The Day We Went to War (29 page)

12.15pm, G
RANADA
C
INEMA
, G
REENWICH

On hearing the Government announcement that all places of entertainment are now to be closed indefinitely, assistant cinema manager Clulow tells his staff to change the canopy lettering. From advertising the film
You Can’t Get Away with Murder
, it now reads ‘
SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED, FOLKS. HOPE TO REOPEN SOON. GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL
’.

12.20pm (1.20pm), B
RITISH
E
MBASSY
, B
ERLIN

Dozing in a comfortable red leather armchair in the Chancery, assistant air attaché Alex Adams is woken up. He is told that he and his colleagues are about to be moved next door to the Adlon Hotel, prior to their repatriation. There, at the bar, they are joined by American friends, including CBS radio correspondent William Shirer, for cocktails before lunch. Shirer, although no great lover of the British Empire, cannot help but admire the sang-froid of the embassy contingent as they sip their Dry Martinis and talk ‘about dogs and such stuff’. Cocktails drunk, Adams, the other British diplomats and the Americans go into lunch at the Adlon’s courtyard restaurant, mixing freely with the other hotel guests.

12.25pm (9.25pm), M
ELBOURNE

Forty-four-year-old Robert Menzies, who has only been Prime Minister and Federal Treasurer since April, announces to the Australian people that once again they are at war with Germany. The genial Prime Minister and his ministers are meeting at the Commonwealth Offices in Melbourne. There they hear Chamberlain’s broadcast on a short-wave radio. In the absence of an official telegram from London, Menzies and his ministers decide to take Chamberlain’s broadcast as official news that Britain is now at war. This is soon confirmed by a telegram from the Admiralty in London which the Navy Office in Melbourne passes on to Menzies.

The Prime Minister now summons the Executive Council, which approves an already prepared proclamation that declares a state of war exists between Australia and Germany. Menzies knows he has the backing of the vast majority of Australians. Like him they believe that the strength of the British Empire and Commonwealth rests in unity to a common loyalty to the Crown. Menzies has said publicly that any idea that the King could be at war in one part of his empire and at peace in another is ‘a metaphysical notion that quite eludes me’. He also believes that an immediate declaration of war by Australia will give the Allied cause a tremendous morale boost. He is perhaps conscious too of the criticism levelled at him for not having done his patriotic duty and fought in the Great War. A war in which over 59,000 young Australians died. Sitting at the microphone in the Postmaster-General’s room in the Commonwealth Offices, he now tells listeners on a nationwide radio hook-up:

It is my melancholy duty to inform you that, in consequence of Germany’s persistence in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war, and that as a result Australia is also at war. No harder task can fall to the lot of a democratic leader than to make such an announcement.

Great Britain and France, with the co-operation of the British Dominions, have struggled to avoid this tragedy. They have, as I firmly believe, been patient. They have kept the door of negotiation open; they have given no cause for aggression. But in the result their efforts have failed and we are, therefore, as a great family of nations involved in a struggle which we must at all costs win, and which we believe in our hearts we will win . . .

It is plain, indeed it is brutally plain, that the Hitler ambition has been, not as he once said, to unite the German peoples under one rule, but to bring under that rule as many European countries, even of alien race, as can be subdued by force. If such a policy were allowed to go unchecked there could be no security in Europe and there could be no peace for the world.

A halt has been called. Force has had to be resorted to to check the march of force. Honest dealing, the peaceful adjustment of differences, the rights of independent peoples to live their own lives, the honouring of international obligations and promises – all these things are at stake. There never was any doubt as to where Great Britain stood in relation to them. There can be no doubt that where Great Britain stands, there stands the entire British world.

Bitter as we may feel at this wanton crime, this is not a moment for rhetoric. Prompt as the action of many thousands must be, it is for the rest of us a moment for quiet thinking, for that calm fortitude which rests not upon the beating of drums but upon the unconquerable spirit of man, created by God in his own image. What may be before us we do not know, nor how long the journey. But this we do know: that truth is with us in the battle, and that truth must win.

