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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

David Jason's Secret Service


NigelS

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Caught the first programme of this new  'More 4' series, David Jason's Secret Service which covered the early years of the SIS up to the end of the Great War  on catch-up. As there have been no other comments on here, it appears that it may have slipped under the GWF's collective radar (?).  Although perhaps a bit on the light side for those that already have a knowledge of this aspect of the GW,  for me it covered a topic  on which I have very little, so found it interesting.

 

Towards the end of the episode a comment was made that intelligence supplied  by the spying activities of the 'Dame Blanche' (White Lady) network in Belgium to the allies severely interfered  with - even stopped - the 1918 Spring Offensive.   Although there may have been good awareness of the German build up prior to events through the networks  supply of information on troop & weapon movements etc. this,  from my inexpert view appears, as evidenced by what actually happened,   to be a misleading 'bigging-up' of the use it was put to and its significance.  Expert opinion?

 

NigelS

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Good Afternoon

 

The programme is being repeated at 6.55pm on Saturday 9th December om More4 for those that have missed it.

 

As NigelS states it was quite interesting, I learnt quite a bit about life in Belgium during WWI.

 

regards

 

Indefatigable

Edited by Indefatigable
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Is the David Jason drama 'All The King's Men' available? It's some 10 years old now I believe. 

 

About the 1/5th Norfolk aka Sandringham Pals, missing in Gallipoli. 

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It was on "Yesterday" a couple of weeks ago, and is repeated quite often. I think they also do an "On Demand" service, similar to the BBC I player.

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I didn't see the programme for various reasons, but if they said that the White Lady network was responsible for the Spring Offensive, they were mistaken.

The intelligence about the German build up and then reinforcements, etc, actually came from the network in Luxembourg, which had nothing to do with the White Lady.

You will find all the details in the book, "The Secrets of Rue St Roch", by Janet Morgan - available in paperback.

The messages were enciphered into newspaper articles and that was sent on subscription (three times a week) to a correspondent in Switzerland (no censorship, mustn't hold up the news!), and forwarded to Paris to British Military Intelligence.

 

Edited by healdav
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4 hours ago, Alan24 said:

Is the David Jason drama 'All The King's Men' available? It's some 10 years old now I believe. 

 

About the 1/5th Norfolk aka Sandringham Pals, missing in Gallipoli. 

 

Released in 1999, so closer to 20 years old now... ;)

 

Edited by Andrew Upton
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17 hours ago, Andrew Upton said:

 

Released in 1999, so closer to 20 years old now... ;)

 

I thought it was new! No mention on the adverts I saw that it was a repeat.

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It's been issued on DVD but is a bit pricey on Amazon. Beware of other DVDs from America which depict a different story under the same title.

 

Ron

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2 minutes ago, Ron Clifton said:

It's been issued on DVD but is a bit pricey on Amazon. Beware of other DVDs from America which depict a different story under the same title.

 

Ron

 

You can't be too careful. I thought Debbie Does Dallas was a travelogue.

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How much of it did you watch before you realised your mistake? :lol:  (And no, I haven't seen it.)

 

Ron

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I had to sit through it three times before my glasses unsteamed.

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