The Crimson Field - BBC drama series

[Steven Broomfield]

Frankly, Keith, you could do what I do and ignore pretty well all of it. I've seen nothing yet I feel I would feel worse for having missed (apart, possibly, from the machine gun programme). Nothing else has really gripped. Knock-off band-wagon jumping, most (if not all) of it.

Roll on 12th November 2018.

[simonharley]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who has noticed the abominable scoring of the series thus far, as the Radio Times seems to agree with me:

By the way, if you don’t pick up the cues, the bellowing soundtrack music will let you know exactly when to feel sorrowful because it can’t resist highlighting the mournful bits with an outrageous lack of subtlety.

[Gunboat]

As a proud owner of a signed copy of Richard Van Emden's Boy Soldiers of The Great War I was delighted in tonight's episode that in one scene there appeared to be a boy in the bed aged about 8.

[MichaelBully]

Maybe I'm mellowing but didn't think that episode 2 was quite so bad. Still think that a lot of the issues the VAD nurses seem to have would have been dealt with long before they reached France due to working in hospitals at home, and yes the music was irritating. But I might try to watch episode 3 .

[Steven Broomfield]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who has noticed the abominable scoring of the series thus far,

If I were to score it, maybe 2 out of 10. I'm being nice - I am so impressed by the standard of dentistry available to all these people.

[phil andrade]

Will it be deemed indelicate and insensitive of me if I ask about the authenticity of the wounded black soldier who featured in last night's episode ?

Is this an attempt to encourage a view of the conflict that embraces " diversity" ; another PC function of the BBC ?

Or is the depiction based on real events ?

I know that West Indian black soldiers served in F&F as labourers, and that some might well have been hit by artillery fire ; the way it was portrayed last night just didn't ring true, and, to be honest, it irritated me.

I'll be happy to eat my words and start reading the Guardian if I'm wrong.

Phil (PJA)

[Steven Broomfield]

Whole bally thing irritated me, Phil, but I also wondered about the black soldier and his unfeasible dad.

[paulgranger]

I sort of watched last night's episode, but couldn't engage with it. My wife quite likes it, but she also quite likes Holby City, which this resembles

I did woner how common it was for relatives to visit casualties at hospitals in France. I also wondered how likely it would be for the wife of a member of the upper classes to notice a member of the lower classes enough to have a conversation among equals with them, no matter what the situation, leaving out any racial considerations.

[PhilB]

I am so impressed by the standard of dentistry available to all these people.

Not just improbably regular but improbably brilliant white too - any time from 1 million years BC to WW1. I have a thing about haircuts. In my time in the army of the late 50s, everyone had short (very short) back & sides - except officers, of course, who had it curling over their collar. I assume that, in WW1, similar rules applied, especially as louse infestation was a probability. So I expect to see all WW1 ORs in TV & films reconstructions with a suitably close crop, not something from a local hair boutique. However, with WW1 one can rarely be sure so what were the general standards of haircut expected of WW1 ORs in theatres of war? Were standards relaxed at the front or not?

[squirrel]

I'm not sure looking forward to it is the way I would put it, maybe a morbid fascination to see how bad it will get!

Michelle

Me too.

[squirrel]

As a proud owner of a signed copy of Richard Van Emden's Boy Soldiers of The Great War I was delighted in tonight's episode that in one scene there appeared to be a boy in the bed aged about 8.

Good spot Gunboat - how did you recognise that the bed was eight years old?

[Moonraker]

Will it be deemed indelicate and insensitive of me if I ask about the authenticity of the wounded black soldier who featured in last night's episode ?

Is this an attempt to encourage a view of the conflict that embraces " diversity" ; another PC function of the BBC ?

Or is the depiction based on real events ?

I know that West Indian black soldiers served in F&F as labourers, and that some might well have been hit by artillery fire ; the way it was portrayed last night just didn't ring true, and, to be honest, it irritated me.

I'll be happy to eat my words and start reading the Guardian if I'm wrong.

