I WENT BACK

[Music] my name's Lee again and I'm an actor once like so many others I was a soldier like war soldiers I have my dreams dreams of going home and dreams of coming back in peacetime when the fighting was over I've been one of the luckier ones and I've been able to go back and rediscover some of the cities I knew in the blast of war how is the Europe of today is its glory extinguished was it so very different from me the Europe that so many of us knew in 1945 a continent in chaos half destroyed a continent dazed with war numb with grief hysterical with happiness because peace had come at last [Applause] two cities lying in ruins two millions displaced by war and torn from their homes to children hungry and separated from their fathers and mothers to the cemeteries and to your comrades who lay where they fell in bed these had come to you the guns were silent at last and those of us who had crossed the channel in 1944 were heading home to civvy Street tomb city close to home and family and to our memories as soldiers always have we swore we would go back to see again the yesterday's as they are today [Music] when the time came it was be +5 victory in europe plus five years and I was heading back to the places I had known in second since his far different different to was the mode of travel comfortable seats on an airplane a relaxed mood Karla different from that glider or bomber or that bouncing little landing craft that took you across the first time on a journey that spanned a continent from Denmark to Greece France Italy Germany and Austria the land over which we are flying is the flat fertile land around Copenhagen the skies are as grey as they had been that day at five years again life was at a standstill then war had taken away industry but now the Viking ports of Denmark are busy not only shifts but the building up [Music] five years ago this would have been only a dream the fleet's of Scandinavia were half destroyed but now they are being rebuilt giant cranes from America noisy ponderous efficient machinery putting a nation to see once more this is Elsa nas shipyard it lies in the very shadow of the castle where Hamlet walked by night and well once I played in Shakespeare's Hamlet for the own thing but there are really two denmark's the nation of the sea and the nation of the soil the land of neat white houses a flat fertile files and some of the best land in Europe what a difference five years can make in a man's perspective in 1945 I'd have said to myself young my divine land for digging foxholes or gun emplacements nice and gentle top but no one says merely I define lamb for Fani the full livestock button it's all the things we still need in Britain forever it's hard to look at a tractor without thinking of food raising food is after all on tractors of four even though some of them are first cousins to tanks and jeeps like these in Vienna I [Music] stopped at a trade fair on the outskirts of what the Viennese now called the third man suburb agricultural machinery is the main attraction for Vienna is not altogether a city of may wine and horses [Music] austria's so long under the Nazis has rejoined the nations of Europe it is integrated once more into the economy of a continent no longer is the choice guns or butter in getting's words this martial plan exhibit urges the opening of frontiers where Hitler slander shut when I was there before Vienna was dragged its streets were full of rubble but now standing before the Imperial hapsburg palace one can see the former splendor of a city which refused to die statues and memorials remain many of the people have fled sheltered in other countries by friends and by strangers who had pity in their hearts for fellow men but some new touches have been added under the portrait of Lenin the Russians have established an officer's child and tanks in the streets are forceful reminders of war but honestly unable to report the people still walk towards the Vienna Woods war Cesare music are more enduring even than statues for the very young these memories of war don't exist not here in the sunshine now in the spring but even they will be reminded when they grow alone and Asik who's that man up there and a toll of war death and of the meaning of the statue of the unknown Russian soldier from the Soviets back into history high on a hill above the Russian monument stands the palace built by a marshal of Napoleon and from the hill the whole city is spread out below third stop row the Eternal City with all its grandeur even after a devastating war there are many things to be thankful for not the least of them but such noble cities as Rome survived schellenberg thankful that such landmarks as the castell Angelo were naughty raised by planes or gun [Music] [Music] hello our hotel window lay Rome's new railway station gleaming white in the Sun vast but already two smaller Lada visitors trains bring thousands of pilgrims to Rome even while workmen rushed to finish new tracks for still more trains Rome's version of a body is a bit more ornate than anything you can find around Charing Cross station or even Piccadilly it but justice help form if you can speak the language the spring Sun be done with terrific heat on the weapon but they seem to thrive on it moving bricks and rubble shoveling sand as casually as the butcher might toss the week's meat ration over to [Music] even in Rome the casual lunch ah crowds like to watch somebody else work or try as I did and the poet's have done before me to describe the glories of Rome at least it's safer than dodging trams and certainly less tiring this portal has been dodging them all dare look where it got him all roads lead to Rome and all the streets to Rome lead to some Peters some are blocked by work in progress but Italy is busier these days yeah we stand like a million other pilgrims from all over the world at the threshold of Vatican City British American South American and German like these two theological students from Franklin the last time I was in these streets the Germans were in full retreat the first Tommy's and GIS swarmed through the city in jeeps and tanks carriers and reconnaissance cars and these are the streets for reconnaissance internment pages in history [Music] along the Appian Way where Caesar marched his troops and into the Colosseum while stands the Colosseum Rome shall stand when Falls the Colosseum Rome shall fall and when Rome Falls the word Byron said that when he stood here a century ago from Rome to Athens little more than three hours as the plane flies over the agency centuries as one looks back into history the Colosseum in Rome the natives say - no - mutton why it's only a couple of thousand years old now the Acropolis why these fair ladies are more than two thousand years old give or take a year or so we were joined by Luanne McNeese the British perch I wonder if he'll find words as vivid as violence to describe this Fair Greece sad relic of departed worth immortal though no more though fallen great [Music] from that classic hill the city was spread out below us in the bright liquid light like Sun dream of antiquity yeah well the poets walked and the great philosophers [Music] from the Acropolis it might have taken even Hercules a day to walk to Paris the port of Athens even with the aid of the gods but with a car the journey is telescoped perhaps too quickly and we stopped to gaze over the bay we're fleets of ancient Greece once lay anchored against storms and tides but now in the harbor below the fleet sail forth no longer to hunt for legend with their sailboats now powered with petrol engines they hunt for fish boats with 20th century paths that will almost the same design as a thousand years ago [Music] and so are the costumes this chapter be he inherited the shawl from his great-grandfather or was it his grandmother after the war Greece was almost starving fishing helped bring food to her table sprats and anchovies and things I'd never seen before I still wish I hadn't eaten that dried octopus sun-ripened they told me delicious I still regret it so does he [Music] out of the misery and chaos of war Greece was rising again and so was Italy and Austria and Denmark and so home and to the new world I returned with a message of hope but the people of the old world were learning to live and work together from the people for the people all Springs and all must exist [Music]