Sunday
Eleven fifteen, and a country is at war
Chamberlain spoke for four minutes from the Cabinet Room. The air raid sirens went almost immediately — a false alarm — and by the evening the King was on the air and every theatre and cinema in Britain had been ordered shut.
Opening the day…
The night of
Before 11:15 am, London
Britain's note to Berlin expired at eleven o'clock. The BBC held the morning open — bulletins, the last agency copy on peace efforts out of Washington — waiting for a reply that was never going to come.
11:15 am – 1:00 pm, London
Chamberlain broadcast from 10 Downing Street. Within minutes the sirens sounded over London — a misidentified French aircraft — and a nation that had rehearsed for gas and bombing spent its first hour of war in the shelters. The BBC then read the defence order closing every place of entertainment in the country.
Afternoon and evening
Australia and New Zealand were already in; Canada's declaration followed, carried by the CBC. At six in the evening George VI made the broadcast the film later made famous, speaking with the deliberate care of a man who had been taught to get through it. In New York the Sunday schedule carried on — Dorothy Thompson analysing Hitler on NBC, Charlie McCarthy at eight — and Roosevelt spoke to America about a war beginning in Europe.
Where this comes from
