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On a lazy Friday evening browsing BBC iPlayer catchup I am watching Timewatch: WWI Aces Falling. 

 

Six minutes in we see Alexandra Churchill, (described as an Air Historian) whose book Blood and Thunder had quite a few glaring errors (one of the worst books I have read on the Great War in terms of research) which sends rather large warning lights, swiftly followed by a male voiceover with the quite staggering claim that;

 

" flying these early aircraft was a shockingly dangerous profession. Of the 14,000 British pilots killed in World War One, over 8,000 died while training."

 

a cursory check on the CWGC websites shows just over 3,800 RFC Died during the war. What am I missing? MG

 

Edit. It it get a worse. At 21 minutes we are solemnly informed that 

 

"in 1917 the life expectancy of a new pilot was just 17 days.."

 

are either of these stats remotely accurate? 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Guest
RFC CWGC numbers 3800
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You are missing approx. 700 RNAS, 4050 RFC & 4400 RAF personnel who were killed/died during WW1 but still no where near the number quoted and definitely not all pilots.  Steve

 

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a cursory check on the CWGC websites shows just over 3,000 RFC Died during the war. What am I missing? MG

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, hmsk212 said:

You are missing approx. 700 RNAS, 4050 RFC & 4400 RAF personnel who were killed/died during WW1 but still no where near the number quoted and definitely not all pilots.  Steve

 

 

 So CWGC should show 7,000 plus fatalities for the RFC during the Great War?

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9 hours ago, QGE said:

On a lazy Friday evening browsing BBC iPlayer catchup I am watching Timewatch: WWI Aces Falling. 

 

Six minutes in we see Alexandra Churchill, (described as an Air Historian) whose book Blood and Thunder had quite a few glaring errors, which sends rather large warning lights, swiftly followed by a voiceover with the quite staggering claim that;

 

" flying these early aircraft was a shockingly dangerous profession. Of the 14,000 British pilots killed in World War One, over eight thousand died while training."

 

a cursory check on the CWGC websites shows just over 3,000 RFC Died during the war. What am I missing? MG

 

Edit. It it get a worse. At 21 minutes we are solemnly informed that 

 

"in 1917 the life expectancy of a new pilot was just 17 days.."

 

are either of these stats remotely accurate? 

 

 

 

 

Hi

 

I think I covered some of this in the thread 'RFC/RNAS/RAF Training Deaths 100 years on' on 13th June.  The figures she used appears to come from Dennis Winter's 'The First of the Few' which are wrong.  She is not the only historian to use those figures in recent years they keep appearing in both popular and academic histories.  'Airmen Died in the Great War 1914-1918' has 9,350 men and women of the British and Commonwealth (and attached personnel) who died during the war from all causes, and they are named not just a statistic.  Roughly 1600 died in training.  It is very difficult to get the 14,000 pilots and 8,000 killed in training out of the actual figures.

 

Mike

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28 minutes ago, MikeMeech said:

Hi

 

I think I covered some of this in the thread 'RFC/RNAS/RAF Training Deaths 100 years on' on 13th June.  The figures she used appears to come from Dennis Winter's 'The First of the Few' which are wrong.  She is not the only historian to use those figures in recent years they keep appearing in both popular and academic histories.  'Airmen Died in the Great War 1914-1918' has 9,350 men and women of the British and Commonwealth (and attached personnel) who died during the war from all causes, and they are named not just a statistic.  Roughly 1600 died in training.  It is very difficult to get the 14,000 pilots and 8,000 killed in training out of the actual figures.

 

Mike

 Mike. 

 

Thanks. The stat was not hers, I only mentioned that Churchill's appearance alerted me to the potential for errors.. And as you can see the 14,000 'pilots killed' seemed a very questionable figure....and the 17 days is simply nonsense (again a male voiceover). 

 

Clearly these numbers include ground crew, RNAS killed on ships and with the Armoured Cars etc and an host of others not in the air.... do you have any rough idea of

 

numbers killed in aircraft? I.e pilots, observers, trainers

pilots killed in aircraft? 

 

Another way way of looking at this is that 14,000 "pilots killed" might suggest roughly 14,000 aircraft lost.....given the RAF ended the war with roughly 1,000 machines, it would imply a 14 fold turnover ratio (at least).... Which again seems unlikely. 

