
cos they'd grown so thin.

Even the Germans were hungry.

When it came towards
the end of the w*r,

they shot cats, they ate cats.
The Germans?

Yes, we saw them go up the lane
with our cat strung on their belt.

You're kidding. Our cat was on his
belt, they'd...they'd shot it.

That must have been awful for a little
girl to see that. It was terrible.

Maisie's father Hubert decided
to make a stand.

In June 1942,
the Germans had confiscated

the radios on the island and, now
people couldn't even get the news.

So Hubert joined a secret
organisation,

defiantly named g*ns -

the Guernsey

Underground

News Service.

Because it was all so secret,
no-one knew very much about it.

But...

This building is now
the Priaulx Library,

and it's here that I reckon
I am going to find the evidence

I need about what Maisie's dad was
doing in the w*r.

Historian Gilly Carr has found
some of the news sheets that the

resistance group published.

Oh, look, there's V for Victory.

g*ns and V for Victory.

These are original copies, and
as you can see, they're typed out

on tomato packing paper,
which is really thin.

And if you were caught with one of
these, you would have been arrested?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yes.

So what was it that Maisie's dad
actually did on this newspaper?

He was the distributor
of g*ns in Sark.

He had a little library
at the back of the bakery, and

so he would take a newsletter and
put it inside a book in the library

so people would come along and
browse in the library and, you know.

But apparently there were even
German soldiers who knew about it,

but stayed silent cos they also
wanted to have the real news.

But not everyone could be trusted
to keep a secret.

Some islanders were prepared
to trade information for food,

even at the risk of having their
houses daubed with the swastika.

One day, acting on a tip-off,
the Germans came to the Lanyons'

house, searching for Hubert
and his newsletters.

They had fixed bayonets and they
went through the toy basket

under the bed - wicker toy basket -

and it went right through my panda
bear's stomach.

That's outrageous!

THEY CHUCKLE

But it wasn't long
before they found her dad.

They beat him up and knocked teeth
out and, and he was...he was

unconscious for a while, and then
they hauled him off, hands behind

his back and holding his hair and
pulling...and he went past our door

with all the family standing on the
doorstep, and he just looked at us

and I suppose he thought,
"When will I ever see them again?"

Can you remember
what YOU were thinking?

Well, I just thought
they were being cruel to my daddy.

Was your mum able to explain to you
what was going on?

She didn't know where he was
for a month.

We thought he'd been taken to
concentration camp and perhaps shot.

Then the family discovered
Hubert was alive

and in prison on the island.

Maisie's mum pleaded
for his release,

saying that the islanders were
desperate for him to bake bread.

After four months in prison,
he was released.

But five others involved in the free
paper were deported to Germany,

where two of them died in prison.

I consider my father was
lucky to come home to us. Sure.

And I do still feel very sorry for
the people whose lives were lost.

Of course, there's no doubt
that Hubert was a very brave man,

But it does make me wonder

what I would have done in a similar
situation.

Would I have resisted,
knowing that it could put my family

and my neighbours in jeopardy?

Or would I just have gone
about my business

and kept my head down
til the end of the w*r?

I really don't know.

Coming up... Over-sexed, overpaid,
and over here.

Britain is invaded
by swaggering American soldiers.

Can one young Englishwoman find
lasting love in wartime?

In the Second World w*r,
victory against the Nazis

depended on an event that happened
far away, on the other side

of the world, on the peaceful
Pacific islands of Hawaii.

In December 1941,
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,

and forced the United States
into the w*r.

BUGLE PLAYS

The cavalry had arrived.

And very quickly, our little island
was swarming with Americans.

One and a half million of them
were either stationed here or

stopped off here on their way
to Germany.

This development had a decisive
impact on the course of the w*r

and meant a heck of a lot to the
Brits who worked with them, fought

with them or, as was often the case,
fell in love with the American Gls.

Joy Beebe would be one of them.

But back in 1941, before the Gls
arrived, she was just 16,

and a love affair was the last thing
on her mind.

Joy soon became her family's
only wage earner

and had to support her mother
and two younger brothers.

