'Tank Men' a B.B.C documentary

[Black Maria]

I watched this documentary on B.B.C 1 last night (7.30-8 ) , it was about the experiences of Basil Henriques and George MacPherson who commanded

two tanks at Flers ,on the day that tanks were first used in action. It was an interesting programme but I found the use of actors to try and recreate parts

 of the narrative spoilt it for me , I much prefered the parts of the programme where they actually visited the battlefield and the original photographs

and film they occasionally used.

 

The story of George MacPherson was also mentioned in the 'Who do think you are ?' series, in the episode featuring Mathew Pinsent and is rather a tragic tale.

Basil survived the battle but was wounded in the face when the small glass window in his tank was shattered by a bullet and the shards went into his face, he

had a piece of the glass made into a ring which he gave to his wife and it is now on display at the tank museum in Dorset and was featured in the programme.

 

Edited 10 September , 2016 by Black Maria

[IPT]

On iPlayer here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07tbzgx/tank-men

 

 

[delta]

I thought that the factual elements provided by the Tank Museum staff (David Willey and Sarah Lambert) were "just right". 

The trip around the bbattlefield was interesting but they failed to pick up on the deployment of D Company tanks through Delville on the night of 14 September or Daredevil's attack  on 5.30 on 15 September,

 I was somewhat disappointed by the elements dealing with Basil and George; the casting was wholly wrong and I won't comment on the costuming. 

 

 

[David Filsell]

Oh please do.

[squirrel]

2 hours ago, delta said:

I thought that the factual elements provided by the Tank Museum staff (David Willey and Sarah Lambert) were "just right". 

The trip around the bbattlefield was interesting but they failed to pick up on the deployment of D Company tanks through Delville on the night of 14 September or Daredevil's attack  on 5.30 on 15 September,

 I was somewhat disappointed by the elements dealing with Basil and George; the casting was wholly wrong and I won't comment on the costuming. 

 

 

Quite right - I particularly agree with your last sentence.

[delta]

2 hours ago, David Filsell said:

Oh please do.

 

It was execrable (actually it was worse than that)

[Guest]

2 minutes and 47 seconds in, talking about the British efforts on the Somme, we are told that on the first day 'over 20,000 men were killed'... at that point I abandoned ship. 

 

As an aside does anyone know the War Dairy ref no WO 95/???? for this unit? 

 

MG

[Gareth Davies]

2 hours ago, QGE said:

2 minutes and 47 seconds in, talking about the British efforts on the Somme, we are told that on the first day 'over 20,000 men were killed'... at that point I abandoned ship. 

 

As an aside does anyone know the War Dairy ref no WO 95/???? for this unit? 

 

MG

Would you like a copy? Transcript or original?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Gareth Davies said:

Would you like a copy? Transcript or original?

 I have D Coy (pdf)...would really like C Coy if possible.  transcription preferable if that is not asking too much....

 

Thanks  MG

Edited 10 September , 2016 by Guest
typo

[owen4256]

I thought the MacPherson story was familiar from somewhere. This was let down by casting and costume but if it brought the actions of the first tank crews to a wider audience it will have served a purpose.

[delta]

5 hours ago, owen4256 said:

if it brought the actions of the first tank crews to a wider audience it will have served a purpose.

 

I certainly cannot dispute that

[Guest]

The D Coy war diary (downloadable from NAUK) is interesting for this action. It gives an account of each Tank: Objectives and what subsequently happened along with the names of all the Tank Commanders for D1 to D25.  An unusual format for a diary: WO 95/110

 

It also provides some detail of the movement from Thetford to France  and the logistical problems of de-training the tanks. It seems the sponsons were detached for transportation...some nice details. MG

[Gareth Davies]

17 hours ago, QGE said:

2 minutes and 47 seconds in, talking about the British efforts on the Somme, we are told that on the first day 'over 20,000 men were killed'... at that point I abandoned ship. 

 

As an aside does anyone know the War Dairy ref no WO 95/???? for this unit? 

 

MG

 

In his defence he didn't say that this figure was only British deaths. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Gareth Davies said:

 

In his defence he didn't say that this figure was only British deaths. 

 

My perception (and I may be wrong) was that the context was British from the very start and throughout .... and the proximity to 19,240 is too close to be a coincidence. If he was talking about total British, French and German the number would be significantly higher. To me it seems just another small slip in a BBC production... It is important (to me at least) as it is an early indicator of the attention to detail. If a programme is making very basic errors, I have no idea what other errors there are in areas where I have no prior knowledge. 

 

I had another stab at the iPlayer version. Henriques and Macpherson were described as having been at Winchester together. Having some prior knowledge on Henriques my instincts were that this was wrong.. Unsurprisingly Henriques actually went to Harrow (it takes 5 seconds online to verify this). They both went to Lockers Park before Winchester and Harrow although they were 6 years apart in age so very unlikely to have been friends at prep-school, in fact it is unlikely they even overlapped, which rather undermines the idea they were schoolmates (a nice hero-romantic idea but factually incorrect) ... so again it is the small unnecessary errors that are disappointing and could be checked online in a matter of seconds.....particularly when the documentary is about the Tank Men, not the Tanks.....and when we see Henriques in a L/Cpl's uniform one begins to wonder if anything was checked. This might not matter to the mass market audience.The BBC's mantra seems to be "don't let facts get in the way of a good story" 

 

I understand they were very limited with the choice of a running tank for the dramatisation  - presumably Bovington's male rather than the females used by Macpherson (C19) and Henriques (C22) - however the continuity was appalling (the central gun on the tank disappeared in the close ups of Henriques) and the attempts at dramatisation had all the hallmarks of a very low budget with the same clips being used over and over. The scenes were so unrealistic and unrepresentative one wonders why they even attempted a re-enactment. 

