 Words that war presents Robert St. John's from the land of silent people. National anthem sung in Yugoslavia until the Nazis came. That is the scream of a Yugoslav woman. She's not being molested. Her pain is mental. She's just remembered something that happened on Bloody Sunday in Belgrade in Yugoslavia. That's the bomb that killed her husband. When she looked from a window of their house and saw him running across the square, disobeying the shouted orders of the soldiers and the police. The sight of a man being blown to pieces is a horrible thing to remember. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Council on Books in wartime, presents the sixth in the series, Words at War, tonight offering a radio adaptation of Robert St. John's great book from the land of silent people. And now it is our pleasure to present in person Mr. Robert St. John. Script writer Neil Hopkins has prepared a dramatic impression of my book, which does not pretend to portray everything that I've written. Neither does it pretend to portray the hope, which today surges through those occupied countries of Europe, as Italy teeters and deliverance becomes more than a vague hope for the distant future. And since I don't pretend to be an actor, Don McLaughlin will play my part. From the land of silent people is my report on some nations and some people who are, for the moment, silent. I'm a reporter and I saw it happen. Once on a lecture platform, the chairman of the meeting said to me... Now, just one word of advice before you speak, Mr. St. John. Please remember that you're speaking after the dinner hour. Make your remarks pleasant. Don't make war seem too terrible. We don't want to disturb their suggestions, you know. I did not make pleasant remarks in that lecture. I told them, as we shall tell you tonight, something of what I saw and heard and smelled and just a bit of what I thought during a few weeks of this war. St. John's 11928 Belgrade Direct. Yugoslavia tonight has more than a million soldiers master on their frontiers in preparation for war following a day of... Hello. Hello, hello, Associated Press. Hello, Operator. St. John's 11928 Belgrade Direct. I know that, but why? Who's interrupting me? Sensors, but this dispatch has been cleared by the sensors, Operator. I got a rubber stamp on every page. Hey, Baron, skip the first paragraph. I don't think they like it. Let's start with the second. You ready? Ready. For 12 hours today, a frenzied crowd... It's hopeless. Hopeless these last days of March and the first days of April in 1941. Hopeless trying to get a dispatch out of Belgrade. Simovic, the commander of the Air Force, has taken over. He's thrown out the government that sold Yugoslavia to Hitler and Mussolini. Simovic is playing a dangerous game, and he knows it, but he'll fight. Fight against a necklace of steel around Yugoslavia's neck. Italian troops on the northwest, Italian troops in Albania, Nazi troops, Nazi planes, Nazi tanks lined up along the Romanian, Bulgarian and Hungarian frontiers. In Belgrade, the people cheer and sing the Yugoslavian national anthem. The will to fight Nazi tyranny is alive and singing in Yugoslavia. This April of 1941. The means to fight have not been found wanting. Not yet. In Belgrade, Simovic reforms the government, stalls for time, orders the German legation to leave Yugoslavia. Well, St. John, nice of you to see us off. Tell me, do any of Herr Hitler's representatives remain in Belgrade? By tomorrow morning, there won't be a single German left in Yugoslavia, except our military attaché and his assistant, and the two servants. They'll be ready for anything. What is anything likely to mean? No matter, cheer up, St. John. We'll be back soon, we Germans. Probably very soon. And when we do come, we'll bring a few souvenirs. Bye, St. John. Take care. Take care. Spoken like a warning. Or perhaps a command. Don't move. Don't move. A command the way Sonya says it. Schmidt-Pop, the Hungarian press representative, introduced me to Sonya a few minutes ago in the hotel dining room. Then came a telephone call for Schmidt-Pop. And now we're alone. Don't move, because I'm terrified. Please hold my hand tighter. I hate all this. That frightens me so. Blackness. Those horrible sirens I hear. Sonya is a well-traveled university graduate. She holds an important government position. She knows just about everything. Right now she knows fear in a Belgrade blackout, while a gypsy violin drowns out the sound. Those horrible sirens I hear. Maybe it's just a rehearsal. Yes, but the real show will come soon. Yugoslavia will fight. With empty hands she will fight the giant. Then what will we do? We are not soldiers. Well, I know what I'm going to do. I'm getting myself a car and following Simovic into the hills of South Serbia. But with the government we ought to be fairly safe. We ought to have some communications. Oh, take me with you. Oh, not on your life. Oh, please take me with you. I can't stay here. You mustn't leave me behind. I'll die of fright if I don't get killed by the bombs. Listen, Mr. St. John, you hardly know me, but I'll be good. I speak the language. I can help you. And I won't make any trouble. Just let me go alone. You'll have to expect to be treated like a man. It'll be tough going. Look. The lights. The lights