Casualties of War

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0:00:03 > 0:00:06In the 1950s, the famous newsreel company Pathe

0:00:06 > 0:00:10produced a major historical documentary series

0:00:10 > 0:00:11for British television.

0:00:13 > 0:00:18Made by the award-winning producer Peter Baylis and narrated by a line-up of celebrated actors,

0:00:18 > 0:00:21Time To Remember chronicled the social, cultural

0:00:21 > 0:00:25and political forces that shaped the first half of the 20th century.

0:00:27 > 0:00:32The two world wars are a central presence in the series.

0:00:32 > 0:00:36The human cost of those conflicts features in several episodes.

0:00:36 > 0:00:42The sacrifices made offer a humbling picture of a forbidding era.

0:00:48 > 0:00:51# We don't want to lose you

0:00:51 > 0:00:55# But we think you ought to go

0:00:55 > 0:01:00# For your king and your country

0:01:04 > 0:01:07# We shall want you and miss you. #

0:01:07 > 0:01:14Things, faces, friends, places, years and moments half forgotten.

0:01:14 > 0:01:20Laughs, fears, songs, tears - memories are made of this.

0:01:43 > 0:01:48In 1914, the people of Britain were enjoying a relatively peaceful and prosperous time.

0:01:48 > 0:01:54The Boer War had ended more than a decade earlier and the Empire still extended around the globe.

0:01:55 > 0:01:59The conflict and devastation of the next 30 years, which would place millions in harm's way,

0:01:59 > 0:02:04would have been almost unimaginable to those enjoying afternoons at the races

0:02:04 > 0:02:07and their long, lazy days at the seaside.

0:02:07 > 0:02:13I remember a time when the sun was hot and the last thing to think about was the winter.

0:02:13 > 0:02:19White flannels, blazers, boating and all the other pleasures of a blazing August.

0:02:20 > 0:02:23Yet even while people were enjoying them all,

0:02:23 > 0:02:26grey ships were stealing into their war base at Scapa Flow,

0:02:26 > 0:02:31instead of returning to home ports after the summer exercises.

0:02:34 > 0:02:39A peacetime when the British Navy was brought to battle readiness, as though in war,

0:02:39 > 0:02:43because a far-sighted First Lord of the Admiralty thought it ought to be.

0:02:43 > 0:02:47And in his foresight, Winston Spencer Churchill was right.

0:02:50 > 0:02:52For this was 1914,

0:02:52 > 0:02:54and the eve of Armageddon.

0:02:57 > 0:03:01The world was about to plunge into the deadliest conflict it had ever seen.

0:03:03 > 0:03:08Britain declared war on Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany to defend neutral Belgium.

0:03:08 > 0:03:12The world's great powers would be locked in combat for four bloody years.

0:03:15 > 0:03:20Britain is an island and that has always made her different, alone and secure.

0:03:23 > 0:03:28All the same, 1914 saw some pretty fast trench-digging along the coasts,

0:03:28 > 0:03:33as people remarked, "Anyone would think the Kaiser was going to invade."

0:03:33 > 0:03:35Different, alone and secure.

0:03:36 > 0:03:39Yet not for the first time in history and not for last,

0:03:39 > 0:03:43Britain sent her best to fight Europe's battles overseas.

0:03:43 > 0:03:48Within hours, the British Expeditionary Force was on its way.

0:03:48 > 0:03:52The BEF, later to be called the Old Contemptible,

0:03:52 > 0:03:57from a derogatory remark thrown out by the Kaiser himself.

0:03:57 > 0:04:00Off they went to what?

0:04:00 > 0:04:03Another brush with the Boers?

0:04:03 > 0:04:05Such had been the nature of wars to date.

0:04:05 > 0:04:11Certainly none of them realised that they were to be the first in the greatest human sacrifice in history.

0:04:11 > 0:04:14And even as they went, others rushed to follow,

0:04:14 > 0:04:17needing little encouragement from the recruiting officers.

