BBC4 tonight 9 'Shooting the War"

The programme imediately before this one (“The children who fought Hitler”) was also interesting with plenty of content on Mustang Mk I and Typhoons as well as the usual stock footage of Halifax para ops.

Excellent piece of television.

Moggy

Some interesting Stuka footage from a Luftwaffe groundcrewman but made inconsequential by the concentration camp footage. however many times you see it.

agreed…..it makes my blood boil that some people deny it happened.
My Dad got us to watch such footage when we were small….it left its mark….no matter how many times I see such footage, it always and will always shock….man’s inhumanity to man….

Some interesting Stuka footage from a Luftwaffe groundcrewman but made inconsequential by the concentration camp footage. however many times you see it.

Fascinating and sobering . Very interesting finding out about the individual men responsible for capturing the images in the first place, and their contrasting backgrounds. It’s appropriate to give a credit for such memorable and historic images after all this time. Hamburg and Belsen pictures should be compulsory viewing for anyone curious enough to know what we’re capable of as a species.
Fun to see the doggy passenger in the 109.

“Boring”, according to my wife, but that’s true for any documentary, especially any with aircraft in.
Personally I thought it was a good programme, quite a bit of footage seen before though.

John

I take it your Dad was the landing craft skipper so, e4w? His footage was amongst the best. I didn’t know such craft serviced two landing beaches either.

I found a lot of the rest of it quite interesting but with some hohum, I’m afraid. A bit too like many propaganda films of the time. Although I understood why when the searchlight bloke said he was careful not to film his ‘workplace’ or anything that might be of use to the enemy.

And the quotes from letters home from the German artillery spotter were more interesting than his footage for the most part imho.

But the air-to-air Luftwaffe footage was very interesting.

As one who took part in the program ( speaking on behalf of my father) it was also sobering how little of his experiences I knew or was able to pass on. My mother did not like him talking to us kids about what he saw. I think it brought back all those hours spent wondering if her newly married husband would return. And he only told us things if we asked especially.

One of the cautionary things he said to me when I was a young lad was “You wouldn’t be so bloodthirsty if you had been walking along the beach and found a seaboot – and found a sea leg still in it.”
So much went with him when he died.

And when my own generation is gone who will have the ghost of an idea what it was like to be hustled under the table every time the characteristic drone of the buzzbomb was heard, or the wait with breath held when it stopped?
At least we have some film left us – and our imaginations.

Eye4Wings, your dad did a great job.
Its interesting to consider your comments about the hazards of a wartime childhood. I was in central London on July 7th 2005 just after the bus exploded in Tavistock Square. I overheard a lady of senior years say:
“At least in my day you could hear them coming…”

My father went ashore on D-Day plus 2 as part of a Mulberry team and he always said the most frightening part was going down the rope ladder on to the landing craft. Two of his men panicked and fell between the two ships. Only one survived unfortunately but the shots of the troops on the ladders brought it home to me.
From an aviation point of view the brief long shot of 10 Ju-52s(?) on the horizon near Stalingrad was impressive.

PaulR,
50 type 5 LCTs, with 2130 among them, were lend-leased back to the Americans complete with British crews for the initial landings at Omaha Beach. He was then freed to go to the British areas where the craft were maid-of-all-work. Anything that wanted ferrying they did until the Mulberries were operational.

Thankyou (on his behalf) Sealand.
Pulse jets were never exactly suited to stealth!
Although what the Americans have working on recently may be closely allied. I refer to the high level serrated vapour trails over Mexico that have gaily been put down to UFO activity in recent years. Now there’s an area rich in speculative theories!