 

My my sense is that the 14,000 "pilots killed" is at least double the actual number and possibly three times..... Curious to get a feel of the level of inaccuracy being promoted (again) on the BBC. 

Edited by Guest
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I think I am right in saying that officer pilots may appear under their original regiments, not yet having transferred to the RFC. Still would not validate those figures.

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59 minutes ago, QGE said:

 Mike. 

 

Thanks. The stat was not hers, I only mentioned that Churchill's appearance alerted me to the potential for errors.. And as you can see the 14,000 'pilots killed' seemed a very questionable figure....and the 17 days is simply nonsense (again a male voiceover). 

 

Clearly these numbers include ground crew, RNAS killed on ships and with the Armoured Cars etc and an host of others not in the air.... do you have any rough idea of

 

numbers killed in aircraft? I.e pilots, observers, trainers

pilots killed in aircraft? 

 

Another way way of looking at this is that 14,000 "pilots killed" might suggest roughly 14,000 aircraft lost.....given the RAF ended the war with roughly 1,000 machines, it would imply a 14 fold turnover ratio (at least).... Which again seems unlikely. 

 

My my sense is that the 14,000 "pilots killed" is at least double the actual number and possibly three times..... Curious to get a feel of the level of inaccuracy being promoted (again) on the BBC. 

Hi

 

Number crunching 'Airmen Died', 4854 pilots died of all causes, 2017 KIA, 2041 Killed Whilst Flying (non-operational deaths, including training).  For Observers; 1583 died of all causes, 1136 KIA, 278 Killed whilst flying.

 

The BBC researchers, to be fair, are not experts (on anything?) and take the information from elsewhere.  But as academic and popular historians do the same and get it wrong as well we just can't blame the BBC.  Indeed PhDs can have the same problem if you look closely at some of the references they include.

 

Mike

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15 minutes ago, MikeMeech said:

Hi

 

Number crunching 'Airmen Died', 4854 pilots died of all causes, 2017 KIA, 2041 Killed Whilst Flying (non-operational deaths, including training).  For Observers; 1583 died of all causes, 1136 KIA, 278 Killed whilst flying.

 

The BBC researchers, to be fair, are not experts (on anything?) and take the information from elsewhere.  But as academic and popular historians do the same and get it wrong as well we just can't blame the BBC.  Indeed PhDs can have the same problem if you look closely at some of the references they include.

 

Mike

 

Thanks Mike.

 

So, as suspected the claim that 14,000 pilots were killed exaggerates the actual numbers by a factor of three.

 

I read your other thread and it is interesting to see how many authors have simply picked up Winter's number and run with it. I know next to zero about the war in the air, but common sense would indicate that the stats being thrown around couldn't be anywhere close to the truth. I am becoming rather disillusioned with TV documentaries in the Great War, particularly the BBC. If part of their charter is to educate, this seems to be doing the opposite. 

 

Anyway, many thanks for the clarification. Some useful research for which I am very grateful. MG

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In fairness, I don't think the BBC  'promotes' a level of inaccuracy - that comment 'promotes' such errors as deliberate attempts to mislead. Certainly there is carelessness and they very misguided in their choice of Snowbound popular presenters and in the experts and writers they employ . But ther problem is that routinely they do not fact-check with rigour we have the right to expect and they have the obligation to apply. And, once its 'in the can' it's on the record and quotable the next time. 

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4 minutes ago, David Filsell said:

In fairness, I don't think the BBC  'promotes' a level of inaccuracy - that comment 'promotes' such errors as deliberate attempts to mislead. Certainly there is carelessness and they very misguided in their choice of Snowbound popular presenters and in the experts and writers they employ . But ther problem is that routinely they do not fact-check with rigour we have the right to expect and they have the obligation to apply. And, once its 'in the can' it's on the record and quotable the next time. 

 

To be clear, in my mind the BBC has an agenda and its producers/editors/researchers choose/edit material that fits this agenda. This is where the confirmation bias comes in. If you want to give the idea of appalling casualties and appalling safety in training pilots it is easy to see why a researcher will be blind to the obvious errors in the stats. It is not 'research'... It is simply cutting and pasting anything that fits a preconceived script. In this particular programme it was designed to make us believe how dangerous the job was.

