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Remembered Today:

The First World War from Above


Verrico2009

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As UK members probably know, they'd run a Timewatch programme (apparently a repeat) on the final deaths of WW1 presented by Michael Palin the night before. Have to say, I much preferred it. I had hoped to learn something (and I'm no expert by any means) but it just felt all over the show. The point of interest for me was really the aerial photos (with the airship footage a close second) - but we barely saw them. I picked up the "Who Do You Think You Are" magazine at the weekend. It has a great photo of the trenches - clear enough to see individual men. That's what I was looking for, but I don't recall seeing it or anything remotely like it.

I think the photos were IWM property but not the footage. I was going to ask whether the airship footage has been released, but I see Hugh's covered that.

And as for the presenter with the pilot's daughter - it would have been so much more powerful if he'd just kept his trap shut and let her get on with viewing it! It is incredible that she didn't know it existed but the poor soul shouldn't have been forced to watch it for the first time on camera. I imagine she would be equally emotional however many times she viewed it.

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When Ypres was referred to as " the most famous city on the Western Front " , I bristled a bit, wondering how a French audience - bearing in mind that the original footage was shot by Frenchmen for French people - might have felt about that.

Since the climax of the story was very much based on the "how do you feel" syndrome, might it not have been proper to have featured Verdun ?

Phil (PJA)

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Kevin,

The one abiding memory of my Father I have,who lived through WW1,was his desire,that I could freely debate ,with another person,put my own interpretation on a subject,expect to receive,a counter-interpretation,which may be thought provoking and educational to me but we,the debaters,never cause distress to one another.

I appreciate and value your observations.

Best wishes.

George

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Steve, you wrote

'if it stimulates some people to look further at the topic, then it will have been well worth it....'

This criterion is so undemanding that just about every programme about WW1 ever made or ever likely to be made, no matter how bad it is, may stimulate somebody to look further at the topic and therefore be judged 'well worth it'.

Or have you ever come across a programme which failed that test?

I stand by what I said. I don't see it as an undemanding criterion as I would hope anyone who has had to provoke interest in a subject that doesn't necessarily appeal to everyone, would agree. To give you two specific examples from the programme, one of the people I spoke to was taken aback by the before and after photos of Paschendael, they hadn't appreciated that a place that size could be virtually wiped off the map by the munitions available at the time, They had seen the "usual shots of no-mans land and the muddy waste but had always assumed the fighting was contained to the fields etc. The second example concerns the much-maligned use of the Bayernwald trenches; we overlook the fact that the main point that they were used to illustrate was why they weren't built in straight lines, something my in-laws, who watched with me, weren't aware of.

We all have ideas on how it could have been improved and it may not "have done what it said on the can" but I still found it a fascinating piece of TV.

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Posted this on chit chat, so I've moved it here, thanks for pointing it out Ken! As for some reason my works computer won't let me read anything other than the last page, I apologise if any of this is a repeat of what's already been posted.

It was billed as:

"The story of the Great War told from a unique new aerial perspective. Featuring two remarkable historical finds, including a piece of archive footage filmed from an airship in summer 1919, capturing the trenches and battlefields in a way that's rarely been seen before. And aerial photographs taken by First World War pilots - developed for the first time in over ninety years".

In the intro they said the airship film was around 78mins long (if I heard him right) yet we were treated to the same 5 or 6 very short clips repeated throughout the programme, what we did see looked fantastic, but blink and you missed it. "rarely seen before" it said in the description above, and rarely seen in the programme.

They hired a modern day airship, I take it to give a similar perspective to the original footage? but then spent the majority of the time it was being used showing long shots of it from a chase plane or close ups of the presented Fergal Keane sitting in it.

When he was doing the overhead shots of the mine craters, there were ones pointed out on a golf course, I'm no expert, but in those examples the close proximity to each other and the elongated and irregular shapes of them seemed more to do with man made pond's of the Golf course creators plan rather than the almost uniformly circular mine craters shown earlier, were they genuine or just a contrived "oh look what they've done with them" moment?

My final criticism was Fergal's little jolly in the period aircraft, what was the point of it? I'm sure he had a great time, but couldn't he have tried to say take a photgraph or 2 using a vintage camera to give a demonstration of the problems involved?

