The stunning panoramic views of London featured throughout NBC’s coverage of the summer Olympic Games make it hard to imagine the devastation that occurred 72 years ago during the Blitz. While it might harsh your Olympic-induced mellow, NBC’s Tom Brokaw takes an intense look back at how the city survived the barbarism of Adolf Hitler’s Germany in the two years before the U.S. entered World War II with Their Finest Hour (Saturday, 8/7c).
The documentary precedes the final night of competition coverage that includes track and field, and gold medal finals in men’s platform diving and women’s volleyball. But it’s a worthwhile break in the action. “What England went through in 1940 and ’41 will endure forever as a lesson in courage, national resolve and the power of enlightened leadership,” Brokaw told TV Guide Magazine. “Against great odds, the UK kept Hitler from using this island nation as a launching pad for expanding his evil empire. We owe this country and that time a great debt.”
I ended up catching this by happenstance last evening and was stunned by its impact upon me. The Churchill quotes posted next are posted because the documentary brought them so much to mind.
The 1948 Olympics have been dubbed the ‘Austerity Olympics’. That was the last time the games were held in London. Large parts of our cities were in ruins. We had crippling debt from the war effort, and our economy was on the point of collapse. There was still food rationing until, I think, 1951. Some 250,000 of our men and women had died in the war, including civilians in the bombing. Who then could have thought we would be as prosperous as we are now? Who would have thought that Germany would be a liberal democracy, having sought reconciliation with all and taking its honoured place among the nations? There is much for us to thank God for, and indeed at Mass this morning we thanked God for the Olympics and prayed that the spirit of unity and goodwill they engendered might live on. I know that I have said this before, but the armed forces of the US and the UK have stood side by side in the past and still do so in Afghanistan. Let us not accept any cheap comments about one or the other country but let us respect one another, because there is far more that unites us than divides us, even if we find it difficult to understand one another sometimes.
Canon Harmon,
When I saw the Churchill quotes you posted, I wondered if that show was the impetus! I saw it, too, and it was so powerful that I watched it again late at night. This was the highlight of NBC’s Olympics coverage, IMO.
Did you see the bit about how Churchill employed the language of Christianity through the hymns to convince Roosevelt to get off his duff and help? Good stuff. I had no idea that American resistance was so dogged and went on for so long. Very sad and quite embarrassing.
I was struck by something else, too — how tiny England has valiantly stood up time and time again to forces that seemed sure to overtake her and came out victorious. The winds seemed to be controlled by God on behalf of Elizabeth I. As the British heroes of WWII fade from the Earth, may their stories always be told to subsequent generations and imbue them with courage and love for their dear country.
Where are the Churchills today?
Churchills don’t exists in Dark Ages, wrong audience. My friend we are in one.