0:04:17 > 0:04:23Soon the doors would have to be closed and unable to accept all those fearful that whatever it was,

0:04:23 > 0:04:27it would indeed be over by Christmas and they would have missed it.

0:04:31 > 0:04:36The British forces soon realised they would need more men - more volunteers.

0:04:36 > 0:04:41If you were a man between the ages of 19 and 30, taller than five foot six,

0:04:41 > 0:04:45then the Secretary of State for War wanted you.

0:04:45 > 0:04:51Lord Kitchener set about the task of building up the greatest volunteer army in the nation's history

0:04:51 > 0:04:54and his famous call to arms drew a noble response.

0:04:54 > 0:04:58They thronged the recruiting offices, queuing up to enter and marching away when they left.

0:05:03 > 0:05:05Some were given uniforms, some weren't.

0:05:05 > 0:05:11Schools were taken over to house them and as far as the kids were concerned, it was,

0:05:11 > 0:05:15"We don't want to lose you, but we think you ought to go."

0:05:15 > 0:05:18Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do.

0:05:18 > 0:05:24As the sergeant said, "You lot have plenty to learn before you're fit to meet the Hun.

0:05:24 > 0:05:29"I know we ain't got uniforms for you all yet, but Rome wasn't built in a day,

0:05:29 > 0:05:34"and besides, still being in caps and waistcoats will help you to settle in and feel at home.

0:05:34 > 0:05:38"Nice dry tents, so much healthier than nasty damp brick walls.

0:05:38 > 0:05:41"Good nourishing food and you can always ask for more.

0:05:41 > 0:05:44"Cor, you're lucky!"

0:05:44 > 0:05:46Last-minute tattooing.

0:05:46 > 0:05:52"I love Harris." The packing of kit bags and they too were off and no army left in greater spirits.

0:05:56 > 0:06:02As the sergeant said, "You will be marched off to the station at 0800 hours.

0:06:04 > 0:06:07"At the training point there will be held a ceremonial parade

0:06:07 > 0:06:12"at which no other than Prince Arthur of Connaught himself will inspect you and wish you God's speed.

0:06:12 > 0:06:16"So I want ranks neat and straight. Get me? Straight."

0:06:17 > 0:06:20CHEERING

0:06:20 > 0:06:22"From then on, well, you'll be on your own.

0:06:22 > 0:06:26"But though I won't be with you, I'll expect you to make me proud of you.

0:06:26 > 0:06:28"Get me? Proud.

0:06:28 > 0:06:30"And the best of luck."

0:06:35 > 0:06:39And so off to war they went, those first brave thousands.

0:06:39 > 0:06:43Theirs but to do and die.

0:06:43 > 0:06:49By the end of 1914, more than a million men had signed up for Kitchener's volunteer army.

0:06:49 > 0:06:52But with casualties at the front on an unprecedented scale,

0:06:52 > 0:06:56still more soldiers were needed to face down the enemy.

0:06:56 > 0:07:01The war minister oversaw a rise in the upper age limit for recruits

0:07:01 > 0:07:03from 30 to 35 and then to 40.

0:07:03 > 0:07:08Ordinary Britons continued to come forward for king and country.

0:07:08 > 0:07:12There was a kind of quiet resignation among the people you fought alongside,

0:07:12 > 0:07:16as though you were all united by a common bond of hate.

0:07:16 > 0:07:22Not for the enemy so much, because you had a fair idea of how he must feel too.

0:07:22 > 0:07:25But for the whole miserable, murderous massacre.

0:07:25 > 0:07:28Yes, that's what it was.

0:07:30 > 0:07:37No, in 1916 there seemed no way out, no better hole for either side to find.

0:07:39 > 0:07:41For London and other British cities,

0:07:41 > 0:07:45those were the days of ambulances meeting the trains as regularly as...

