Victory at Sea - S1E05: Mediterranean Mosaic - video Dailymotion

Film Gorillas

Watch Victory at Sea - S1E05: Mediterranean Mosaic - Film Gorillas on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00♪♪♪

00:10♪♪♪

00:20♪♪♪

00:30♪♪♪

00:40♪♪♪

00:50♪♪♪

00:55And now, Mediterranean Mosaic.

01:00♪♪♪

01:07The Mediterranean is the middle sea, is many seas.

01:11Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Adriatic.

01:17The great rivers meet and mingle.

01:19The Po and the Everest.

01:21The Rhone and the Arctic.

01:23The Nile and the Tiber.

01:25The waters wash the shores of Asia, of Africa, of Europe.

01:31♪♪♪

01:49Europe's new master, Hitler, waxing bold in the limelight of his conquering armies,

01:54grants an audience to his Axis partner from the Mediterranean.

01:58Flourish and pop are an integral part of such meetings.

02:01Between them, these two, Efiora and Il Duce,

02:05have arrogated to themselves the destiny of the old world,

02:09all its oceans, all its people.

02:12♪♪♪

02:17On the mountaintop headquarters in Berchtesgaden,

02:20called the Eagle's Nest,

02:22plans are formulated to conquer the Mediterranean.

02:25Colonel General Jochum, Hitler's personal chief of staff,

02:29urges reduction of Gibraltar and Suez.

02:32Seal off the inland sea and make it an Axis lake.

02:36The Italian Navy, deployed in three swift squadrons and manned by able crews,

02:41is a grave, powerful menace to the lifeline binding the British Commonwealth of Nations,

02:46a menace to the Allied world.

02:49♪♪♪

03:19♪♪♪

03:29The French fleet guards the western Mediterranean at the outbreak of war.

03:34Famous for the speed of its cruisers and destroyers,

03:37the French sortie from their bases at Toulon, Algiers, and Oran.

03:41Their hopes are high, their faith as yet unshattered.

03:45♪♪♪

04:10Churchill warns the Allied world

04:12that the safety of Great Britain and the Empire is powerful,

04:15though not decisively, affected by what happens to the French fleet.

04:20♪♪♪

04:45For the British, control of the Mediterranean rests literally on a rock.

04:50Gibraltar, guardian of the narrow strait that leads from the Atlantic

04:54into the sea which serves as a moat around Hitler's southern flank.

04:58Natural fortress and destructible sentinel,

05:01Gibraltar was ceded to the British by the Spanish in 1713.

05:06What nature has provided, the British through the centuries have improved.

05:11The rock is encrusted with armament, is alive with soldiers.

05:15The Royal Navy faces the longest odds in all its history

05:19in the coming battle for the Mediterranean.

05:22If the rock goes, North Africa and the Near East go with it.

05:27♪♪♪

05:56His Royal Highness, the Duke of Gloucester, brother of the King,

06:00inspects the defences.

06:02From Gibraltar, there is a 1,900-mile seaway east to Suez

06:07that must be kept open, that must be protected.

06:11♪♪♪

06:40♪♪♪

06:51The flags of the free rally around the rock.

06:54The ships gather for passage to Egypt and the Near East.

06:57Some will go to Malta, England's mid-Mediterranean island fortress

07:01so urgently desired by the Axis, so vital to the Allies.

07:06These ships rest the fate of empires.

07:09♪♪♪

07:28As a convoy heads for Malta, the ship's officers face the harsh knowledge

07:32that the enemy is under, over, and on the sea route ahead.

07:37But officers and men remember the ancient words.

07:40It is upon the Navy, under the good providence of God,

07:44that the wealth, safety, and strength of the kingdom

07:48do chiefly depend.

07:50♪♪♪

08:04One of England's great decisions of the war

08:06is to strengthen her Mediterranean fleet

08:08while the British Isles are still in danger of German invasion.

08:12The Royal Navy, outnumbered and outgunned here,

08:15sweeps forth to clear the sea lane to Malta.

08:18♪♪♪

08:24Battleships like the King George V,

08:26manned by men to whom long odds are not a discouragement but a challenge,

08:31pull the Mediterranean open.

08:33Horsepower, 110,000.

08:36Speed, better than 30 knots.

08:40Yet the soul of the ship is not her machinery,

08:43but the spirit of the English sailors who manned her.

08:46From the days of sail to the time of the turbine,

08:49that spirit has remained unaltered.

08:52It destroyed the Spanish Armada, smashed Napoleon at Trafalgar.

08:57In World War II, this spirit permeates the fleet.

09:01It is more formidable to Britain's foes than armor-plated cannon.

09:05♪♪♪

09:12♪♪♪

09:18Wars are not won by guns alone.

09:21The words, the great words of the Royal Navy's traditional prayers

09:25sustain the sailors in their peril.

09:29Eternal Lord God,

09:31who alone spreadest out the heavens and rulest the raging of the sea,

09:35who has compassed the waters with bounds until day and night come to an end,

09:40be pleased to receive into thy almighty and most gracious protection

09:44the persons of us, thy servants,

09:48and the fleet in which we serve.

09:51♪♪♪

09:54Aboard a British man-of-war, there are five mealtimes a day.

09:58Cocoa on the morning watch, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper.

10:03The galleys of the King George V must feed a crew of 1,900 men.

10:07♪♪♪

10:17The captain assigns an officer to the mess deck

10:20to see if there are any complaints about the chow.

10:23♪♪♪

10:51It's written in the King's regulations.

10:54A daily ration of one-eighth of a pint of rum

10:56shall be issued to every rating over the age of 20.

10:59Those who do not drink get thruppence a day, called grog money instead.

11:04The rum is issued neat to petty officers.

11:07For the other ratings, it is mixed with two parts water.

11:10Officers must supply their own spirits.

11:13♪♪♪

11:32The ship is more than a machine of war.

11:35It is a community of men.

11:38Between the salvos and the salts, between the hours of work and sleep,

11:43far from the world of chaos, safe in the world of memory,

11:48is one constant dream.

11:52And when peace and rest at length have come,

11:55all the days' long toil is past.

11:59Each heart is whispering,

12:02Home. Home at last.

12:05♪♪♪

12:12Home. Home, sweet home.

12:17And that may be within the sound of bow bells in teeming London,

12:20where the blitz rages and the bombs destroy.

12:23♪♪♪

12:31Nor around thee thy wife and sweet little ones come,

12:35all clamoring joyous to snatch the first kiss,

12:39transporting thy bosom with exquisite bliss.

12:43♪♪♪

13:02Suddenly, ominously, the mosaic of the Mediterranean changes pattern.

13:07June 1940, France falls.

13:11The Royal Navy is stripped of her allies

13:13and must guard the far-flung battle line alone.

13:16In the Atlantic, in the Channel, in the Mediterranean,

13:21the clouds of catastrophe gather

13:23and the councils of despair urge that the Mediterranean be abandoned to the enemy.

13:28♪♪♪

13:38♪♪♪

13:58♪♪♪

14:08♪♪♪

14:28But the Royal Navy knows no retreat,

14:31believing that he either fears his fate too much or his deserts are small.

14:36Who dare not put it to the touch to win or lose it all.

14:41So for watch after watch, continuous, unbroken, undismayed,

14:47the Royal Navy carries on.

14:50♪♪♪

15:17♪♪♪

15:25Malta.

15:27Island, fortress, naval base, landing field.

15:33Malta.

15:35The irremovable thorn in the soft underbelly of the axis.

15:39Whichever way the aggressors turn in the Mediterranean,

15:42there stands Malta, a stumbling block in their path.

15:47But the tiny island, with its 275,000 people,

15:51must live from convoys that fight through.

15:55The enemy is only 60 miles away in Sicily.

15:58Whoever holds Malta controls the central Mediterranean

16:01and the British hold on to it like a bulldog.

16:04The British and the Maltese themselves.

16:08From times unimaginably remote,

16:11the waves of history have washed over Malta.

16:15The ordeals of the past hail before the present

16:18incessant threat of terror from the sky.

16:22♪♪♪

16:46The enemy raids mount by fives and by tens,

16:49by dozens and by scores, by the hundreds.

16:52And still the Luftwaffe sends out more of its bombers

16:55to blast, to burn, to butcher Malta.

17:19♪♪♪

17:45♪♪♪

18:12♪♪♪

18:41♪♪♪

19:06♪♪♪

19:33♪♪♪

20:02♪♪♪

20:31♪♪♪

20:58♪♪♪

21:25♪♪♪

21:54♪♪♪

22:06For 17 months, Malta lives through a nightmare of attack.

22:10The Maltese fight terror and hunger with inadequate means,

22:13but with unbreakable defiance.

22:16Proudly the score is kept, air raid number 1,774.

22:23But the axis has its grim statistics too.

22:261,129 enemy planes break against the island of Malta.

22:34And the people of Malta, 1,468 dead.

22:41♪♪♪

22:54The Grand Harbor of Malta becomes a shambles of rubble and twisted steam.

22:59Ships that survived the long, long voyage from England

23:02are smashed into useless hulks at journey's end.

23:06♪♪♪

23:13The bottom of Malta's harbor is littered with the skeletons of ships

23:16that died to keep the island alive.

23:19The waste and wreckage of war clutter mile upon mile of the ocean floor.

23:24A cemetery of the sea.

23:27Dead ships.

23:29Dead sailors.

23:31Dead hulks.

23:33♪♪♪

23:43♪♪♪

23:53♪♪♪

24:03♪♪♪

24:13♪♪♪

24:20But life goes on.

24:22Through endless ages, aggressors have battered at the gates of Malta,

24:26have had their hour, and disappeared.

24:29The Carthaginians came and vanished.

24:32Islam engulfed the island and ebbed away.

24:37The Goths came plundering in the Vandals' rage.

24:40But history swallowed up both Goths and the Vandals.

24:44The Maltese remained.

24:47♪♪♪

24:57♪♪♪

25:07♪♪♪

25:18In the hour of Malta's ordeal,

25:20King George VI pays a sailor's tribute to the island's allegiance to the Royal Navy.

25:25All the bells in all the churches ring,

25:28and all the people greet his magister.

25:32Here in the Mediterranean are the elements on which aggression shatters.

25:37The king,

25:39the people,

25:41the Royal Navy.

25:43♪♪♪

25:53♪♪♪

26:03♪♪♪

26:13♪♪♪

Victory at Sea - S1E05: Mediterranean Mosaic

Category

Transcript

Recommended