Know Your Ally: Britain

that game wasn't won by the man who made that touchdown it was won by a team and every man on the team had a share in winning it we're playing another kind of a game now only this one isn't for fun it's for keeps this game of the won by any single player either it'll be won by a team that team called the United Nations the ball will be carried by the men in the backfield tough little guy from China Big Joe Russia John Britain and a guy called yank the four greatest banks in the world so let's take a look at the men who carry the ball with us who are they how do they live what makes them tick let's start with the one that's toughest to understand the one we know just enough about to confuse us John Brennan here's where he lives a little island no larger than the state of Idaho half a million people live in Idaho ninety six times that many live in Britain the matches and the Japs scream about Lebensraum living space but there are more people on a square mile of Britain and a square mile of Germany or Italy or Japan more congestion and practically any place on earth except the New York subway or a sardine can and that's a clue that explains a lot about John Britain we build front porches on our houses because we didn't want to miss the chance to see our neighbors but John Britain hides himself in a little box and plants a hedge around that to make sure he doesn't living that close to neighbours privacy as part of the pursuit of happiness and in the sardine can called Britain they learned to get on with their neighbors they have to he's too damn close that's why they have so little crime in but believe it or not even in wartime the British cop does not carry a gun nor does the professional crook and in 1926 when the world heard of this stoppage of work in Britain that industry transportation the whole light of the country had been paralyzed by a general strike it was still more surprise next day to learn that the strikers were playing football with the cops you can only understand that if you live in a sardine can the second clue to this guy on our team know part of Britain is more than a hundred miles from the sea every day for hundreds of years years of peace and years of war John Britain the seen ships sailed from his island to the seven seas that means that whenever John Britain wants to bust out of this sardine can it's the sea that gets him he's been busting up for hundreds of years and that led to Australia South Africa New Zealand Canada and for that matter the United States of America out of John Britton get on remember 1938 the Yankees won the pennant wrong-way Corrigan the last change land the sixth Avenue L well John Britton got excited about the same sort of thing the bet he ham the Derby or as he would say the dolly his job his kids getting his exercise on his day off Preston North End taking the football only 300 miles away people were cheering another kind of event and in London and every other British city in town they read about what was going on in Europe and they got sore about it but they were also pretty well determined to keep it none of their business then this looked at the checks had a mutual assistance pact with France and France had won the Britain this might mean war even though everyone was anxious to avoid it they've been through one more perhaps been wounded hundreds of thousands of their brothers and friends had been killed there was nothing beautiful to them about war and they had no desire for another and last desperate ever to preserve peace the Prime Minister today flew to Munich all as well Britain France Italy and Germany were signing a pact at Munich the tract in which the Germans agreed they'd have no further territorial claims to make it was to be peace in our time but it turned out to be a strange sort of peace Hitler's first move was to break the pet pian sign wishful thinking was ended now they knew something had to be done about Germany they approved the conscription act the first peacetime conscription in British history just as the Selective Service Act was the first in American history the British have put their cards on the table they had an effect said to Hitler that's enough you go into Poland we'll fight Hitler smile like other would-be conquerors of Britain Philip of Spain Napoleon Kaiser Wilhelm he thought he understood the British he didn't the sleeping lion began to wake up he was a pretty drowsy lion for the first six months of the war he snapped and growled got more elite facts the hope that common sense would return to the German people that they would throw out Hitler in the German warlords instead dawn this morning the German army is without warning invaded the neutral countries of Luxembourg Holland and Belgium the king of the Belgians today surrendered his armies of more than half a million men Marshall Pitters French cheese estate as astronomers Miss su in France has ended Britain was alone czechoslovakia occupied Poland defeated Denmark gone Norway gun Holland Belgium France gun only Britain now written this alone Hitler considered the war over everybody considered the war over except the British at the eleventh hour the lion was finally around our island whatever the cost may be we shall fight on beaches landing grounds in fusion streets and on the hills we shall never surrender for a year they took everything that the Nazis