Phil (PJA)

Black soldiers did serve in the British Army during WWI and somewhere within the GWF are threads about this, including some about black officers. (Walter Tull already has twenty-two threads devoted to him, so I don't think we need to discuss him further here!) I haven't seen last night's episode yet, and am wondering if the soldier's appearance was the subject of any comments by the other characters? (When a British black soldier appeared in "Sharpe", set a century earlier, he was taken for granted by everyone.)

Yes, I think the programme makers were trying to embrace diversity.

Moonraker

[Stebie9173]

There was a "contingent of 125 men" from the Bermuda Rifle Corps in the 1st Lincolns from June 1915, which is the only large scale group I am aware of. Individuals do crop up in various regiments.

The 6th Northamptons gained the nickname "the Skinheads" for a while in 1915 after they all (officers included) overdid the short-back-and-sides!

Steve.

[stripeyman]

There was a small vehicle shown with the front out of shot, it had a registration number SV1234 (in view of I could not remember the numbers). This was a Scottish series of numbers that were/are allocated to vehicles such as, in my case AFV's from the 1950's 60' 70's, a bit of paper taped over it would avoided another criticism. The reflectors were also post Second World War......

[tootrock]

Not a criticism of the programme, but a general enquiry

In the last episode, when the soldier said goodbye to his officer I noticed that he had no cap badge (and presumably no shoulder tags). So assuming that an injured man arrived at the hospital without his cap, and possibly had his uniform cut to pieces as it was taken off, at what point would these items be replaced. Before he left hospital? He would surely not go back to his regiment without regimental markings. And what about the remainder of his kit?

Martin

[Steven Broomfield]

There was a "contingent of 125 men" from the Bermuda Rifle Corps in the 1st Lincolns from June 1915, which is the only large scale group I am aware of. Individuals do crop up in various regiments.

Steve.

Wrongly or rightly, I had always assumed they were white Bermudans.

[Stebie9173]

Now you mention it, I have never really thought about their ethnicity, and you may well be right!

Steve.

[paulgranger]

The Wikipedia entry for the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps tells us that it was formed in 1894 as an 'all-white, racially segregated reserve' for the Regular Army infantry component of the Bermuda Garrison. So no ethnic minority there, unless we mean white men in a black country. But I fear I have strayed off topic.

[Guest]

There was a "contingent of 125 men" from the Bermuda Rifle Corps in the 1st Lincolns from June 1915, which is the only large scale group I am aware of. Individuals do crop up in various regiments.

Steve.

The 1st Bn Lincolnshire Regt War Diary records the first draft of one officer Capt R J Tucker and 76 ORs from the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps joining the 1st Bn Lincolns on 30th June 1915. A second draft of one Officer and 36 ORs arrived some months later. They were known as Bullock's Boys see here and the Lincolns Wiki page with the statutory error here. It gets the date of arrival with the 1st Bn wrong by 3 days. .....And for good measure the other Wiki page on the BVRC puts them arriving in July here. Allegedly the first 'colonial volunteer unit to reach the front'. Another error. Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps were on the Suez canal in Dec 1914 (having disembarked in Egypt on 17th Nov 1914) and later served at Gallipoli with the ANZACS before Bullock's Boys had set foot in France.

One might also argue that the KEH were a colonial volunteer unit whose arrival at the front predated the Bullock Boys. They landed in France (HQ, A and C Sqns in April 1915).

The definitive history is "Defence, Not Defiance: A History Of The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps", Jennifer M. Ingham

[David_Underdown]

There were already black communities in the UK in 1914, particularly in the port towns. The Museum of Liverpool is researching the involvement of Merseyside's black community in the First World War, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/get-involved/appeals/#blacksoldiers (the project also has a Facebook page for those who indulge http://www.facebook.com/Untold.Stories.Black.Families.FirstWorldWar‎) and a Google search finds various news items about it https://www.google.com/search?q=liverpool+black+soldiers+first+world+war. As this post points out http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=75232#entry1220872 there was black pilot in the RFC.

[catfishmo]

I have a thing about haircuts. In my time in the army of the late 50s, everyone had short (very short) back & sides - except officers, of course, who had it curling over their collar. I assume that, in WW1, similar rules applied, especially as louse infestation was a probability. So I expect to see all WW1 ORs in TV & films reconstructions with a suitably close crop, not something from a local hair boutique. However, with WW1 one can rarely be sure so what were the general standards of haircut expected of WW1 ORs in theatres of war? Were standards relaxed at the front or not?