 

They had other claims about class bias against two RFC aces, equally propped up with questionable facts ... But that is another story. MG

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Certainly not true of the whole BBC. Contrast the above to the exceptional eye for detail and stated need for accuracy in the work that went into "The Great War Interviews" (director Detlef Siebert) and BBC Northern Ireland's recent (and current) output regarding the Somme. I have first-hand experience of both. They spent money and time ensuring that the details were correct.

 

 

Edited by Chris_Baker
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Personally I would regard a 300% exaggeration in pilot fatalities during the Great War as pretty biased and extremely shoddy research. 

 

I dont doubt that that there is a lot of good material coming out of the BBC, however my sense is when scratching the surface some facts seem to be so inaccurate that one wonders how these happen. For example the idea that life expectancy for new pilots in 1917 was 17 days is a ludicrous statement. At that point I gave up.  Quality control seemed to be non existent in this particular programme. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, QGE said:

Personally I would regard a 300% exaggeration in pilot fatalities during the Great War as pretty biased and extremely shoddy research. 

 

I dont doubt that that there is a lot of good material coming out of the BBC, however my sense is when scratching the surface some facts seem to be so inaccurate that one wonders how these happen. For example the idea that life expectancy for new pilots in 1917 was 17 days is a ludicrous statement. At that point I gave up.  Quality control seemed to be non existent in this particular programme. 

 

 

Hi

Again to be fair to the BBC the figures used have been published in books by historians, when the same incorrect figures are used several times in published works they tend to become 'true'.  A BBC researcher is unlikely to delve deeper than some Professors of History have unfortunately.

 

Mike

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2 hours ago, QGE said:

Personally I would regard a 300% exaggeration in pilot fatalities during the Great War as pretty biased and extremely shoddy research. 

 

'Shoddy' maybe, but 'biased'? In what way? One would assume bias would exist because the BBC was trying to prove a point or have a pop at someone, so using duff gen isn't, I'd assume, biased, unless you think they're doing it for a reason.

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There are of course broadcasters, authors, journos and academics with agendas of every variety in every section of the BBC and the media as a whole.

From own experience I know that BBC  staff can be arrogant, make mistakes, are slow and reluctant to acknowledge errors. A bit like most people really. Whilst guilty of all of the above, to suggest, to use a popular Beeb phrase, an 'overarching' agenda does not hold water in this ex journo's experience.

I simply cannot accept the level of  bias confirmation or otherwise you 'promote'! (Not least I rarely met two BBC members of staff who agreed with each other, let alone the organisation and management.)

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On 27 August 2016 at 12:50, Steven Broomfield said:

'Shoddy' maybe, but 'biased'? In what way? One would assume bias would exist because the BBC was trying to prove a point or have a pop at someone, so using duff gen isn't, I'd assume, biased, unless you think they're doing it for a reason.

 

In the context of Confirmation Bias. A term coined by a Nobel Prize winning psychologist Kahneman, along with his colleague Tversky. They pioneered research into cognitive biases. It is an area of study that Great War historians would in my opinion benefit from*. Greatly. They have developed hundreds of experiments that have been run thousands of times that demonstrate how we are hard wired with dozens of cognitive biases when interpreting and processing information. In simple terms Confirmation Bias is the tendency to select data that supports a preconceived idea. There are dozens of biases that humans are hard wired to and that influence our judgments. The short version is that we tend not to make rational judgments. One closely related bias is Availability Bias which is a tendency to use the most immediately available information rather than continue to search for more evidence. Or counter-evidence. 

 

In the context of this programme I think it is a very good example of both. An excellent example in fact. In this instance there is a clear agenda to position the key subjects in a role that was particularly dangerous (being a pilot in the Great War) and rather than use the official stats (easily obtainable) the researchers chose to use information from a secondary source (usually a red light in my view). Researchers should do their own research. This sloppiness seems to be fairly common. Rather than allow the real facts tell the story (the data is pretty extreme) the producer/editor/researcher has anchored on grossly exaggerated data to illustrate a point. In this case no exaggeration is needed because the fatality data for pilots in the Great War was pretty horrendous. 

 

Niall Fergusson does the same with Scottish fatalities. He distorts data to make quite ridiculous claims. I know he has been challenged by highly respected academics who run university departments on war studies, yet he persists. On TV as well. His agenda is to 'prove' twice as many Scots (proportionally) were killed in the Great War than any other home nation It is a ridiculous claim, yet it is a stat that is trundled out on a regular basis in the media, often with his work quoted as the source despite the fact that the SNWM disagrees with his conclusion. That is bias in my view. 