come on again. Did you hear me, Sonya? Yes, I know. I want mine. And listen, I promise to bring along three quarts of good scotch whiskey in four bottles of French champagne. Okay? Oh, please. It's a deal. Fine. And now, will you please take me home? Will you? You will know exactly how to find me. Sure. We can walk past the park. There are spring flowers now. And a good clean fresh air. So nice. And for how long? Next week, that clean fresh air may smell of gunpowder and burning buildings and burning people. No. No. It must not be. But whatever comes, you have promised me on your honor to take me with you when you leave Belkart. You must write down my telephone number also. Now. All right. And speaking of telephones, I must take you home and get back to my rooms upstairs. I'm expecting a call from Switzerland, perhaps from the United States. America? In what? You can talk to America? How wonderful! How perfectly wonderful! St. John speaking. Berlin calling. Berlin? AP Berlin? We must you. That is correct. Oh, so, so, so correct. What are you doing tonight, St. John? What, you're thinking of bed? So what? You got a little party on up there? Seriously, St. John, if I were you, I wouldn't go to bed tonight. Hey, hey, wait a minute. Why shouldn't I go to bed? I think up here, it would be an excellent night for you to sit up. Listening to the music from the Berlin Broadcasting Station. Good night. Good luck, St. John. This is the resurrection and the death. This is Palm Sunday, April 6th, 1941. This is Belgrade in Yugoslavia. This is not murder. This is slaughter. I don't remember exactly how many of the American correspondents and radio men are in and around the hotel this Sunday morning. There are several of us coming and going on one mission or another. I remember Lee White. I remember Russell Hill of the New York Herald Tribune. I remember Ray Brock of the New York Times. That's Brock standing with me on the hotel balcony. Yes, there they are. 40 Nazi bombers, two miles up and coming over fast. Let's go to the hotel lobby now and stand there like sheep staring at each other's faces. Stand there like sheep waiting for the slaughter. There's no dugout in the cellar. Belgrade was going to be declared an undefended city of war ever came. But the bombers are here and nobody's had time to make any declaration. Ray Brock and I go downstairs as the symphony begins. The symphony of slaughter. This is the first and only movement. Full and terrible without a single solo instrument. Bombers moving forward, bombers diving, bombs falling, bombs bursting, anti-aircraft guns, pom-pom guns, machine guns, buildings cracking, buildings falling. Somewhere under it all must be the screams of defenseless, dead and dying men and women and children. But these are the little voices in the symphony of slaughter. Not warriors, but lovers of peace. Little people, let me speak for them. Let me shout above it all for this one moment. Let me proclaim this is the resurrection and the death. This is Palm Sunday, the death of a city, the birth of a silent people. This is April the 6th, 1941. This is Belgrade in Yugoslavia. This is the symphony of slaughter. This is Bloody Sunday. Yes, yes, of course. Church bells are on God's side. Once General Smuts in South Africa said to Frank Gervasi of Collier's magazine, we'll win, my boy, because God's on our side. Gervasi said, excuse me, General, I don't mean to be sacrilegious, but how many planes does God have? How many planes does Yugoslavia have? At the American Legation we found Lee White, the radio commentator. At the Legation we found some of the other press correspondents. We made plans. The day before we started for Sarajevo, on our way to escape by the sea, Russell Hill and I talked to a Yugoslav soldier. He can speak a little English. I think he was a dispatch writer. We're not telling you you can't win. We're just telling you what you'll have to face when the Nazi military machine starts to move in. We've seen it in action. Isn't that so, St. John? Yeah, of course it is. We, Yugoslavs, are fighting men. We will continue fighting to the end for freedom. Will you come up against tanks? Tanks? What are tanks? Is he kidding us? You speak English. You know what tanks are. What are tanks? Listen, tanks are steel fortresses rolling on tracks. They lay down themselves. Inside are men and guns, big guns. Those are the things you're going to fight. Yeah, and your job is going to be to stop them. But how are you going to do it? You know, why do I have this? It's your rifle. Rifle bullets won't even make a dent in a tank. Are you sure there are men in those tanks? Take our word for it, soldier. There are men inside the tanks. Then it is easy. If there are men inside, they have got to come out sometime, no? You nod your heads yes, eh? We nod our heads yes. Now what? Well, then, we wait until the men come out of the tank. And when they come out, we shoot them. It was as simple as that. I think Russell Hill and I both must have shuttered. This is the kind of an army Simovic is planning to throw against the Nazis. It would help Yugoslavia. Tomahawks against rifles, rifles against machine guns, machine guns against planes. This is worse than any of them. Rifles against tanks. Worse, but not the worst. There was the ox cart army we passed