Haircuts: Seems like I recall in Sapper Martin, he tells about being encouraged to 'get his hair cut very short when he went to town so he could go longer before it needed cutting again.' And he seemed a bit dubious about 'taking the plunge' to get it cut so short.

This is related, though not directly so-- On page 21 he says, "Early in the afternoon I managed to get a bit of wash and shave --the first I've had for six days." This doesn't refer to haircuts, but it suggests that keeping hair short was probably not a top priority (at least for general enlisted men.) At another place he said he had three baths in three months. I would think a bath would take priority over a haircut.

One other thing I came across this week was from Into Battle by Glubb. He contrasts the American soldiers arriving with the familiar British: “I have seen a good many Americans in passing through Southampton and Le Havre, where the quays are swarming with them. ...It is extraordinary to contrast and compare their men with ours. America, an enormous nation...only accepts young men of about twenty-four to thirty, and of the very best physique. She has no shortage of man-power. The result is that they are an extraordinarily even-looking lot, an effect which is greatly increased by their all having their hair cropped short and being clean shaven. To me they all look the same. To these compare the British Army, any unit of which at this time contained men of ages from eighteen or less...up to fifty, little children, pale and only half-developed, who had lied about their ages when they enlisted, mingled with stooping grey-headed old men.” (page 197)

None of this says the British did not have short hair, but it suggested to me that the Americans' short hair was in contrast to their own.

One final tidbit--I have done a bit of research on lice. And although body lice was rampant (every soldier was crawling with them unless he had just had a bath), head lice did not seem to be a problem. Seems like the quote said something to the effect that head lice was no more prevalent than in a normal society of people. Just for effect, here is a humorous mention of lice from p 145 of Combed Out:

Lice: "But as I lay still, trying hard to fall asleep, the irritation increased. At last it became so maddening that I started up in a bitter rage. I lit my candle and pulled off my shirt. “Chatty [lousy] are yer?” said someone in an amused tone. “I've got a big one crawling about somewhere,” I answered. None of us ever admitted that we had more than one or two...It was also considered less disreputable to have one “big one” than two small ones.... I...soon found a big swollen louse. I crushed it with my thumb-nail so that the blood spurted out....others [in the tent] were also hunting for vermin. I examined the seams of my shirt and found two or three more. Then...discovered several eggs. They are so minute that some are sure to escape the most careful scrutiny. The presence of eggs is always a warning that many nights of irritation will have to pass by before the young grow sufficiently big to be discovered easily.... my neighbor...lit his candle and began to search... The sound of an occasional crack showed how successful he was."

In another instance he is cleaning up after a busy night at a Casualty Clearing Station and taking all the removed clothing to storage:

"The clothing we carried to the pack store, a large marquee, where we sorted it, putting great coats, tunics, and shirts on separate heaps. I was holding a shirt when I became aware of a tickling sensation across one hand. I hurriedly dropped the garment and lowered the candle so I could see it distinctly. It was swarming with lice." (p 70)

[Old Tom]

I watched episode 2 and am still of the opinion that it is not a bad play. A pity the actors mumble. I wonder if it is quite pointless to try and relate it to historic fact. As I commented before it seems unfrtunate that the BBC relate it to commemoration of the Great War. In episode one the nurses were sent of to a hospital near the front line and recovered casualties were, apparently, marched off to their units. In episode 2 they are almost on the beach. The general theme could, I think, be applicable to a CCS - near the front line - but visiting civilian relatives seems to indicate a base hospital. I am not suggesting this matters. What is the consensus?

Old Tom

[Roger H]

Old Tom

I thought exactly the same regarding a CCS or a hospital

Roger

[ss002d6252]

The general theme could, I think, be applicable to a CCS - near the front line - but visiting civilian relatives seems to indicate a base hospital. I am not suggesting this matters. What is the consensus?

Exactly the same as I was thinking.

Craig

[Roger H]

Well, that's three of us then!

Roger