 

The Parker/Legg theory on Jack Kipling is another utterly ridiculous piece of biased 'research' that the BBC happily recycled. Click. The arguments are so far fetched it is laughable. Again an agenda is set to 'prove' a case and Confirmation Bias immediately kicks in. Any counter-evidence is simply discarded. In this case there is a mountain of counter evidence. 

 

And so on.... More recently we have been told about Irish Catholic soldiers buried outside concecrated ground,... 90% dud rates on the Somme... Haig allegedly not knowing the Germans were listening to British phones etc ad nauseam. All these are further examples of how tiny shards of information are used to illustrate a point,... And in none of these examples is the substantial counter evidence discussed. 

 

In my view 'research' should lead the conclusions, not the other way around. The BBC appears to make some programmes (not all) that want to make a particular point, and then let their researchers loose to find the supporting evidence. This is the root of the problem. As I know you know, there is much misinformation on the Great War so it is quite easy to construct an argument by carefully selecting the data. 

 

I am am reminded of TimeTeam's tendency to find a shard of a pot ..... then step by assumptive step they manage to rebuild a whole imagined community around that one tiny fragment. It is worth remembering that the TV media's priority is to make entertainment and everything is often subordinated to that aim.

 

MG

 

*My interest in the psychological biases is largely stimulated by the fact that my eldest two offspring are both psychologists and they have opened my eyes to some quite fascinating research on memory, recall and cognitive biases. 

Edited by Guest
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My last point on this, and I have absolutely no academic basis from which to question your theory, I cannot but feel, that in attributing so wide a range of what is essentially poor and sloppy work to confirmation bias, that you are effectively following the same route yourself and finding confirmation of your own view about BBC bias, when the problem is actually simple, loud and clear, incompetence.

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On 27 August 2016 at 20:05, David Filsell said:

My last point on this, and I have absolutely no academic basis from which to question your theory, I cannot but feel, that in attributing so wide a range of what is essentially poor and sloppy work to confirmation bias, that you are effectively following the same route yourself and finding confirmation of your own view about BBC bias, when the problem is actually simple, loud and clear, incompetence.

 

David. We need to retain a degree of reality here. This is a BBC programme, financed by TV licence payers, that makes large errors.  Gigantic errors in fact. Errors that are easy to check. It is extremely poor research dressed up as authoritative knowledge. However one chooses to explain this away, the unpalatable truth remains that this was poor history.

 

I have a theory that I think partly explains this (and many other examples). I am not trying to convince you or anyone else. People will make their own decisions. I simply ask the question: what explains the consistency in poor research across a number of TV programmes. I would be willing to change my mind if anyone can provide some form of compelling counter-argument. To me it seems glaringly obvious that agenda-driven documentaries stimulate rather biased programmes based on poor research. MG

 

Edit: forget what I think. Have a look at the number of Great War historians and experts who have walked away from TV programmes in the last two years. Most disillusioned or disgusted with the primacy of 'entertainment' over factual documentaries. Ferguson's farcical counter factual 'debate' was probably the low point. Some years ago one BBC exec emailed me the BBCs criteria for the Great War centenerary programming. If I still have it I will email it to you. It's strategic aims were to effectively rewrite history. No one will convince me that the BBC does not have a politically driven Agenda. By extension I believe it's agenda generates a bias. 

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Martin 

i am not in disagreement on quality, but with what it seems effectively conspiracy theory about which I have a general lack of confidence. However, if you find the email it certainly deserves wide readership.

Regards

David

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12 hours ago, QGE said:

 

David. We need to retain a degree of reality here. This is a BBC programme, financed by TV license payers, that makes large errors.  Gigantic errors in fact. Errors that are easy to check. It is extremely poor research dressed up as authoritative knowledge. However one chooses to explain this away, the unpalatable truth remains that this was poor history.

