London Can Take It! (1940)

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I'm speaking from London.

It is late afternoon, and the people
of London are preparing for the night.

Everyone is anxious to get home
before darkness falls,

before our nightly visitors arrive.

This is the London rush hour.

Many of the people
at whom you are looking now

are members of the greatest
civilian army ever to be assembled.

These men and women who have
worked all day in offices or in markets

are now hurrying home to change into
the uniform of their particular service.

The dusk is deepening.

Listening crews are posted all the way
from the coast to London,

to pick up the drone
of the German planes.

Soon, the nightly battle of London
will be on.

This has been a quiet day for us,

but it won't be a quiet night.

We haven't had a quiet night now
for more than five weeks.

They'll be over tonight,

and they'll destroy a few buildings
and k*ll a few people.

Probably some of the people
you are watching now.

Now they're going
into the public shelters.

This is not a pleasant way
to spend the night,

but the people accept it as their part
in the defence of London.

These civilians are good soldiers.

Now it's 8:00.

Jerry's a little bit late tonight.

The searchlights are in position,
the g*ns are ready,

the people's army of volunteers
is ready.

They are the ones
who are really fighting this w*r.

The firemen, the air-raid wardens,
the ambulance drivers.

And there's the wail of the banshee.

The nightly siege of London has begun.

The city is dressed for battle.

Here they come.

Now the searchlights are poking
long, white, inquisitive fingers

into the blackness of the night.

These are not Hollywood
sound effects.

This is the music they play every night
in London, the symphony of w*r.

That was a b*mb.

The very young and the very old,

with that deep wisdom given only
to the very young and the very old,

sleep in the shelters.

Do you see any signs of fear
on these faces?

Now the army of the people
swings into action.

The bombs have started fires.

When a b*mber starts a fire,

he immediately returns, uses it
as a target and drops more bombs,

hoping to spread the fire.

Yet the people's army
ignores the bombs

and the spent shrapnel
which rains down constantly.

Brokers, clerks,
peddlers, merchants by day,

they are heroes by night.

The night is long,

but sooner or later
the dawn will come.

The German bombers
are creatures of the night,

they melt away before the dawn

and scurry back to the safety
of their own aerodromes.

And there's the wail of the banshee
again, this time a friendly wail.

The all-clear signal tells us
that the bombers have gone.

It's just 6:00am.

In this last hour of precious sleep,
this strange new world finds peace.

London raises her head, shakes
the debris of the night from her hair,

and takes stock of the damage done.

London has been hurt during the night.

The sign of a great fighter
in the ring is:

can he get up from the floor
after being knocked down?

London does this every morning.

London doesn't look down
upon the ruins of its houses,

upon those made homeless
during the night,

upon the remains of churches,
hospitals, workers' flats.

London looks upwards toward the dawn

and faces the new day
with calmness and confidence.

The people's army go to work as they
did in that other comfortable world,

which came to an end

when the invader began to attack
the last strongholds of freedom.

Not all the services run
as they did yesterday,

but London manages
to get to work on time,

one way or another.

In the centre of the city,
the shops are open as usual.

In fact, many of them
are more open than usual.

Dr Paul Joseph Goebbels
said recently

that the nightly air-raids
have had a terrific effect

upon the morale
of the people of London.

The good doctor is absolutely right.

Today, the morale of the people
is higher than ever before.

They are fused together
not by fear,

but by a surging spirit of courage

the like of which
the world has never known.

They know that thousands
of them will die,

but they would rather
stand up and face death

than kneel down and face
the kind of existence

the conqueror would impose
upon them.

And they know, too,
and are comforted by the thought

that England is not taking its beating
lying down.

They are guarding
the frontiers of freedom.

It is hard to see five centuries
of labour destroyed in five seconds.

But London is fighting back.

I am a neutral reporter.

I have watched the people of London
live and die

ever since death and its most
ghastly garb began to come here

as a nightly visitor five weeks ago.

I have watched them
stand by their homes,

I have seen them made homeless,

I have seen them
moved to new homes,

and I can assure you,

there is no panic, no fear,
no despair in London town.

There is nothing but determination,
confidence and high courage

among the people of Churchill's island.

And they know that every night
the RAF bombers fly deep

into the heart of Germany,

bombing munition works,
aeroplane factories, canals,

cutting the arteries which keep
the heart of Germany alive.

It is true that the Nazis
will be over again tomorrow night

and the night after that
and every night.

They will drop thousands of bombs,

and they'll destroy
hundreds of buildings,

and they'll k*ll thousands of people.

But a b*mb has its limitations.

It can only destroy buildings
and k*ll people.

It cannot k*ll the unconquerable spirit
and courage of the people of London.

London can take it!