Mind-Munitions

The Second World War 223
credibility and integrity of their coverage could only be enhanced
by an outward appearance of independence. And in 1940, the BBC
was provided with an additional two wavelengths for its Armed
Forces Programme. Just in case, a switch censor sat with his finger
poised in the radio studio.
As western governments collapsed before the Nazi Blitzkrieg, the
BBC increased its external broadcasting and provided exiles with
free access to its microphones, the Dutch Radio Orange being the
first of what was to become a legendary source of morale-boosting
and intelligence-serving news services amongst the occupied
nations of Europe. When the Battle of Britain and the Blitz began,
the BBC was subordinated to the Air Defence of Great Britain. It
was also during this period that special facilities were provided by
the BBC for American broadcasters such as Ed Murrow, who did
so much to bring the war into neutral American homes distant
from the bombing and, with it, stimulated significant sympathy for
the British during their finest hour. Films were also used for the
same purpose. The MOI produced London Can Take It and
Christmas Under Fire (both 1940) with American audiences in
mind while people such as Alfred Hitchcock went to Hollywood to
make pro-British films and combat American isolation with the
help of the sizeable British Hollywood community already there
(Foreign Correspondent [1940] was the result). Powell and Pressburger’s
Forty Ninth Parallel (1941) portrayed the Nazi menace to
Americans through its plot of a German submarine crew stranded
in Canada. At home, the broadcasts of J. B. Priestley, particularly
his Postscripts, became almost as popular as the speeches of that
brilliant radio orator, Winston Churchill. As the BBC began to
come into its own during the Battle of Britain, the popularity of
‘Lord Haw Haw’ (William Joyce) declined, and thereafter the BBC
proved itself to be an essential – perhaps the single most important
– element in the maintenance of morale. Apart from its news
bulletins, light entertainment programmes such as ‘ITMA’, ‘Music
While You Work’, and ‘The Brains Trust’ became just as essential a
part of the domestic propaganda campaign. Indeed, such was the
role of the BBC in the ‘war of words’ that films often took their
titles from radio bulletins: One of Our Aircraft is Missing and Fires
Were Started are examples.
White broadcasts to Europe proved just as popular, as was
demonstrated by the famous ‘V for Victory’ campaign. This was