Before I end, may I say this to you; in the bitter months that are to come, calmness, resoluteness, confidence and hard work will be required as never before. The war will involve not only soldiers and sailors and airmen, but supplies, foodstuffs, money. Our staying power, and particularly the staying power of the
Mother Country, will be best assisted by keeping our production going; by continuing our avocations and our business as we fully can; by maintaining employment, and with it our strength. I know that, in spite of the emotions we are all feeling, you will show that Australia is ready to see it through. May God in His mercy and compassion grant that the world may soon be delivered from this agony.

12.25pm (9.25pm), S
WAN
H
ILL
, V
ICTORIA

When Menzies tells the Australian people they are at war, the parents of nine-year-old Margaret Maxwell both burst into tears.

12.25pm (9.25pm), S
YDNEY

As she hears the broadcast from Melbourne, pacifist Margaret Holmes begins to feel ‘absolutely terrible’. She has the sensation of the world dropping to pieces, and her ‘whole life . . . going down the drain’. She is ‘terribly depressed and terribly worried’.

12.25pm (9.25pm), L
EEDERVILLE
, P
ERTH

Twelve-year-old schoolboy Maurie Jones, his parents and fourteen-year-old brother are coming home from a church function when they hear the news that Australia is now once again at war. His mother is very upset. Maurie’s father tries to reassure her by saying, ‘It’s alright, Kate. It’ll be over long before the boys are of military age.’

12.25pm (9.25pm), N
EW
S
OUTH
W
ALES

After a hard day’s sheep-shearing, Bob Bahnsen has only just gone to bed. Now he is rudely woken up by the farmer’s son, who tells him, ‘They’ve declared the bloody war.’ Bob cannot take it in. He just cannot believe ‘that Hitler would be such a maniac as to launch the world into war. But he did it just like that, thought nothing of it.’

12.25pm (9.25pm), S
YDNEY

Army sergeant Sandy Rayward is on leave, and staying at a friend’s place, where he hears Menzies tells the nation that Australia is at war. As soon as the Prime Minister finishes his broadcast, Sandy rushes back to barracks. When he arrives, he finds every one of his friends also there, eager and ready for orders.

12.25pm (9.25pm), M
ELBOURNE

University student Niall Brennan’s family are in the drawing room, listening to Menzies announce that, as Britain is at war, so too is Australia. As Niall’s cousin bursts into tears, his father jumps up ‘like a firecracker’ and shouts out, ‘That’s constitutionally wrong!’ But for the Brennan family it is ‘the end of possibly two or three years of fearing that there would be a war’, and their overriding feeling is that of relief.

12.25pm (9.25pm), M
OUNT
G
AMBIER
, S
OUTH
A
USTRALIA

Tonight, after hearing the Prime Minister’s broadcast, schoolboy Charles Janeway’s father, a Great War veteran, has nightmares. But nevertheless, he, his brother and cousin, all army reservists, are keen ‘to do their bit’ again this time.

12.25pm (9.25pm), M
ELBOURNE

Ralph Doig, a civil servant in the Prime Minister’s Department, sums up the feelings of most Australians as they hear that for the second time in twenty-five years they are at war: ‘Britain’s in it and so we’re in it as a matter of course.’

12.30pm (12.00 midnight), W
ELLINGTON

New Zealand Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Michael Joseph Savage is terminally ill. But he rises from his sick bed to issue an announcement that New Zealand is once again at Britain’s side in the war against Germany. Twenty-five years ago, during the
Great War, out of a population of just over a million New Zealand raised forces totalling 124,211 of whom 16,711 died. Now Prime Minister Savage’s announcement reads:

With reference to the intimation just received that a state of war exists between the United Kingdom and Germany, His Majesty’s Government in New Zealand desire immediately to associate themselves with His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom in honouring their pledged word.

They entirely concur with the action taken, which they regard as inevitably enforced upon the British Commonwealth if the cause of justice, freedom and democracy is to endure in this world . . .