0:07:45 > 0:07:47well as the trains themselves.

0:07:47 > 0:07:51The days of ambulances and the days of flags.

0:07:51 > 0:07:57"Buy a flag, mister, and help the wounded, the blinded and the maimed?"

0:07:59 > 0:08:00"Oh, yes, madam."

0:08:00 > 0:08:03"Yes, sir. It's all for a good cause."

0:08:06 > 0:08:11And for the same good cause too, the garden parties and the jumble sales and the concerts.

0:08:15 > 0:08:19Not to mention the tea parties and treats for the wounded themselves.

0:08:23 > 0:08:29The British are a quiet people, slow to reveal their inner-most emotions.

0:08:29 > 0:08:34And on Britain's conscience was the debt she owed to those fighting her battles.

0:08:37 > 0:08:40True, many had done the same before in many a war,

0:08:40 > 0:08:43but never on such a scale as this.

0:08:43 > 0:08:44And never at such a cost.

0:08:47 > 0:08:50What is the measure of a nation's conscience?

0:08:50 > 0:08:56The measure is a bitter realisation that it is giving up, for some vague objective called victory,

0:08:56 > 0:08:59not only its material wealth, but its very self,

0:08:59 > 0:09:04the flesh and blood, brains and eyes that make it a nation.

0:09:04 > 0:09:07New limbs for old.

0:09:07 > 0:09:11For the old, lost somewhere over there amid the mud and the wire.

0:09:11 > 0:09:18That was the kind of horrible new industry that two years of the Great War had brought to Britain.

0:09:18 > 0:09:21"What did you do in the Great War, Daddy?"

0:09:21 > 0:09:24"I got myself a new leg, son."

0:09:29 > 0:09:33"What did you do in the Great War, Daddy?"

0:09:35 > 0:09:39"I got myself a medal on the Somme, son."

0:09:39 > 0:09:42"Buy a flag, mister,

0:09:42 > 0:09:44"all in a good cause."

0:09:46 > 0:09:50No way out - just on to victory, come what may.

0:09:52 > 0:09:54The war was also being fought at sea.

0:09:54 > 0:09:58One of the great clashes was the Battle of Jutland in 1916,

0:09:58 > 0:10:03during which over 8,500 men lost their lives.

0:10:03 > 0:10:06Brave ships died with their crews.

0:10:06 > 0:10:11In attempting to cut off the enemy from his bases, the British rang for all steam,

0:10:11 > 0:10:13all steam.

0:10:16 > 0:10:22But in the mist, contact was lost and after fruitless searching, the battle was over.

0:10:22 > 0:10:29The German losses in men and ships were less than those of the British, but the Kaiser had had enough.

0:10:29 > 0:10:34And for the rest of the war, his fleet stayed at home.

0:10:34 > 0:10:38In keeping command of the seas, the British were the real victors of Jutland.

0:10:38 > 0:10:44Early in the action, a boy working in a gun crew was mortally wounded.

0:10:44 > 0:10:50But he continued to stay by his gun until all the rest of the crew were killed or wounded,

0:10:50 > 0:10:52until his own death.

0:10:52 > 0:10:58And that was how John Travers Cornwall won his Victoria Cross.

0:11:00 > 0:11:06At Jutland, Britain lost and killed 6,400 officers and men -

0:11:07 > 0:11:11so that once again there were memorials to be unveiled.

0:11:11 > 0:11:13This time to men in blue.

0:11:22 > 0:11:25For the ordinary millions across Europe whose homes villages, towns and cities

0:11:25 > 0:11:30were threatened by the fighting, the quest for safety meant taking to the road.

0:11:33 > 0:11:38As troops moved to the front, they met with civilians in retreat.

0:11:41 > 0:11:45Britain's finest drew off to the stations and away to France.

0:11:46 > 0:11:48Keep the home fires burning.