I was really looking forward to this, but I just felt it didn't live up to the title of the programme.

Sam

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we overlook the fact that the main point that they were used to illustrate was why they weren't built in straight lines, something my in-laws, who watched with me, weren't aware of.

Not really because it was wrong about that as well. Trenches have been dug in zig zags since the time of Vauban and Cohorn in the late 17th Century long before high explosive shells were lobbed at them. They zig zag to avoid enfilade with small arms fire by attacking troops and to ensure that taking one piece of trench line doesn't cause the whole lot to fall. Protection against shell fire may also be an advantage but that isn't why trenches had been dug that way for over 250 years.

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When he was doing the overhead shots of the mine craters, there were ones pointed out on a golf course, I'm no expert, but in those examples the close proximity to each other and the elongated and irregular shapes of them seemed more to do with man made pond's of the Golf course creators plan rather than the almost uniformly circular mine craters shown earlier, were they genuine or just a contrived "oh look what they've done with them" moment?

Absolutely right, they were pointing out ornamental lakes created as a landscaping effect before WW1. There were no mines exploded in the White Chateau area during the Messines offensive. The mines were at Hill 60 and St Eloi and not between. We live right next to this golf course, and and we were howling derision at the TV set.

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Internal memo to BBC Commissioning editors:

Re: Future Great War Documentaries

Do not:

1. Allow the latter day cult of "celebrity presenter" to dominate the film to the detriment of the subject matter

2. Use footage that has been previously used in probably every WW1 documentary made to-date , eg the soldier with a comrade on his shoulders walking towards camera, the backshot of troops going over the top with one or two falling down, the backshot of a large artillery gun recoiling

3. insult the intelligence of the viewer by using contrived scenes, eg finding a shell lying nearby, or spotting tunic buttons at your feet (even if there is a reasonable probability of finding such items if one looks hard and long enough)

4. Over use CGI graphics, better still, do not use them at all. We're the BBC, not Hollywood.

5. Use strange camera angles, or panning/sweeping shots that confuse and disorientate the viewer

6. Repeat clips simply to make up the required running time

Do:

7. Use a competent keen dedicated researcher who might unearth material worthy of broadcasting

8. Try to find unique archive material in the IWM that hasn't been shown before, if possible

9. Try to make use of clips from the IWM sound archive of soldier's testamony to supplement film footage

10. Try to educate the viewer, within the remit of the subject matter, if possible

Finally, and most importantly:

11. Why not review and learn from Great War documentaries of the 1960's 70's, to see how to really produce something worthwhile and groundbreaking.

Yours,

Mark Thompson

Director General, BBC.

......if only. One can but hope.

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...even straying as far as tracking down the lady who fell in a hole. Which happened at least a decade ago

and lets face it, she wouldn't have taken too much tracking down as the story and subsequent investigations are very well covered in the excellent book 'Beneath Flanders Fields' (Barton, Doyle, Vandewalle); much easier and cheaper shooting an interview on the ground than taking aerial shots or having state of the art CGI sequences made. No disrespect to the lady or her husband, but, although it must have been a traumatic experience at the time, they must have been dining out on their story for years, and who can really blame them.

I hope that GW documentaries never sink to the level of tonight's Panorama on the income tax fiasco; it was so apalling I had to turn off, and it used to be such a serious programme (sorry for going off topic but if it had been made to a similar level The First World War from above might have been far, far worse than it actually was, so we should be thankful for small mercies)

NigelS

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DMAC, you missed a few:

Do Not invent things that aren't true, eg phased mines at Messines

Do Not include large chunks of stuff irrelevant to the subject, eg stuff about mine tunnelling in a programme about aerial filming

Do Not use tasteless schlock interviews

and above all

Do Not use rubbish producers, and especially not Mark Radice

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I don't regret the time spent watching it, but as many of you has said it tried to cram too many subjects into the time and there was more than a hint of dumbing-down. I was hoping for a "then and now" comparison of the 1919 aerial shots with todays'.