control anthem for one solid year from June 1940 to June of 1941 they were the only major power fighting the greatest war machine in the world they took body blow after body blow solid punches before they even had their guard up all they did was take it on the chin and hang on to the ropes they never went down and while they buried their dead they prepared grimly and defiantly for the day when they could strike back there were no victories to cheer them on just defeat after defeat some heroic like the beaches of Dunkirk more like the hills of Greece where British soldiers landed to keep their pledge of Honor the Greek people and knowing they were facing overwhelming odds but some less glorious Hong Kong and Singapore and Brahma but through all these long months the British people were thinking and planning and working only for the day when they themselves to take the offensive and that day came it was the British that made the Germans realized that war could be brought to German soil too day after day night after night the offensive continues in greater and greater strength that's in the air and on the ground 1,500 miles away in North Africa 1,700 miles in 122 days 1,700 miles of sand and wind and enemies that's more the people of Britain heard their church bells ring more than three years earlier they had been warned that this would be the signal of invasion but wrong sinks the nightmare of the threat of invasion of pass now the bells rang out a song Thanksgiving a song of victory now there's the plain and simple truth about Britain but the follow the clause of signals on the axis team knows his only chance of winning is to split our team up so his team plays a game at which they'd had a lot of practice a game which has conquered half a dozen countries for them a game called divide and conquer men like these tell the British we aren't taking the war seriously they tell the Russians we are letting them down they tell them beliefs the Russians will sell them out and they tell us it is manifestly ridiculous for the war monger Roosevelt to tell the American people that they have anything in common with the British on the contrary they are different in every respect well there are differences that's true for instance we drive on the right side of the road but in Britain we go for baseball they have a little number called cricket everybody please and anyone who ever drank coffee over there knows why there'll always be an England use your coffee all right sir give mr. Glasner off now have you heard about it boys give us know the Glasser mark now Bobby you de thought it'd happen to poor old bill in another bloke here so I went into Sigma della put it back in buckets an hour's get the watch he let that bang and then shake off skis smaller piano fort works at this are they kidding jack wear the Kami nice prickly swish mouths mixed with celery tonic what are they all much so much with corn corn in their mouth you all can't understand a word they speak yes there are differences but there are a few things that Britain and America do have in common and these are the important things of life a little thing called a free representative government we call it Congress they call it patent a little thing called freedom of speech in the next floor you've not got to go to it there bring the water you another thing is if you take a tip from me going into the Dorchester because of trenches are just outside this meeting is called on the offer to the American workers party an organization dedicated to the organizing in the working class of America Needham of the press freedom of religion they may not be important to hit you but all these things are the common heritage of John Q public and John written 700 years ago of our ancestors fought for the Magna Carta no one will be deny or delay right or justice 300 years ago the petition of right no man shall be compelled to yield any tax without act of Parliament these principles came to our own country with the earliest set and from them developed Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble they may make gags about each other's accents but we speak the same language of freedom even during the American Revolution when we were at each other's source the Earl of Chatham was free to say about us to the British Parliament you cannot but respect their cause and wish to make it your own that is why in the heart of London alongside his great naval hero Nelson John Britain has cooked George Washington and in Parliament Square the most sacred spot in the British Commonwealth of Nations Abraham Lincoln of course Hitler doesn't like this kind of talk his job is to sell the British that we're a nation of money-grubbing gangsters well in the next studio he is selling us the idea that the British are gutless undos the John Q public and John Britain are entirely different all right Hitler where are these miners Wales or West Virginia these farmers Devon sure or Wisconsin these steel workers Sheffield or Pittsburgh these children American or British they live in lands which share the same hopes the same ideals and unlike the poor children of Germany in lands where the truth is free but let's not kid ourselves Britain is not the United States and the United States is not Britain for instance we don't go in for this kind of thing they do but there's no mystery about that remember our grandmother's