0:11:48 > 0:11:51First my uncle Ernie, then Uncle Harry,

0:11:51 > 0:11:55then Fred and Aunt Mable's cousin on her mother's side.

0:11:55 > 0:11:58Until the boys come home.

0:11:58 > 0:12:03If they ever did come home. By 1917, it had become something like a three to one gamble -

0:12:03 > 0:12:09well, two to one, I suppose, if you count being wounded.

0:12:09 > 0:12:12Back to Britain came a terrible steady stream.

0:12:12 > 0:12:14Uncle Fred came back three times,

0:12:14 > 0:12:19until they finally diagnosed what had hit him in the back was lumbago and not shrapnel.

0:12:19 > 0:12:24But Uncle Fred was always, well, to be kind, awkward.

0:12:26 > 0:12:29But there was plenty of work in '17. Too much for all the nurses to do.

0:12:29 > 0:12:33And for the women, war by '17 had came to mean a great deal more than just nursing.

0:12:33 > 0:12:38Enough men at the front had come to mean women taking over at the back.

0:12:55 > 0:12:58WHISTLE BLOWS

0:12:59 > 0:13:02For the British, over the top, and, this time, no stopping.

0:13:17 > 0:13:20WHISTLE BLOWS

0:13:20 > 0:13:23For the French, too, over the top and no stopping.

0:13:34 > 0:13:36SPEAKS FRENCH

0:13:38 > 0:13:40There were losses, there were wounded.

0:13:45 > 0:13:49But for you, mes amis, the war is over.

0:13:55 > 0:13:57And then, suddenly,

0:13:57 > 0:14:00quite suddenly, it was over.

0:14:03 > 0:14:07And as they came out of the dugouts and moved into the prison cages,

0:14:07 > 0:14:13perhaps for the first time in the whole war, you came to realise that this mighty military machine

0:14:13 > 0:14:18against which you'd fought for so long was made up of just men.

0:14:18 > 0:14:24Men who, like yourself, wished for nothing more than to give it all up and go home.

0:14:31 > 0:14:33CLOCK CHIMES

0:14:42 > 0:14:47They say, even after all these years, that at 11 o'clock on the 11th of November 1918,

0:14:47 > 0:14:54when the last gun had fired and its high explosive had torn open the earth for the last time,

0:14:54 > 0:14:58there was, for a brief moment, a silence.

0:14:58 > 0:15:03A silence the like of which the world had never experienced since its early ages.

0:15:03 > 0:15:09But only a brief silence, for within a moment or so,

0:15:09 > 0:15:12the birds had begun to sing again.

0:15:21 > 0:15:25And in the camps of Europe, those who'd been waiting their turn for battle,

0:15:25 > 0:15:30celebrated with an intensity of relief that no-one else could equal,

0:15:30 > 0:15:35for perhaps they, more than any others, realised what they had missed.

0:15:41 > 0:15:43Yes, that was something of the cost.

0:15:43 > 0:15:46And that figure does not include the deaths among the Russian armies,

0:15:46 > 0:15:51deaths which, to date, few have counted or even tried to asses.

0:15:53 > 0:15:57In the face of such slaughter, who wins or loses?

0:16:01 > 0:16:08And so for the world was born the first real bitter hatred of war and all that it means.

0:16:08 > 0:16:12A hatred that today makes so many pause to think twice.

0:16:12 > 0:16:14And then think twice again.

0:16:14 > 0:16:18Yes, winners or losers, they cheered them all.

0:16:18 > 0:16:26Because, deep down, they realised that mankind had faced its greatest crisis.

0:16:26 > 0:16:31And having faced it had emerged still capable of believing in the future,

0:16:31 > 0:16:36still capable of believing in the inherent decency of man,

0:16:36 > 0:16:41still capable of laughing, still capable of smiling.

0:16:41 > 0:16:44Yes, considering what they'd all been through,

0:16:45 > 0:16:48they'd come through it with flying colours.