Too much CGI. The flight to France of the first BEF squadron in August 1914 was shown by CGI clones of the Shuttleworth Collection's Avro 504, which is a later model in the later brown PC10 camo, flying in close formation when most pilots didn't do formations. I was initially impressed by the CGI of Cecil Lewis' aeroplane, a Morane Parasol, but then realised that it was a flat-sided Type L whereas by mid-1916 he would probably have had a round-fuselage Type P

and the Shuttleworth aircraft was surely announced as original?

[carefully avoids trying to name it .....]

It is a Bristol F2B, aka Bristol Fighter, and is in fact a genuine 1918 example.

There were the usual cliches:

"Flimsy aircraft that you had to be brave just to fly in". They were very strong so long as they used decent wood and had not deteriorated in the weather. They had to be strong to cope with conditions at the time; one unit had to fly from a cabbage field during the 1914 retreat. I've flown in Tiger Moths and wooden gliders which use similar construction and I'm still here.

"If the engine failed on take-off you would go straight into the ground". So would you in a modern Cessna if you took off with insufficient flying speed, especially if they've built a housing estate at the end of the runway.

Hope this isn't duplicated, the link disappeared as I tried to post just now.

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and the Shuttleworth aircraft was surely announced as original?

Well, they would, because it is ;) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_F.2_Fighter

"Survivors

There are three airworthy Bristol Fighters in 2007, (and several replicas):

The Shuttleworth Collection contains one airworthy F.2B Fighter, identity D8096, that still flies during the English summer.[7]

The Canada Aviation and Space Museum owns a second example, D-7889.[8]

The New Zealand film director Peter Jackson owns D-8040, which flies from the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre, which also holds a second original fuselage."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttleworth_Collection

"Aircraft in the collection

...

Bristol F.2b Fighter - 1918 - G-AEPH - Painted as RAF D8096"

And a picture I took of it during the filming of "Fighting the Red Baron" last year:

http://postimage.org/image/pezqmozo/

cwAB9.jpg

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I agree with Hugh's comments – Nick Saunders talked some real rubbish on the programme. I have just rewatched his section and there is hardly anything that is correct. As has been pointed out – those 'mine craters' were in fact ornamental ponds. His knowledge of the Messines battlefield appeared very limited. It is so easy to map the craters before they went up in the airship – I thought it very shoddy to get this so wrong. Also, as Centurion noted, the practice of building zigzag trenches was a well known practice. The earliest manuals of the Royal Engineers illustrate these designs perfectly. Re. the Messines mine blows, these were not all blown simultaneously. They were meant to be but poor synchronisation of the watches meant that there was an unintentional spread of the explosions. They certainly weren't blown from north to south.

In response to the accusations that the shell at the Tambour at Fricourt was placed there, I just spoke with Peter and he says that it was there when they arrived – certainly not placed by him or the producers for the programme. How it got there, who knows?!

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I agree with Hugh’s comments – Nick Saunders talked some real rubbish on the programme. I have just rewatched his section and there is hardly anything that is correct.

What's his provenance? Is he a guide? I'm no expert on Messines but I could easily see most of the howlers. Why was he chosen for the documentary I wonder.

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>><<

"Flimsy aircraft that you had to be brave just to fly in". They were very strong so long as they used decent wood and had not deteriorated in the weather. They had to be strong to cope with conditions at the time; one unit had to fly from a cabbage field during the 1914 retreat. I've flown in Tiger Moths and wooden gliders which use similar construction and I'm still here. >><<

I think this highlights one of the problems facing so many documentary makers - they are technologically illiterate. They are incapable of understanding for instance that

an aircraft with a bit of "give" in its fuselage makes it not "flimsy" but "stronger" and more able to survive heavy landings on rough airfields by inexperienced or injured pilots etc. (I don't deny the bravery though!)

(For similar reasons, I have cringed at some of the coverage of the current Qantas / Rolls-Royce engine event. But then I suspect most of these journalist get alarmed if they see the wings bend when an aircraft takes off!)

I put this down to "recruiting in your own image"; the ability to find the phrase that makes an old woman cry is far more important than actually understanding and being able to communicate technical issues (such as the difficulty of exactly synchronising mine explosions - or reading a map).

