New archive release reveals the BBC’s role in secret activities during World War Two

The collection, released by BBC History today, includes a clip confirming details of an operation to replace the live Big Ben chimes with a recorded version in the event of an air attack, to ensure the Germans did not know their planes were over Westminster. The archives also validate the claim that the BBC’s Alexandra Palace transmitters were used as part of an RAF operation to distort the navigating system of Luftwaffe bombers, so that they were misled about direction and range.

For the first time, a previously unheard account also gives an insight into the secret process of playing certain music at the end of news bulletins - the choice of records giving orders or information to resistance groups in Poland. It involved Polish government representatives turning up, and using the codename ‘Peter Peterkin’, to provide programme staff with a particular piece of music. BBC staff would arrange for the Polish news to run for a shorter length of time than usual, so that the record could be played.

The archive release shows that although the BBC had no objection to being a supporter of the British cause, it remained committed to promoting editorial values of truthfulness and accuracy. Indeed, the BBC felt that the trust of any foreign listeners would only be earned – and the propaganda war won - if it could report British failures as well as British successes. And on VE Day, rather than unbridled jingoism and celebration, poignant archive accounts reveal how the BBC attempted to reflect a more complex mood and regret for lives lost.

Other items released today include:

• Interviews on the bombing of Broadcasting House, including several eye-witness accounts from those inside the building during attacks in October and December 1940, revealing the chaos and confusion and how the BBC kept programmes on the air
• Inside accounts of life under siege at the BBC during the Blitz and the camaraderie of 400 staff sleeping every night in the basement of Broadcasting House. Many staff were also dispersed to secret country locations, including Bangor, Bristol, and Wood Norton, with archive interviews giving a sense of life in these regional hide-outs
• The archive release gives the fullest inside account yet of how the BBC told the world about D-Day. Newsreader John Snagge describes the hours running up to his announcement, when he was locked under armed guard to stop news sneaking out
• The archive reveals some of the behind-the-scenes struggles to keep the British people entertained and informed during the war, as well as new insights on the BBC’s wartime role in soft-power politics and cultural diplomacy

David Hendy, Curator of the collection and Professor of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex, says: “This new archive release for the BBC's oral history collection is a really important piece of social history, giving us intriguing and - until now - entirely unheard ‘inside’ accounts of the BBC’s wartime role. It also confirms for the first time several fascinating details of BBC’s role in wartime activities and as a morale-booster in the fight against fascism, along with interviews and documents about events and programmes that remain a huge part of the popular memory of World War Two.”

The public are invited to share their memories

The BBC And World War Two: 100 Voices That Made The BBC is a collaboration between the BBC and the University of Sussex and is part of Connected Histories of the BBC, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

The material in the collection should be viewed in the context and with the understanding that it reflects the attitudes and standards of its own era - not those of today.

PT