on the road to Yuzitsa and Sarajevo. Not an emergency measure, not at all. Oxen, oxen, oxen, teams of oxen pulling carts. Carts loaded with military supplies and provisions and soldiers. We counted. It was tiresome, but we had nothing else to do. We counted 1,500 ox carts. We counted 3,000 head of oxen pulling the ox carts. This is time marching backward to fight a Nazi military machine marching forward. Sonia's with us from Sarajevo to the sea. Sonia pushing her way across the floor of the crowded cafe. I have found you. There you are. She doesn't complain about hunting around Belgrade for two days for the American newspaper man who promised to help her and didn't. She doesn't say much about bombs and machine guns and death. I don't want to talk to her about Belgrade and dead bodies. I want to talk about tall, cool bottles and other things that aren't important. We've been drinking Slivovich, prone whiskey because we don't have enough food. My head's swimming off. All I can remember to say is, how about your champagne and the scotch? How did you expect me to bring champagne and scotch when you deserted me and I didn't have a car? Well, I won't desert you this time. Let's go shopping. Let's go shopping. That's Sonia trying to pretend that we aren't all sitting right on the edge of the pit. A certain shade of face powder, a certain special brand. I keep thinking when you get hit in the face with a bomb fragment, ladies, it doesn't matter which shade of powder you happen to... Oh, that's cruel. And this is Sonia in action. Mr. District Chief. These Americans are my friends. They have suffered much in a country, which is our country, not theirs. Still, they do not flee from us. They try to help us. We need 50 liters of gasoline. Yes, I know all that kind of people have come to you. I know your weariness of these appeals. Nevertheless, I beg 50 liters of gasoline. Please. I will allow you 60 liters. Me and my American friends are out there. This is only what remains of a cafe. We have no food. There is slivovitch and tea. Oh, we are sick with spawn whiskey and tea. We are sick and we have far to go. You have a little can of cherries? I saw some little can of cherries. They're not worth anything. I cannot cheat you. Your American friends will tell you they're worth 10 cents. But a can of cherries is food. And so I must keep them. Would you like this leather jacket I'm wearing? You are small. My jacket would fit you. For a 10-cent can of cherries? Take the jacket. My friends cannot eat my leather jacket. Little things like that. I will give you an action from Sarajevo to the sea. And then at Budva on the coast of the Adriatic. Russell Hill and I have a talk. Bob. You awake? You still awake, Russ? What do you want now? That Budva is the Macadunca. What about the Macadunca? She's just a 20-foot sardine boat. She's just got a one-cylinder outboard engine. The sail and four oars. Not all of that. What of it? Well, now we've got Terri Atherton of the London Daily Mail with us. And besides you and me, there's Kay of United Press. Lee White. So? You in love with Sonya, Bob? Don't talk nonsense, of course not. Well, the Macadunca's nothing more than a rowboat, Bob. Now, to make a getaway, we've got to go hundreds of miles down the Adriatic, down the coast of Yugoslavia, Albania, until we hit the Greek mainland somewhere, or the Greek island of Corfu. Part of that time, we'll be snug between the heel of Italy and Albania. You've got no food. A long sea voyage in an overgrown rowboat. No food. We do get picked up by the Italian Navy. It'll be a lot tougher for her than us. Well? You're right. Sonya can't go with us. I left Yugoslavia that night with a lot of pictures indelibly stamped on my mind. Pictures of dead bodies in the square in Belgrade. Mangled bodies in Sarajevo when the bombs came there. Crowds of bewildered people in Budva waiting for the bombs to come. But one of the clearest pictures was the picture of Sonya. Sonya standing in the middle of a road in the foothills of the Dalmatian mountains. Waving a red handkerchief. Sonya saying... Goodbye, Mr. Sen... I'm suffering on a boat. That covers it quickly and simply. The name of the boat is the Macadonca. It's the name I shall never forget. She's 20 feet long. And five men who know little or nothing about sailing are sailing this boat southeastward through a sea they know nothing about. We sail by the stars and we're too ignorant of simple astronomy to know that the stars swing about the heavens as the earth turns. We have a little stale bread. We have a few cans of this and that. We have some raisins. This is raw ham, not cooked. Just smoked. We run through storms. We run through minefields. We quarrel bitterly among ourselves. Five reporters unable to report. Five hungry, angry men. And now... Hey, look. Islands dead ahead. Islands. Must be those islands just off Corfu. We grab our maps. After a while, Russell Hill, who's a very precise map reader, says... those are the three little islands and there's Corfu just beyond. What the hell, hotels and beds and clean sheets and cable offices and a place to sit down and write a story. And now in Heaven's name, St. John, dish out some food for us, will you? Food? I'll give you a feast. That's a loaf of good Serbian bread we've been using to hammer