house he was old-fashioned out-of-date patched and ordered to suit each new generation and filled with family relics even grandmother couldn't explain well John Britain has been living in his house for a long time and that's right of us who live in a modern house that we built ourselves to suit ourselves John Burton seems slow-moving and cluttered up with ancient traditions Kings for instance the present King rode to his coronation in the same coach to the same church for the same ceremony as his ancestors did but the job he took on is very different from theirs they Vincent changes me for the British King can no longer make laws or impose taxes or interfere with government he and his family work as hard as any other citizen doing the job that the people expected them the day the king is the servant of the people and not its ruler when an American is arrested and brought to trial the bailiff clauses case the People vs John Doe but if such a case were cloud and Britain it would be the King versus John Doe it means the same thing today the British king is the symbol of the people the British are great fans of the fellow in Buckingham Palace but when they sing god save the king they're not worrying about his health they mean God bless the British people and the Dukes and the Earl's but in 1911 the people took away the last remaining power of the Lord's to block the action of the people's representatives Dukes and Earls don't run the country anymore today there are only two people who do that John Britain and his wife they go to the polls just as mr. and mrs. John Q public do here and elect their representatives to the House of Commons and there they fix the taxes and make the laws and if John wanted to get rid of the Lord's his representatives in Commons can at any time vote them out of existence but John doesn't want to get rid of them so he confuses us by keeping Dukes and Lords in the country where unions have long been accepted as an essential part of the democratic system where the Labour Party controlled by the unions is one of the two great political parties where longshoremen and railroad engineers have been ministers of the crown and where for thirty years he has had a system of Social Security even more extensive than our own so when you read about Lord Louis Mountbatten or lobbied against former head of aircraft production don't think they got their jobs because of their touching they got them because they were the best men for the job just as Ernest Bevin formerly a Labour leader and now member of the War Cabinet Herbert Morrison who started life as an errand boy and is now a minister home security not their important jobs because they were the best men for them with the things on the surface the unimportant things there John Britain and our John Q public dinner but the important part of their lives they run the same way but democratically the freeway but this gentleman never bothered about the truth and when John Britain started carrying the war to Germany he tried a new line the Churchill only wages this war against the German people to save the British Empire all right let's take a look at that one here's the British Empire and here's where the Germans were headed when Britain does that look like trying to save the Empire cackling Germany when it was headed into Poland and toward Russia the one direction in which the were no British possessions after Poland fell Hitler hinted a peace with the British this was the perfect chance to save the Empire but it wasn't saving the Empire that the British were thinking about the position of His Majesty's Government in respect of any peace offer by Hitler we are not in any circumstances prepared to negotiate with him at any time on any subject when after Britain had been on the losing end month after month it had another chance to save the Empire even now Hitler thought John Britain would make a deal we heard the British answer what kind of people do they think we are is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget now let's take a look at this British Empire the freedom we fought for in 1776 Britain has since really given to Canada Australia New Zealand South Africa these are independent missions with their own Parliament their own laws even though our money systems there are tariffs which often work to Britain's disadvantage there are armies and navies Britain couldn't even take them in the world if she wanted that's a problem they settle for themselves each one of the British Commonwealth of Nations declared war on Germany of its own free will of course no one ever talks about the British Empire today without mentioning India and men of goodwill in Britain as well as other countries have been outspoken in their demands for Indian freedom for no man who believes in democracy can support foreign rule of any people but there are things that many of us do not know about India for instance that India pays no taxes to Britain either directly or indirectly that the Indians fix their own tariff laws frequently to Britain's disadvantage that of the viceroys Executive Council 11 of the 15 members are Indians and in the course 10 of every 11 judges furthermore that no Indian is ever conscripted for service in the Army and Navy it was voluntary enlistment that raised the indian army from a hundred and seventy thousand at the outbreak of war to a million