 

I have a theory that I think partly explains this (and many other examples). I am not trying to convince you or anyone else. People will make their own decisions. I simply ask the question: what explains the consistency in poor research across a number of TV programmes. I would be willing to change my mind if anyone can provide some form of compelling counter-argument. To me it seems glaringly obvious that agenda-driven documentaries stimulate rather biased programmes based on poor research. MG

 

Edit: forget what I think. Have a look at the number of Great War historians and experts who have walked away from TV programmes in the last two years. Most disillusioned or disgusted with the primacy of 'entertainment' over factual documentaries. Ferguson's farcical counter factual 'debate' was probably the low point. Some years ago one BBC exec emailed me the BBCs criteria for the Great War centenerary programming. If I still have it I will email it to you. It's strategic aims were to effectively rewrite history. No one will convince me that the BBC does not have a politically driven Agenda. By extension I believe it's agenda generates a bias. 

Hi

 

It is not necessarily the 'broadcasters' fault, they depend on the information they get from 'experts' a lot of the time.  For example a Canadian produced programme 'From Heaven to Hell' (IIRC), stated that radio transmitters were "first mounted and used in aircraft" in 1917, which is obviously incorrect.  It also stated that the strips used by artillery batteries to communicate with aircraft were called 'Popham Panels', again obviously incorrect.  However, the information the programme used appears to have come from an 'expert' source 'The Canadian Forces Communications and Electronics Museum', see text below from their online information.

 

Mike

1917Vimy001.jpg

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9 hours ago, MikeMeech said:

Hi

 

It is not necessarily the 'broadcasters' fault, they depend on the information they get from 'experts' a lot of the time.  

 Mike

 

The broadcaster in this case is the BBC which takes around £3.7 billion each year from UK citizens and has a responsibility for quality under the terms of its charter. If ITV had made the same programme I would not have cared, as it takes no money from me. MG

 

Edit. In case anyone is wondering what the BBC's own principles for accuracy are, the following is cut and pasted from its website;

 

Principles

3.2.1

We must do all we can to ensure due accuracy in all our output.

3.2.2

All BBC output, as appropriate to its subject and nature, must be well sourced, based on sound evidence, thoroughly tested and presented in clear, precise language.  We should be honest and open about what we don't know and avoid unfounded speculation.  Claims, allegations, material facts and other content that cannot be corroborated should normally be attributed.

3.2.3

The BBC must not knowingly and materially mislead its audiences.  We should not distort known facts, present invented material as fact or otherwise undermine our audiences' trust in our content.

3.2.4

We should normally acknowledge serious factual errors and correct them quickly, clearly and appropriately.

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1 hour ago, QGE said:

 Mike

 

The broadcaster in this case is the BBC which takes around £3.7 billion each year from UK citizens and has a responsibility for quality under the terms of its charter. If ITV had made the same programme I would not have cared, as it takes no money from me. MG

 

Edit. In case anyone is wondering what the BBC's own principles for accuracy are, the following is cut and pasted from its website;

 

Principles

3.2.1

We must do all we can to ensure due accuracy in all our output.

3.2.2

All BBC output, as appropriate to its subject and nature, must be well sourced, based on sound evidence, thoroughly tested and presented in clear, precise language.  We should be honest and open about what we don't know and avoid unfounded speculation.  Claims, allegations, material facts and other content that cannot be corroborated should normally be attributed.

3.2.3

The BBC must not knowingly and materially mislead its audiences.  We should not distort known facts, present invented material as fact or otherwise undermine our audiences' trust in our content.

3.2.4

We should normally acknowledge serious factual errors and correct them quickly, clearly and appropriately.

Hi

 

I don't want to get into a discussion on whether the BBC has an 'agenda' or not but TV companies, including the BBC, tend to 'buy in' programmes including documentaries.  These programme makers tend to rely on various 'authors/experts' for their information to base the programme on.  If these authors/experts are giving out 'incorrect' information in their books then that is where the problem lies.  The figures for the dead that the thread started off with came from an author, Dennis Winter, these have been repeated since by both academic and popular historians and therefore have become 'fact'.  By the time these 'facts' are given out in a TV programme they have been around sometime.  Sadly reviewers of books tend to miss these incorrect facts, indeed many books have had good reviews despite this problem (usually ignored).  While 'errors' will always appear in books, known false information, which these figures for dead airmen are, should not be acceptable as it appears to show 'sloppy research' for which the author should take responsibility and not 'hide behind a reference', especially when the actual figures have been around many years in various published formats.  But of course the high death rates 'sound good', we just can't blame the TV programme or presenter for getting it 'wrong'.

 

Mike

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