0:16:48 > 0:16:49# There's a long, long trail

0:16:49 > 0:16:51# A-winding

0:16:51 > 0:16:56# Into the land of my dreams... #

0:17:00 > 0:17:05The First World War brought destruction on a previously unparalleled scale.

0:17:05 > 0:17:10The massive numbers of dead, injured, displaced, and heartbroken meant future generations, too,

0:17:10 > 0:17:12would be haunted by its horrors.

0:17:13 > 0:17:16For those who lived through it, the war would bring change in its wake.

0:17:16 > 0:17:22Resentment, doubt and anger meant old certainties held no longer.

0:17:22 > 0:17:25Societies shifted all round the globe.

0:17:32 > 0:17:38In Germany, a veteran of the First World War sought to build a society to last 1,000 years.

0:17:38 > 0:17:42By 1939, Adolf Hitler had become head of the German state

0:17:42 > 0:17:48and was pursuing expansionist policies that would pitch the people of Europe back into war.

0:17:56 > 0:18:00Dawn on the 1st September, 1939.

0:18:00 > 0:18:03Poland for breakfast.

0:18:04 > 0:18:08For the new German armies and the new German air force,

0:18:08 > 0:18:10a baptism of fire.

0:18:10 > 0:18:13For Poland, the terrible honour

0:18:13 > 0:18:17of being the first on the world's list to suffer the Blitzkrieg.

0:18:17 > 0:18:23And so they rolled over the frontiers towards the Vistula and Warsaw,

0:18:23 > 0:18:26setting into being the Second World War.

0:18:30 > 0:18:34London, Paris, New York, Tokyo...

0:18:34 > 0:18:36the whole world on the line.

0:18:36 > 0:18:41Too late for the morning dailies but a scoop of scoops for the early specials of the evening.

0:18:44 > 0:18:47At war with Germany.

0:18:47 > 0:18:52From stations all over a continent, reservists parting with their families.

0:18:52 > 0:18:55War is not just death on a battlefield.

0:18:55 > 0:18:58For those who have endured it, this is war.

0:18:58 > 0:19:01How long for? When will he come back?

0:19:01 > 0:19:02Will he come back?

0:19:03 > 0:19:05Who knows?

0:19:12 > 0:19:17And the continental stations weren't the only ones to witness big scale departures.

0:19:17 > 0:19:19For the second time in 25 years,

0:19:19 > 0:19:23a British Expeditionary Force leaves the shores of England for France.

0:19:23 > 0:19:28Reluctant warriors, yet full of the, "We'll see it through,"

0:19:28 > 0:19:30kind of optimism.

0:19:30 > 0:19:36In 1914, the first BEF had set out to rescue poor, gallant little Belgium.

0:19:36 > 0:19:40In 1939, the second BEF left to render aid,

0:19:40 > 0:19:42however vague and ill-defined,

0:19:42 > 0:19:47to far distant and un-get-at-able at Poland.

0:19:47 > 0:19:51Nine months into the Second World War,

0:19:51 > 0:19:53on the same day that Winston Churchill

0:19:53 > 0:19:57replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of the UK,

0:19:57 > 0:20:00Germany invaded France, Belgium and Holland,

0:20:00 > 0:20:03and Western Europe encountered the Blitzkrieg.

0:20:03 > 0:20:09Dawn on the 10th of May, 1940. The Panzers, the Iron Fists,

0:20:09 > 0:20:11that were to hand out to the old order what was coming to him.

0:20:15 > 0:20:17Then, spurred on by dive bombers,

0:20:17 > 0:20:23cold-bloodedly but effectively, whole populations set in motion.

0:20:29 > 0:20:33The citizen who clings to his house.

0:20:33 > 0:20:36The farmer to his farm. Blast their roots and they'll take to the road.

0:20:36 > 0:20:40Run, rabbit, run.

