This tread seems to have gone astray, so…
I don’t post often because I usually don’t have anything to add. More often than not, I learn from this forum. I have MUCH more general knowlege of WWII than the average Joe on the street, but my knowlege is DWARFED by many here. The only vet of WWII I’ve spoken to about the war was my Grandfather. (R.I.P) The rest of my knowlege comes from books, internet, and here. I don’t usually count the History Channel.:shock:
Hello, Colmhain. With a name like that, you would not happen to be connected with the Emerald Isle, would you ? I would share your feelings about mixing it with the real experts on this side of the site - but they don’t bite (most of them, anyway). As for the History Channel - I have not seen much of it. What I would say, from what I have seen, is that the visuals can be very interesting - but I would be a bit careful about trusting in an intimate connection between what you see and what you hear at times - esp. re. WW2. Best regards, JR.
I have various issues with the history channel and its use of stock footage clips when emphasising a point. T34 charging over the Steppes when discussing the Battle of France and the Low countries, Tigers in the snow but its a documentary about North Africa. If they used footage actually related to what was being talked about it would be better and if they used footage of the actual equipment and location I would be happier still.
Useful for a starting point but I would not quote it as a source (unfortunately many of the COD type generation do, at the moment trying to educate people on the World of Tanks forums).
Film documentaries suffer from the same problem as television news: they need video, not audio, let alone the careful presentation of research in print. Although print is no guarantee of accuracy, as I was reminded a few days ago when I choked on my breakfast reading a well respected journalist’s historically unbalanced and uninformed feature page account of the Darwin bombings.
Film based ‘history’ tends to be centred on what film is available rather than a careful assessment of the facts.
Which often is compounded by dumbing it down to the superficial level of historical knowledge and research within the limited grasp and budget of the research staff, assuming they have any.
On the other hand, there have been some very good efforts to present an accurate historical record in film, to the extent it can be done in 22 or 45 minute bites, balanced by personal recollections. ‘The World at War’ has not been excelled as an overall record of WWII.
OK, I’ll buy this, but how to explain the voice over’s - 50mm mg’s instead of .50 cal; the US Army Air Corps when it should be the US Army Air Force; Me 109’s when it should be Bf 109’s; referring to all Japanese fighters as “Zero’s”; etc., etc. After all this time, and the money they spend, they should have got nomenclature correct, at least. If we “lay” historians know these things why don’t the “professionals”?
I was watching “Secret War” (IIRC) this week. The program was on the German penetration of the Dutch underground and SOE’s incompetence at detecting the continued apprehension of their agents soon after landing. They kept showing stock footage of what looked like a training film to me showing men dressed in what looked like East German paramilitary uniforms from the 1960’s or 70’s, complete with PPSH machinepistols and a guard holding an AK-47???
Just been watching the World War II: The Apocalypse on National Geographic, it puts so many others to shame. Using actual footage from combat cameras etc of the actions and locations they were describing made it so much more enjoyable.
Colour and black and white film with a voice over.