About (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover

The song was written about a year after the Royal Air Force and German aircraft had been fighting over southern England, including the white cliffs of Dover, in the Battle of Britain. Nazi Germany had conquered much of Europe and in 1941 was still bombing Britain. With neither America nor the Soviet Union having yet joined the war, Britain was the only major power fighting the Axis powers in Europe (see The Darkest Hour). The American lyricist, Nat Burton, wrote his lyric (unaware that the bluebird is not indigenous to Britain) and asked Kent to set it to music.[1] Notable phrases include "Thumbs Up!" which was an RAF and RCAF term for permission to go, and "flying in those angry skies" where the air war was taking place. The lyrics looked toward a time when the war would be over, and peace would rule over the iconic white cliffs, Britain's symbolic border with the European mainland.

Dame Vera Margaret Lynn CH DBE OStJ (née Welch; born 20 March 1917) is a British singer of traditional popular music, songwriter and actress, whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during the Second World War. She is widely known as "the Forces' Sweetheart", and gave outdoor concerts for the troops in Egypt, India, and Burma during the war as part of Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). The songs most associated with her are "We'll Meet Again", "The White Cliffs of Dover", "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and "There'll Always Be an England". She remained popular after the war, appearing on radio and television in the UK and the US and recording such hits as "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" and her UK number one single "My Son, My Son". Her last single, "I Love This Land", was released to mark the end of the Falklands War. In 2009, at the age of 92, she became the oldest living artist to top the UK Albums Chart with the compilation album We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn. In 2014 she released the collection Vera Lynn: National Treasure, and in 2017 she released Vera Lynn 100, a compilation album of hits to commemorate her centennial year—it was a number 3 hit, making her the first centenarian performer to have a Top 10 album in the charts.