By the end of 1941 America had entered the war, and in 1942 Strand's Battle for Freedom could use the term “United Nations” and depict a global theatre of war. This film's attempt to precis every war front overloads its fifteen minutes, which was perhaps the propagandist intention - by inducing mental indigestion and awe at the scale of the allies’ deployment and organisation. The script by Dylan Thomas is over-literate and over-packed (“liberty against butchery, against the German locust and the mechanised plague of Japanese annihilation”). With a proliferation of shots struggling to follow the words, music is very much a third partner. Only occasionally does the commentary breathe for as long as two or three seconds to allow music or effects to shine through. While Alwyn attempts to reflect words and pictures, his most successful achievement is the introduction of a perky patriotic march as the film rises to its conclusion (“And in England now …”), which ends with a triumphal brass and cymbal fanfare.

Alwyn liked to associate with literary intellectuals like Thomas, especially after 1942 when new opportunities arose as a composer of incidental music for BBC feature programmes. Now classified as of “national importance”, the BBC had invested heavily in new resources, and its listening figures exploded as the working class tuned in to what had been formerly a middle-class preserve.

Alwyn's initiation was a rush job for the first of a series called Britain to America (Plate 3), on which Mathieson, fingers in many pies, was music director. The programme was a prestigious one, produced by D. G. Bridson of the Features and Drama Department in answer to an appeal by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) for a series presenting a taste of British wartime life for American listeners. Since the programme was set up at only ten days’ notice,1 Alwyn had even less time than usual. Reliably, however, he met his deadline with a “Moorland Theme” for timpani, percussion, harp, and strings lasting one and a half minutes and “Music for Lovers” for percussion, harp, and strings lasting a minute. Mathieson conducted the LSO and the Alexandra Choir with Clive Wilson as soloist. The programme was transmitted in North America at the end of July, and repeated on the Home Service in August.

Between film directors and radio producers there was virtually no cross-fertilisation.