 

It would have been nice to see some experts on screen who could give some context of the battle, the development of the Tank, the challenges of the new technology andits tactical use. Even for a 30 minute programme there didn't appear to be sufficient material to flesh out the narrow focus on two men and their tanks. This is curious given the available material on Henriques. The story seemed to have lots of unfulfilled potential. 

 

**Spoiler** We are also led to believe that young Macpherson committed suicide. Given the errors I am wondering if this is fact or conjecture. 

 

On a positive note it has spurred a very strong interest to discover what actually happened, so many thanks for the diary.  MG

 

Edited 11 September , 2016 by Guest

[Gareth Davies]

I take your point on casualty figures and context - BBC ambiguity is at best unhelpful, at worst it is plain wrong (as clearly are the other errors that you have highlighted).  The Winchester 

[horrocks]

2 hours ago, QGE said:

 

**Spoiler** We are also led to believe that young Macpherson committed suicide. Given the errors I am wondering if this is fact or conjecture. 

 

 

 

Was this not witnessed and recorded, in rather nonchalant terms, by his CO?

 

He was evacuated out, but died later in a CCS, I think.

[delta]

I have no details of it being witnessed by his OC; can you provide a source for this information

Edited 11 September , 2016 by delta

[johntanner]

The programme included a (post-war, I think) quote from the OC, but there did not appear to be any suggestion that he had witnessed the alleged event.

[phil andrade]

On 10 September 2016 at 16:10, QGE said:

2 minutes and 47 seconds in, talking about the British efforts on the Somme, we are told that on the first day 'over 20,000 men were killed'... at that point I abandoned ship. 

 

As an aside does anyone know the War Dairy ref no WO 95/???? for this unit? 

 

MG

 

That isn't a dreadful failing, surely ?

 

Even if you add on several thousand Franco German deaths, the peronderance - four fifths or more - were British.

 

Phil

[Guest]

1 hour ago, phil andrade said:

 

That isn't a dreadful failing, surely ?

 

Even if you add on several thousand Franco German deaths, the peronderance - four fifths or more - were British.

 

Phil

 

Here's a novel idea: Why doesn't the BBC just use the correct number. 

[wheelsjbl]

I have just watched this abysmal portrayal, I think that is the correct adjective!.

 

I consider myself as slightly more knowledgeable than most on the subject of WW1 but am by no means and expert or even anything close to it and I have to say this whole program confused me totally due to the poor production values.

 

The BBC obviously used recognized experts in their "research" I see Andy Robertshaw (sp?) is named as one in the credits, how could they then get it so wrong?

The most off-puting thing for me was the uniform debacle! I spent most of the show wondering why a private and a lance corporal (both from high quality public schools)  were called upon by a colonel, wearing 2nd Lieutenant pips to be tank commanders. I even thought they were promoted from those ranks to officers to enable them to fill the role. But then I saw the private with a RIFLE climb into the tank and take over. It was only when they started talking about his death that they mentioned he was in fact  (actually BOTH of them) an officer.

 

I thought they had got the uniforms wrong all the way through but also couldn't believe the BBC could get it SO wrong. I also noted the "death" toll at the beginning but put that down to oversimplification, the incorrect tanks shown I also attributed to oversimplification and a lack of any genuine Mk1 tanks and wasn't quite so much of an issue as most WW1 tanks look the same superficially and to the casual observer. It didn't occur then that these were a warning for the rest of the program.

 

If you are going to make a factual documentary...even for the great unwashed.. I would expect that at least most of the facts were correct! Sadly this was not the case.

[Guest]

The presenter Rob Bell has an interesting list of qualities according to his own website. Click. 

[Steven Broomfield]

Looting Town fan. That's enough.

[Guest]

The Producer/Director lists his TV credentials too click 

 

They appear to work in groups. the Presenter (Bell) Producer/Director (Townsend) and Editor (Jane French) all worked on "The Science of D-Day" which is currently available on BBC iPlayer. 

 

Edited 12 September , 2016 by Guest

[squirrel]

3 hours ago, wheelsjbl said:

The most off-puting thing for me was the uniform debacle! I spent most of the show wondering why a private and a lance corporal (both from high quality public schools)  were called upon by a colonel, wearing 2nd Lieutenant pips to be tank commanders.

And the Colonel wearing the Lieutenant's stars was also wearing an OR's Royal Engineers cap badge.....

 

24 minutes ago, QGE said:

The Producer/Director lists his TV credentials too click 

 

They appear to work in groups. the Presenter (Bell) Producer/Director (Townsend) and Editor (Jane French) all worked on "The Science of D-Day" which is currently available on BBC iPlayer. 

 

I'll give that a miss then!