The New Zealand Government wish to offer to the British Government the fullest assurance of all possible support. They are convinced that the step that has been taken will meet with the approval of the people of this Dominion, and they will give the fullest consideration in due course to any suggestion of the British Government as to the method or methods by which the Dominion can best assist in the common cause.

The Premier is too weak to undertake more today, so it is Savage’s deputy Peter Fraser who will broadcast the news that New Zealand is standing by Britain for the second time in twenty-five years.

12.30pm (12.00 midnight), W
ANGANUI

Pacifist Merv Brown hears that New Zealand is once more at war. On Friday night he was at the pictures when the news of the German invasion of Poland was flashed on the screen. Leaving the cinema, he had looked up into sky, ‘quite expecting there to be bombers coming over’. Today, he has reaffirmed that, for moral reasons, he cannot fight and will register as a conscientious objector.

12.30pm (12.00 midnight), A
UCKLAND

Nineteen-year-old Maisie Younger has been praying that there will not be a war. Both her uncles fought last time and she has heard their dreadful stories of 1914–18. Today she is very worried, as once again young New Zealanders, including her three brothers and her fiancé Ken, are intending to join up. Ken is not really keen to go, but recognises it as his duty to do so.

12.30pm (12.00 midnight), M
OUNT
E
DEN
, A
UCKLAND

Teenager Gwen Pollard’s father is a regular listener to the BBC. Tonight they have heard from London that Britain has declared war on Germany. To the Pollard family it doesn’t seem so long since the end of the last war, in which Gwen’s Uncle Norman was killed. Now Gwen’s brother, named after their uncle, is keen to join up. Mr Pollard is not very happy about Norman enlisting, but recognises that it is his patriotic duty to do so.

12.30pm (12.00 midnight), G
ISBORNE
, NZ

High-school student sixteen-year-old George Judge hears the news that war has been declared today. Over the last couple of years, he has been avidly following the news of the crises in Europe, first Czechoslovakia, and now Poland. As New Zealand is so far away, he admits, the events unfolding in Europe seem very remote. Nevertheless, he is keen to help the war effort before reaching call-up age. He intends to volunteer to help out at the local Territorial Army headquarters.

12.30pm (12.00 midnight), H
ASTINGS
, NZ

Baker’s roundsman Harry Spencer is with a group of friends at a party when the phone rings with the news that war has been declared. The party continues, ‘but in a very gloomy sort of way’. Harry and the others are ‘knocked flat’ by the news and after a while the party breaks up. Tonight, ‘after giving it lots and lots of thought’, Harry decides to join the Army.

12.20pm (1.20pm), F
OREIGN
M
INISTRY
, B
ERLIN

On reaching the Foreign Ministry, Sir Nevile is met by von Ribbentrop. He hands Henderson a copy of the German reply to the British ultimatum. Sir Nevile reads the opening sentence: ‘The Reich Government and the German nation refuse to accept, or even to satisfy, the demands in the form of an ultimatum from the British Government.’

The rest of the lengthy memorandum is an attack on Britain for giving the Poles a ‘blank cheque’, and promising ‘military help to the Polish Government unreservedly in the event of Germany’s defending herself against any provocation or attack’.

Sir Nevile considers the document pure propaganda. It is designed for both domestic consumption and to convince world opinion that Britain, not Germany, is responsible for war. The ambassador tells von Ribbentrop, ‘It will be left to history to judge where the blame really lies.’ The Foreign Minister replies that history has already proved the facts. Nobody, von Ribbentrop tells an incredulous Sir Nevile, has striven for peace and friendship between Germany and Britain more than Hitler himself. Von Ribbentrop ends the interview by extending to Sir Nevile his personal good wishes. The ambassador replies that he regrets that his own efforts for peace have failed, but he bears no grudge against the German people. He then leaves, after first presenting a last note to the German Government. It asks if it is their intention to abide by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. This prohibits the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases, and of bacteriological warfare. This task completed, Sir Nevile returns to the embassy. Strangely enough, he finds that its telephone lines are still functioning.