0:20:40 > 0:20:44So that, as the British moved forward on their mission of rescue, they were

0:20:44 > 0:20:47met with streams of refugees clogging the all-important roads.

0:20:47 > 0:20:53Men, women and children in need of all the rations a soft-hearted Tommy might be tempted to give,

0:20:53 > 0:20:58although duty demanded those rations to sustain his own vital fighting power.

0:21:03 > 0:21:07On streams the flood. Down every road from the shattered front.

0:21:07 > 0:21:11And now there is no front, only deep lance-like thrusts,

0:21:11 > 0:21:15inflicting mortal wounds in the body of a nation.

0:21:17 > 0:21:22And with them, as Holland bowed her head to the invader, went the refugees.

0:21:22 > 0:21:25Those who might have stayed, yet who chose to go for reasons

0:21:25 > 0:21:31of race, religion, plain pride, or a fundamental belief in the dignity

0:21:31 > 0:21:34and necessity of personal freedom.

0:21:34 > 0:21:38And even as they went, those same hawks of war dived at their heads.

0:21:45 > 0:21:48Yet, somehow or other, they made it.

0:21:48 > 0:21:50They came to Britain,

0:21:50 > 0:21:55the persecuted, the innocent, the Jews,

0:21:55 > 0:21:58the Catholics, the Protestants.

0:21:58 > 0:22:02The unwanted, the unbelievers in the evil powers that be.

0:22:02 > 0:22:05But for those still free, there are no greater allies

0:22:05 > 0:22:11than those who have known bondage and have forsaken its chains.

0:22:13 > 0:22:18As a result of that almighty lightning strike, Germany's forces poured west,

0:22:18 > 0:22:24squeezing most of the retreating Allies into an ever-smaller corner of France and Belgium.

0:22:24 > 0:22:27Under a black shroud from burning oil tanks,

0:22:27 > 0:22:33Dunkirk and its shell-torn, bomb-wrecked beaches becomes the focus of the free world.

0:22:33 > 0:22:37Hour after hour, men wade out to the waiting ships.

0:22:37 > 0:22:41And between the shore and the larger vessels ferry the little ships.

0:22:41 > 0:22:43Each bringing but a handful.

0:22:43 > 0:22:47But each handful swelling the ranks of the rescued.

0:22:50 > 0:22:55If this luck and effort continues, who knows how many might yet escape?

0:22:58 > 0:23:03Swinging out of the black pall, each ship packed with men sets course for England.

0:23:05 > 0:23:10Sometimes the enemy is shot down, sometimes he leaves his mark.

0:23:10 > 0:23:13A bomb destroyer wallows helplessly.

0:23:13 > 0:23:15Alongside comes another craft,

0:23:15 > 0:23:20and for the men on board the damaged ship, it is all change yet again.

0:23:20 > 0:23:26But there is no panic, only the swiftness of necessity and daring improvisation.

0:23:28 > 0:23:33And then it's Dover or some other crowded port and ashore at last.

0:23:35 > 0:23:38Ashore to find waiting for them,

0:23:38 > 0:23:42train upon train, shuttling a tired army away from the ports to distant bases,

0:23:42 > 0:23:45shipload after shipload through nine days and nights.

0:23:45 > 0:23:52Infantry men, gunners, officers, sergeants, corporals, privates,

0:23:52 > 0:23:54nurses as well as men,

0:23:54 > 0:23:59most in one piece but some with lasting souvenirs of a lost battle.

0:24:01 > 0:24:06Coming ashore at the ports too, man for man with the British, the French.

0:24:06 > 0:24:11No priority, Churchill has commanded, and no priority it was.

0:24:11 > 0:24:14Tens of thousands of cousin Andres.

0:24:14 > 0:24:18When again will they see their native France?

0:24:18 > 0:24:22They called it a miracle, as miracle indeed it was.