the oarlocks back in place. And see this little can? In this little can is a feast. This is pheasant paste. From the bird of the same name. Pheasant paste on pheasant bread and a vast story a touch. In honor of peace and quiet, two slices of our only orange to every man. And why not? We made it. There's Greek land just ahead. There's order and discipline and common sense and cables. We can get our stories off to New York now. We can be reporters again. We can tell them the story of Bloody Sunday in Belgrade. We've made it. We can tell them. No need to wave your American flag. You can put your hands down now. I can see what you are, but get out of the boat. Maybe I went to school in Chicago. Who are you? I'm Robert St. John, Associated Press. These men... Never mind. It can wait. There is some danger here on this beach. But you don't understand. We're American and English radio newspaper people. Your credentials will be examined later, Mr. St. John. That's just Greece, a friendly country. Are you? Probably. Your credentials will be examined later. Out of the boat now. All of you. Listen, we've come hundreds of miles down through minefields and Italian ships and storms to get to Greece, a friendly country. Now we're being greeted with rifles. We're reporters. We fought our way through to tell the story of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia bombed into silence two weeks ago. It's just the same here, Mr. St. John. Out of the boat. All of you. Yes, quite the same. The same symphony of slaughter. Bombers moving forward. Bombers diving. Bombs. Nazi machine gun. Very special job. We're on the Greek mainland. Somehow on a troop train. Patras to Corinth. Nazi machine guns. A very special job. Train running along the very edge of the Gulf of Corinth. Very, very, very straight drop down there. Wonderful spot for a plane to poke his machine guns into a train window. Wonderful spot. Wonderful slaughter. It's a strange thing. You couldn't hear the screams of the dead and dying men because of the screams of the dead and dying men. You couldn't hear the sound of the plane because of the sound of the plane. The sound of the machine gun because of the sound of the machine gun. It starts quietly. The symphony of slaughter. Lee White was badly hit. I got just a sprinkling of steel in my leg. British Army trucks helped us to get Lee to an X-ray man's house in Argus. Argus. Just a little Greek town. Atherton and I are together when the planes come over again. Some panicky people said that they had taken Lee White to the X-ray man's clinic. We found the clinic all right. But I wish we never had. Because out in front on the sidewalk lay what once had been a man. Look at him. Both his hands were blown off at the wrist. One leg's in shreds. His tractors ripped open his stomach. Yet he screamed. What's he saying? Tell me. I can see that. What does he say? He said, I want my money. You want somebody to get bloodstained for pills. You see, he got very bad pain in his head. Atherton. We're dead, Atherton. Do you hear me? We're dead. We're in hell. This isn't Greece. Ladies and gentlemen, may we reintroduce in person the distinguished author of the book From the Land of Silent People, Mr. Robert St. John. I called them silent people because as I fled from Europe, I knew that the vast majority of those people would be silent for a few years as they suffered and starved under Nazi domination waiting for the light. But not completely silent. Bands of gorillas in both Yugoslavia and in Greece for more than two years now have been harassing the enemy. And tonight I can imagine the new hope which surges through the breasts of those occupied millions. I know how they get their news over there, over hidden clandestine radio receivers, by whispered word of mouth, the news that the Tommies and the Doughboys have cleaned the axis out of Africa, that the Tommies and the Doughboys have landed in Sicily, that Rome has been bombed, that the Russians are closing in on Oriel, that a thousand planes have razed Essen Germany, that Mussolini who ordered that barbarous attack on Greece has been yanked from his balcony. They know that every one of those events brings the armies of the United Nations that much closer to their frontiers, brings victory and deliverance that much closer to realization. Yes, hope does surge up in the weary breasts of those silent people who someday soon will be silent no more. As the sixth program of Words at War, we have presented a radio interpretation of the book From the Land of Silent People by Robert St. John. It was adapted for radio by Neil Hopkins, one of the NBC script staff. Mr. St. John was played by Don McLaughlin. Other members of the cast included Elisal Falke, Joseph DeSantis, Richard Keith, Sam Wanamaker, Peter Kapell, Laris Taviski, John Griggs, and Gilbert Mack. The original music was composed by Morris Mamorsky and conducted by Joseph Stopak. The production was under the direction of Joseph Losi. Next week, Words at War presents episodes from Prisoner of the Japs by Gwen Jew, a vivid eyewitness account of a survivor of the fall of Hong Kong. Words at War is brought to you in cooperation with the Council on Books in wartime by the national broadcasting company and the independent radio stations associated with the NBC network.