David

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Planes of this era seem to have had quite a resilience to damage. How many modern planes would cause a record like this in a War Diary? It's taken from that of 90th AA Section No 1 Gun at Janes (Salonika Front) for 12th March 1917: 17.00 Squadron of fifteen enemy planes reported from Grand Couronne attacked Janes. Opened fire when in range and broke up their formation. They all circled around gun and were driven off one by one. Only one managed to get over the gun. Two were apparently hit. One observed with rudder off. One observed going home tail downwards. Action ceased at 17:30. Rounds fired 144. Fifteen heavy bombs dropped evidently 1 spot each outside a radius of 500 yards of Section and framing us.

The planes would have been bombers from the German squadron Kampfgeschwader 1.

Keith

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There were the usual cliches:

"Flimsy aircraft that you had to be brave just to fly in". They were very strong so long as they used decent wood and had not deteriorated in the weather. They had to be strong to cope with conditions at the time; one unit had to fly from a cabbage field during the 1914 retreat. I've flown in Tiger Moths and wooden gliders which use similar construction and I'm still here.

If I remember what was said in the programme correctly, evidence of 'ramshackle an unreliable' planes was given by citing the example of a crew who crashed on take off when enroute for France. The crash alluded to must have been that of Lieut RR Skene and his mechanic RK Barlow at Netheravon on the 12th August (believed to be the first on 'active service' flying fatalities of the war) when they set off for France via Dover. Although Skene had only gained his Aero Certificate in July '13 he would have by then been a fairly competent & experienced pilot (as evidenced by the fact he'd been taken on as test pilot by Martinsydes and flown in flying competitions immediately pre-war), but the inquest indicated that the crash had been down to pilot error, with this reported in The Times:

At the inquest held at Salisbury last night it was shown that a squadron were flying under active service conditions when the accident occurred, the machines being heavily loaded. Lieutenant Skene made a sharp left-hand turn and this caused the machine to dive from a height of 150ft. The jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death."

There was no evidence or suggestion that the crash had been caused by any failure or unreliability of the aircraft. I'm sure similar situations would have occurred throughout that war, as they did in the second, with attempts to use aircraft, maybe quite inadvertantly, beyond what they were actually capable of.

NigelS

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Not really because it was wrong about that as well. Trenches have been dug in zig zags since the time of Vauban and Cohorn in the late 17th Century long before high explosive shells were lobbed at them. They zig zag to avoid enfilade with small arms fire by attacking troops and to ensure that taking one piece of trench line doesn't cause the whole lot to fall. Protection against shell fire may also be an advantage but that isn't why trenches had been dug that way for over 250 years.

Fair comment, Centurion; what he said may not have given the full explanation and I would agree, avoiding enfilade fire was the main reason for the zig-zag construction but the point I was trying to make was that any surviving piece of zig-zag trench could be used to illustrate his reason (and the reasons he didn't make !). Other trench systems may be more typical but Bayernwald illustrated the zig-zag nature adequately enough.

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It pees me off that people who should know better can get away with such a slap-dash production. It's a gross waste of licence payers money and obviously could have been a really valuable programme had it been produced properly.

Obviously November each year sees a modest bit of budget made available for Great War programmes. There are prodction people and presenters who can produce a decent end product. Why don't the commissioning editors instruct them. I suspect the "Private Eye"'s construct of jobs for the boys over large G&Ts in the BBC bar is still alive and well.

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Was Fergal Keane right when he stated that more airmen were killed in accidents than in combat ?

Phil (PJA)

I was wondering about that statistic; I've no doubt the accident rate was quite high, particularly among the new pilots, but I would be surprised if they exceeded the combat losses, especially in 1917 when, if I'm remembering correctly, supposedly, a new pilot on average lasted 3 weeks?

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Without having authoratitive statistical sources to hand, my belief is that the RFC/RAF/RNAS fatalites in the Great War were in the order of ten thousand, of whom roughly two thirds were lost in combat.

Phil (PJA)

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Could I dissent a little and point out that the programme has had one very valuable outcome? Indeed, it has rapidly become my favourite documentary of the year.

Without it, one of the most entertaining threads on the GWF in many a long day would never have seen the light. :thumbsup:

OOn a more serious note, This is a splendid series. Presented by an historian whose enthusiasm and knowledge transmits to the audience, using real people as well as other historians; each episode has been a delight. The Beeb can do it when it tries - trouble is, it doesn't try often enough.

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