Video and Audio clips
discussed in the Citizens of London.
LONDON CAN TAKE IT!
During the darkest days of the Blitz in late 1940, the British government
produced a short documentary called London Can Take It! -- a dramatic, poetic
tribute to the resilience and courage of Londoners during more than two months
of relentless German bombing raids. Narrated by American reporter Quentin
Reynolds, the film was shown in thousands of U.S. movie theaters to help
persuade the American public that their country must do more to help save
Britain from Hitler.
MURROW’S ROOFTOP BROADCAST
When Edward R. Murrow wanted to broadcast live during the Blitz, British
officials initially turned him down. But Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who
knew how important Murrow’s broadcasts were to the British cause, overturned
that decision. This is Murrow’s first live broadcast describing the Luftwaffe
bombing attacks -- from a rooftop in London.
MURROW’S TRAFALGAR SQUARE BROADCAST In late 1940, during a broadcast called “London After Dark,” Ed Murrow and
several other CBS correspondents reported on the nighttime sights and sounds of
the British capital during an air raid. Broadcasting that night from Trafalgar
Square, Murrow vividly described to his American listeners what it was like to
be on the blacked-out streets of London just before a German bombing attack.
MURROW’S BUCHENWALD BROADCAST
In April 1945, Ed Murrow was with the American troops who liberated Buchenwald,
one of the Nazis’ most notorious concentration camps, where more than 50,000
prisoners, many of them Jews, died during the war. Murrow’s searing, graphic
broadcast of what he saw at the camp is widely regarded as one of the best radio
news reports of World War II.
