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00:00♪♪♪
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00:55And now, Mediterranean Mosaic.
01:00♪♪♪
01:07The Mediterranean is the middle sea, is many seas.
01:11Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Adriatic.
01:17The great rivers meet and mingle.
01:19The Po and the Everest.
01:21The Rhone and the Arctic.
01:23The Nile and the Tiber.
01:25The waters wash the shores of Asia, of Africa, of Europe.
01:31♪♪♪
01:49Europe's new master, Hitler, waxing bold in the limelight of his conquering armies,
01:54grants an audience to his Axis partner from the Mediterranean.
01:58Flourish and pop are an integral part of such meetings.
02:01Between them, these two, Efiora and Il Duce,
02:05have arrogated to themselves the destiny of the old world,
02:09all its oceans, all its people.
02:12♪♪♪
02:17On the mountaintop headquarters in Berchtesgaden,
02:20called the Eagle's Nest,
02:22plans are formulated to conquer the Mediterranean.
02:25Colonel General Jochum, Hitler's personal chief of staff,
02:29urges reduction of Gibraltar and Suez.
02:32Seal off the inland sea and make it an Axis lake.
02:36The Italian Navy, deployed in three swift squadrons and manned by able crews,
02:41is a grave, powerful menace to the lifeline binding the British Commonwealth of Nations,
02:46a menace to the Allied world.
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03:19♪♪♪
03:29The French fleet guards the western Mediterranean at the outbreak of war.
03:34Famous for the speed of its cruisers and destroyers,
03:37the French sortie from their bases at Toulon, Algiers, and Oran.
03:41Their hopes are high, their faith as yet unshattered.
03:45♪♪♪
04:10Churchill warns the Allied world
04:12that the safety of Great Britain and the Empire is powerful,
04:15though not decisively, affected by what happens to the French fleet.
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04:45For the British, control of the Mediterranean rests literally on a rock.
04:50Gibraltar, guardian of the narrow strait that leads from the Atlantic
04:54into the sea which serves as a moat around Hitler's southern flank.
04:58Natural fortress and destructible sentinel,
05:01Gibraltar was ceded to the British by the Spanish in 1713.
05:06What nature has provided, the British through the centuries have improved.
05:11The rock is encrusted with armament, is alive with soldiers.
05:15The Royal Navy faces the longest odds in all its history
05:19in the coming battle for the Mediterranean.
05:22If the rock goes, North Africa and the Near East go with it.
05:27♪♪♪
05:56His Royal Highness, the Duke of Gloucester, brother of the King,
06:00inspects the defences.
06:02From Gibraltar, there is a 1,900-mile seaway east to Suez
06:07that must be kept open, that must be protected.
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06:40♪♪♪
06:51The flags of the free rally around the rock.
06:54The ships gather for passage to Egypt and the Near East.
06:57Some will go to Malta, England's mid-Mediterranean island fortress
07:01so urgently desired by the Axis, so vital to the Allies.
07:06These ships rest the fate of empires.
07:09♪♪♪
07:28As a convoy heads for Malta, the ship's officers face the harsh knowledge
07:32that the enemy is under, over, and on the sea route ahead.
07:37But officers and men remember the ancient words.
07:40It is upon the Navy, under the good providence of God,
07:44that the wealth, safety, and strength of the kingdom
07:48do chiefly depend.
07:50♪♪♪
08:04One of England's great decisions of the war
08:06is to strengthen her Mediterranean fleet
08:08while the British Isles are still in danger of German invasion.
08:12The Royal Navy, outnumbered and outgunned here,
08:15sweeps forth to clear the sea lane to Malta.
08:18♪♪♪
08:24Battleships like the King George V,
08:26manned by men to whom long odds are not a discouragement but a challenge,
08:31pull the Mediterranean open.
08:33Horsepower, 110,000.
08:36Speed, better than 30 knots.
08:40Yet the soul of the ship is not her machinery,
08:43but the spirit of the English sailors who manned her.
08:46From the days of sail to the time of the turbine,
08:49that spirit has remained unaltered.
08:52It destroyed the Spanish Armada, smashed Napoleon at Trafalgar.
08:57In World War II, this spirit permeates the fleet.
09:01It is more formidable to Britain's foes than armor-plated cannon.
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09:18Wars are not won by guns alone.
09:21The words, the great words of the Royal Navy's traditional prayers
09:25sustain the sailors in their peril.
09:29Eternal Lord God,
09:31who alone spreadest out the heavens and rulest the raging of the sea,
09:35who has compassed the waters with bounds until day and night come to an end,
09:40be pleased to receive into thy almighty and most gracious protection
09:44the persons of us, thy servants,
09:48and the fleet in which we serve.
09:51♪♪♪
09:54Aboard a British man-of-war, there are five mealtimes a day.