and a quarter today and on the subject of India listen to the words of field marshal Yan Christian Smuts he fought against the British forty years ago was defeated in his fight and still became the leader of one of the British Commonwealth of Nations prime minister of South Africa India if she will can be free in the same way and by the same means as Canada Australia New Zealand are today free sovereign states their peoples worked out a constitution for themselves the same course is open to India if the peoples of India will agree about the terms of a free constitution freedom isn't a thing that can be imposed from without can only be created from within the Indians have a responsibility to reconcile the differences that exist in the vast Indian population with its hundred different languages its dozens of different religions and on March the 11th 1942 the British government placed itself on record and promised full self-government to India if India will work out a constitution that will satisfy his people after the war is over but during this war military leaders agree Allied troops are needed in India as an effective block by the Democratic world to keep the Nazis and Japs from uniting further India provides the basis for United Nations bombers to get at the chaps in Burma in other parts of the empire to democracy stands on God if it wasn't for the British in Gibraltar Malta Cyprus Suez Alexandria and they're hanging on to them regardless of the cost and their drive across Libya to Tripoli there would have been no American landing in North Africa there's another tune the Nazis play about the British Empire the British are sitting back letting others fight the war for them we know that tune very well Britain will fight to the last Australian or Canadian or New Zealanders the truth that thousands of Canadians and Australians and New Zealanders have gallantly thought and gallantly died in Crete in Greece in Libya but there's something the Nazi mouthpiece leaves out something pretty important out of every 10 inhabitants of the British Empire one comes from Britain but of the casualty suffered so far in this war seven out of ten were born and raised in Britain one of ten and population seven of ten in casualties and in the air of the planes flying with the two out of three are manned by fuels from the aisle and of the planes on the overseas fronts the Western Desert in Africa and the West four out of five a man and then there's a little thing called the British Navy from 1588 when it licked the Spanish Armada to 1940 then we got moving on a to ocean named the greatest battle fleet in the world that too is manned almost entirely by men above the little island in the Atlantic an island of seafarers and the British merchant may be still the greatest Merchant Navy in the world in spite of all that Hitler can do men from every British town and village in the stokke holes of 10,000 ships on ice-coated decks in grimy engine rooms men who have been torpedoed twice three times whereas when English sailor who's been torpedoed six times and still signed on again but we never hear about these things because of a curious character whose ways will never be completely understandable to an American John Britton himself he has an idea shouldn't talk about himself what he does he calls it bad form we call it damn silly he'd say of a Spitfire well she's not bad little kite but this man the boss of the German air force can tell us that the Spitfire has been the most deadly fighter in the world and we certainly need an interpreter when this happened however and he get it now all right all right except that he spent two days in the icy waters of the North Atlantic after being torpedoed on the way to Murmansk see this man his name is Witten Brown this man believe it or not is the first man who flew the Atlantic non-stop in 1919 eight years before anyone else he and John Alcock flew nonstop from Newfoundland to Ireland but as usual the British let it go at that and Whitin Brown went back into obscurity there's nothing wrong with John Britain that a correspondence course in showmanship wouldn't cure for a moment imagine that you're not American but British you'd still be in uniform for in Britain every man between the age of 18 and 41 unless he cannot be replaced at a battle workbench is already in uniform your old man - he's had the quick guessing about the last war so they're now starting to draft men up to fifty one dependents are no dependents if you've got yourself into this mess your death form will say thankfully sorry Olczyk but you're in the Army anyway and your kid sister if she isn't a sailor or in the Air Force or the land army or a ferry pilot or in the fire brigade she's probably in the army well they've drafted unmarried women up to 30 and even if she's married every woman after 31 can be drafted to work indoor plants and it's a real draft for 8 million workers men and women can't quit their jobs or be fired without government commission Riki is only 20 miles from German guns and German claims everybody man or women yaaaaah role is in the front line maybe this isn't your idea of britain the ads were different and you wondered whether they still made bows and arrows at the village forge the ads kept quiet about industry just as this one leaves out the aircraft plants and the oil fields well they have the rich green fields