0:24:22 > 0:24:25Instead of the expected few,

0:24:25 > 0:24:29over 300,000 men had been lifted from Dunkirk to the shores of Britain.

0:24:29 > 0:24:33And with these saved, a nation sets about building

0:24:33 > 0:24:36the armies that are destined to march from El Alamein to Berlin.

0:24:38 > 0:24:43By the end of June 1940, all British forces had withdrawn from France.

0:24:43 > 0:24:46For Germany's planned invasion of Britain to be successful,

0:24:46 > 0:24:52both sides knew that Luftwaffe would need total control of the airspace over the English coast

0:24:52 > 0:24:55to stop the RAF bombing the invasion forces as they landed.

0:24:55 > 0:24:57The stage was set.

0:24:57 > 0:25:02In the skies above South East England, the future of Britain was about to be decided.

0:25:02 > 0:25:04Summer 1940.

0:25:04 > 0:25:07Any afternoon, any day of the week.

0:25:12 > 0:25:1580-plus assembling over areas Amiens, Abbeville.

0:25:19 > 0:25:22Further 60-plus over vicinity of Dieppe.

0:25:22 > 0:25:26It looks the same as it did this morning.

0:25:26 > 0:25:27But too early to judge.

0:25:27 > 0:25:29It could be London itself.

0:25:34 > 0:25:35ALARM

0:25:44 > 0:25:46Kent and Sussex, summer 1940.

0:25:46 > 0:25:49Any afternoon, any day of the week.

0:25:57 > 0:25:59Anytime. Any day.

0:25:59 > 0:26:05Followed by any evening and any forbidding night.

0:26:10 > 0:26:14London is an open city, a city open for battle.

0:26:14 > 0:26:18Any night, any time, summer 1940.

0:26:24 > 0:26:29Fire and flame, death and destruction.

0:26:37 > 0:26:391940.

0:26:39 > 0:26:44Any morning after in London, or is it Coventry, Bristol, Portsmouth,

0:26:44 > 0:26:48Liverpool, Belfast, Birmingham, Plymouth or Glasgow?

0:26:50 > 0:26:53Yesterday was the old order of things.

0:26:53 > 0:26:57Today is different, just as tomorrow will be different. Because it has to be.

0:26:59 > 0:27:01Bombs and armaments were only one of

0:27:01 > 0:27:06the ways the Second World War would visit trauma on innocent civilians.

0:27:06 > 0:27:12The atrocities perpetrated in the Nazi camps became horrifically clear towards the end of the war

0:27:12 > 0:27:15as the allied troops liberated Europe.

0:27:15 > 0:27:18March out then, jailers of the dead and dying.

0:27:19 > 0:27:23What's this place called? Belsen.

0:27:23 > 0:27:25And your boss's name?

0:27:26 > 0:27:27Kramer.

0:27:27 > 0:27:31No, we won't forget.

0:27:31 > 0:27:33To those camps come all who can.

0:27:33 > 0:27:37Soldiers, scientists, doctors and members of parliament,

0:27:37 > 0:27:40to see for themselves and report to the world.

0:27:48 > 0:27:49To see the cages,

0:27:49 > 0:27:53the gas chambers and the ovens.

0:27:53 > 0:27:56And while the Germans themselves are made to bury the evidence,

0:27:56 > 0:28:01the world holds its nose at the stink of the Third Reich.

0:28:07 > 0:28:10The two global conflicts in the first half of the 20th century

0:28:10 > 0:28:16ended, interrupted and irrevocably changed the lives of millions.

0:28:16 > 0:28:20The human cost of the First World War was on a scale never before experienced.

0:28:20 > 0:28:23The Second World War was worse still.

0:28:23 > 0:28:26The dead, the maimed, the displaced, the grieving.

0:28:26 > 0:28:30The casualties of war suffered terrible damage.

0:28:30 > 0:28:32Damage that can never be undone.

0:28:48 > 0:28:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:28:51 > 0:28:54E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk