Tag: blitz

War

War

Queen's Hall wreckage

Royal Albert Hall

IN SEPTEMBER, 1939, the BBC went to battle stations. Broadcasting must continue even if the country were dislocated by bombing or invasion. BBC units were therefore scattered. No guidance must be given to enemy aircraft. The transmission system was consequently reorganized overnight, a remarkable technical feat. For months it seemed as if these precautions were unnecessary. But the slow, menacing rhythm of the war mounted. France fell. The bombs came. Queen’s Hall, historic home of the ‘Proms’, was gutted. But the Prom went on, from the Albert Hall, with Sir Henry Wood, undaunted veteran, still on the rostrum (see pictures, above). Broadcasting House, no longer white and gleaming, but battle grey, was thrice hit and the studios in the central tower were wrecked (see photograph of the sixth floor, below). But broadcasting in the thick of the dust and danger, or from remote evacuation points, went on.

Wreckage of Broadcasting House sixth floor

Into every hearth and home…

Into every hearth and home…

NEWS was what listeners of all types and in all countries wanted from the BBC during the war, and never more eagerly than in the early, dark days. At home the nine o’clock bulletin became a ritual. In the Commonwealth they waited for the notes of Big Ben to ring out. News observers, donning khaki, went down to the beaches to interview the mine-disposal squads at their dangerous task (1) or visited the anti-aircraft batteries at their lonely vigil (3). When Rooney Pelletier interviewed young Londoners sheltering in the crypt of St Martin’s-in-the-Fields (4), audiences abroad heard the sounds of actual sirens and of real bombs, the ‘live’ broadcast raised to its peak. Then the U.S.A. became our ally, and the G.I. himself had an opportunity to stand in the shadow of St Paul’s and record his impression of the waste and desolation created by the Luftwaffe (2). Meanwhile Empire troops were pouring into Britain, and cheerful programmes compounded of entertainment and personal messages, such as ‘Song Time in the Laager’ (5), were broadcast from the underground theatre in Piccadilly Circus back to their homelands.

 

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