09:58Cocoa on the morning watch, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper.
10:03The galleys of the King George V must feed a crew of 1,900 men.
10:07♪♪♪
10:17The captain assigns an officer to the mess deck
10:20to see if there are any complaints about the chow.
10:23♪♪♪
10:51It's written in the King's regulations.
10:54A daily ration of one-eighth of a pint of rum
10:56shall be issued to every rating over the age of 20.
10:59Those who do not drink get thruppence a day, called grog money instead.
11:04The rum is issued neat to petty officers.
11:07For the other ratings, it is mixed with two parts water.
11:10Officers must supply their own spirits.
11:13♪♪♪
11:32The ship is more than a machine of war.
11:35It is a community of men.
11:38Between the salvos and the salts, between the hours of work and sleep,
11:43far from the world of chaos, safe in the world of memory,
11:48is one constant dream.
11:52And when peace and rest at length have come,
11:55all the days' long toil is past.
11:59Each heart is whispering,
12:02Home. Home at last.
12:05♪♪♪
12:12Home. Home, sweet home.
12:17And that may be within the sound of bow bells in teeming London,
12:20where the blitz rages and the bombs destroy.
12:23♪♪♪
12:31Nor around thee thy wife and sweet little ones come,
12:35all clamoring joyous to snatch the first kiss,
12:39transporting thy bosom with exquisite bliss.
12:43♪♪♪
13:02Suddenly, ominously, the mosaic of the Mediterranean changes pattern.
13:07June 1940, France falls.
13:11The Royal Navy is stripped of her allies
13:13and must guard the far-flung battle line alone.
13:16In the Atlantic, in the Channel, in the Mediterranean,
13:21the clouds of catastrophe gather
13:23and the councils of despair urge that the Mediterranean be abandoned to the enemy.
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14:28But the Royal Navy knows no retreat,
14:31believing that he either fears his fate too much or his deserts are small.
14:36Who dare not put it to the touch to win or lose it all.
14:41So for watch after watch, continuous, unbroken, undismayed,
14:47the Royal Navy carries on.
14:50♪♪♪
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15:25Malta.
15:27Island, fortress, naval base, landing field.
15:33Malta.
15:35The irremovable thorn in the soft underbelly of the axis.
15:39Whichever way the aggressors turn in the Mediterranean,
15:42there stands Malta, a stumbling block in their path.
15:47But the tiny island, with its 275,000 people,
15:51must live from convoys that fight through.
15:55The enemy is only 60 miles away in Sicily.
15:58Whoever holds Malta controls the central Mediterranean
16:01and the British hold on to it like a bulldog.
16:04The British and the Maltese themselves.
16:08From times unimaginably remote,
16:11the waves of history have washed over Malta.
16:15The ordeals of the past hail before the present
16:18incessant threat of terror from the sky.
16:22♪♪♪
16:46The enemy raids mount by fives and by tens,
16:49by dozens and by scores, by the hundreds.
16:52And still the Luftwaffe sends out more of its bombers
16:55to blast, to burn, to butcher Malta.
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22:06For 17 months, Malta lives through a nightmare of attack.
22:10The Maltese fight terror and hunger with inadequate means,
22:13but with unbreakable defiance.
22:16Proudly the score is kept, air raid number 1,774.
22:23But the axis has its grim statistics too.
22:261,129 enemy planes break against the island of Malta.
22:34And the people of Malta, 1,468 dead.
22:41♪♪♪
22:54The Grand Harbor of Malta becomes a shambles of rubble and twisted steam.
22:59Ships that survived the long, long voyage from England
23:02are smashed into useless hulks at journey's end.
23:06♪♪♪
23:13The bottom of Malta's harbor is littered with the skeletons of ships
23:16that died to keep the island alive.
23:19The waste and wreckage of war clutter mile upon mile of the ocean floor.
23:24A cemetery of the sea.
23:27Dead ships.
23:29Dead sailors.
23:31Dead hulks.
23:33♪♪♪
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24:20But life goes on.
24:22Through endless ages, aggressors have battered at the gates of Malta,
24:26have had their hour, and disappeared.
24:29The Carthaginians came and vanished.
24:32Islam engulfed the island and ebbed away.
24:37The Goths came plundering in the Vandals' rage.
24:40But history swallowed up both Goths and the Vandals.
24:44The Maltese remained.
24:47♪♪♪
24:57♪♪♪
25:07♪♪♪
25:18In the hour of Malta's ordeal,
25:20King George VI pays a sailor's tribute to the island's allegiance to the Royal Navy.
25:25All the bells in all the churches ring,
25:28and all the people greet his magister.
25:32Here in the Mediterranean are the elements on which aggression shatters.
25:37The king,
25:39the people,
25:41the Royal Navy.
25:43♪♪♪
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