you've read about the quiet country lanes but they also have the steel mills of Sheffield the Pittsburgh of Britain they have the picturesque little villages the gently flowing streams the lovely old castles but they also have the shipyards of the River Clyde not as modern as Henry kaisers but still one of the greatest in the world they have the old cathedrals deathless reminders of a rich tradition but they also have the great industrial cities of Birmingham Glasgow Manchester leaves they seldom if ever saw an American tourist but they made Britain even in peacetime one of the greatest industrial powers in the world and in wartime even as late as July 19 for this little island no larger than the state of Idaho was making more war Goods than we were maybe you thought Sean Britain's sat there and waited for us to send him planes and guns and tanks well he's deeply grateful for what our lend-lease did for him it saved his skin when he was in a tough spot but today lend-lease works in more ways than one for today John Britton himself furnishes planes and guns and tanks through the same Renly's to us to Russia and his other allies all over the world in Britain alone our forces have received free from the British a million and a half tons of food clothing and munitions and two and a half million tons of other materials there's another thing you want to know about Britain if your unit gets sent there you probably won't be invited out for supper or for a drink that's not because the British don't want to entertain you they haven't anything to entertain you will Britain is mobilized for war total war and that means an end the civilian supplies if you were a Britisher you wouldn't expect your girl to use lipstick there isn't any except what we bring over as bait she wouldn't be smartly dressed for clothes a ration severely rationed it's very unlikely she wears stockings but if she bought a pair of stockings a month that would be all the clothes of any kind she could buy that's some rationing we think our gas rationing is tough but John Britain gets no gas at all he goes to a pub to buy a bottle of whiskey the pub keeper laughs in his face grain is needed for industrial alcohol industrial alcohol is needed from you nisshin's and nearly all the reserved stock of British whiskey is kept for sale to America to pay for the goods Britain buys here for don't forget besides lend-lease Britain buys and pays for vast quantities of goods and it was the cached purchases that Britain made before we entered the war it gave our munitions industry its start and enabled us to build it up in record time he goes to buy a pack of cigarettes there probably aren't any but if there are 2 shillings please that's 40 cents for a pack of cigarettes 12 cents represent the cost of the cigarettes the other 28 the tax paid to the government for Britain is going all out in taxation nobody is making any money out of this war industry is paying excess profits taxes 100 percent labour is paying the man who earns $33 a week pays 29 percent income tax and the rich man there are any of them left case an income tax of no less than 97 and a half percent and then there's the little matter of food there are not many fat men in England nowadays but John Britton isn't kicking he knows one egg a week is helping him to win the war the British rations are the rations of a free people they could get food as they did in peacetime from Canada Australia but that would take ships and the British prefer to use the ships for supplies to Russia planes from America troops to the Mediterranean to win the war every British sir is on short rations and has been on short rations for two years everybody except the children they get four times the eggs that grown-ups do they get all the oranges that arrived in Britain and practically all of the extra milk but John Britain is thinking of after the war of the new world that his children and ours will inherit a world weather will not only be freedom of speech and freedom of worship but also freedom from want and freedom from fear it is not given to us appear in to the mistress of the future a lie about my hope and a sure and inviolate but in the days to come the British and American people we for their own safety and for the board of all work together in majesty in justice and in peace this is what the British are fighting for there are no people are stubborn people and sometimes they have moved slowly but in three years of blood and sweat and tears John Burton has found his soul now he is tough now he is determined and now he knows where he is launching to victory and to a new world he's a good man to have on our team yeah

Channel: US National Archives

Views: 1,433,214

Keywords: US National Archives, NARA

Id: 2SOvr9fLHUM

Length: 42min 3sec (2523 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Fidelias_Palm]

One of my favorites, some serious unintentional comedy in there.

[u/DiNiCoBr]

I watched this, amazing historical source.

[u/Frankystein3]

These movies are great. Of course, they often state as fact some things which are debatable at best, such as the 'Tanaka memorial' for world domination and such, but still, pretty good. For anyone interested, they're called "Why we fight" by Frank Capra, they're on youtube and netflix.

[u/CuntfaceMcgoober]

They should do one of these for Ukraine

Ceterum censeo Sirmium delenda est