She'd catch the train before half
seven each day, when it was cheaper.

But instead of leaves
or snow on the line,

there was the threat of blown-up
bridges or unexploded shells.

She had a boring job
at the Inland Revenue in the city,

typing letters to people
who hadn't paid their tax.

Joy lived for her daily break.

CUCKOO

Best time of day was the lunch hour.

And I could walk in the gardens
of the Tower of London.

At the end of each day, she'd catch
the train home before night fell

and the bombing started once again.

Supper could be an omelette, made
from powdered egg, or if there was

nothing else available, there was
the sinister threat of whale meat.

In the evenings,
they'd listen to jazz

or popular songs
on the record player...

...or tune in to Winston Churchill,
for a bit of courage.

We will mete out to the Germans
more than the measure

they have meted out to us.

APPLAUSE

At weekends, Joy and her friends
glammed up and hit the dance hall -

the Embassy Ballroom in Bexley.

Newly reopened after
the worst of the Blitz.

It was really a nice place.
It was a big dance hall.

And they had a nice band.

It was also a popular haunt
for American Gls.

Of course, that drew
a lot of girls that

wanted to come here
and dance with the soldiers.

But these American boys were
supposed to be

on their best behaviour.
Just look at this.

This is the little book
they all had to read -

Instructions For American
Servicemen In Britain, 1942.

Issued by the US w*r Department.

"The purpose of this guide is to
start getting you acquainted

"with the British, their country,
and their ways."

It goes on to give
lots of handy advice.

"The British are often more
reserved in conduct than we.

"So, if Britons sit in trains
or buses without striking up

"conversation with you,
it doesn't mean

"they are being haughty and
unfriendly.

"Probably they are paying more
attention to you than you think.

"But they don't speak to you

"because they don't want to appear
intrusive or rude."

And there's another one here,
I really like this.

"Keep out of arguments.

"You can rub a Britisher the wrong
way by telling him,

" 'we came over
and won the last one.' "

I don't think they'd like that.

And most importantly,

"Don't be a show-off.

"The British 'Tommy' is apt to
be specially

"touchy about the difference
between his wages and yours.

"Keep this in mind."

Actually the British Tommy
was MOST likely to be worried about

the thought of the GI running off
with his wife or the girl next door.

And to be quite honest,
he was probably right to be.

As one British comedian famously put
it, the Yanks were "oversexed,

"overpaid and over here".

But the GI that Joy met in September


How did you first meet Carl?

He was brought to the Embassy
ballroom

by the other guys in the unit.

They said, "You should come
and meet this girl."

His name was Carl Beebe.

He was not so laughing and joking

and all that kind of thing,
like the others were.

You know, he didn't tell me
that the streets of New York

were paved with gold.

Carl was stationed here,
at the stately home, Hall Place,

two miles from Joy's house.

He worked for US Army Intelligence,

intercepting encoded
messages from n*zi High Command.

Soon Carl asked Joy out,
and they hit it off.

They'd go for walks in the park
near where she lived.

He was always bringing me flowers
or something.

For Easter, he picked a whole
bunch of daffodils.

After 3 months of courting,
Carl proposed.

But arranging a wedding in wartime
required, let's say, special skills.

How did you get a dress this nice
in the middle of the w*r?

You'd have to ask my brother.

How he got it through some friends
of his or people he knows,

I don't know.

So, you're saying it was off the
black market, really, aren't you?

I believe that it was
the black market, yes.

Did you get married in a church?
Yes, I did.

A very much damaged church.

The roof was out, and the rain
and the snow was coming through.

They'd had little pots on the floor
to catch the water

and you could hear the water
dinging into the pots.

The Second World w*r had bought Joy
and Carl together,

and they eventually made
the journey to America together

with their young son.

The w*r created huge rifts
between countries,

which took decades to heal,

so it's nice to hear some
stories of romance coming out of all

that chaos. For joy, at least,
and for others like her,

the w*r did have a silver lining.

The Second World w*r was
the people's w*r,

and for many Britons,

its triumphant end remains
one of our country's finest hours.