WWII docos where they get it wrong

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Diana,

I see that sort of thing all the time. While the story these documentaries tell is often (quite) correct, the film and images they use seem to be selected by using the description added by the archivists: "soldiers disembarking from landing craft" is enough to use for a documentary on D-Day.

Hanno

[Alex van de Wetering]

Too true. How many times do we see the image of Canadian 3 Div soldiers disembarking at Juno beach used to represent any landing.

That reminds me, I took a Then and Now picture on that location at low tide a few years ago! I will see if I can post it on the forum.

I think part of the problem is that much of the D-Day footage was lost when the bag holding collected films was dropped overboard as it was being transferred back to a ship.

Another part of the problem is probably that some (!) documentaries are made with a limited budget and often there is not enough time to find the right footage, or the right people who have the knowledge to judge what can be seen in the footage. Historians can often give a detailed description of what happened in a certain battle, but some can't tell one tank, airplane, uniform or location from the other.
In some cases the problem is that no footage of that specific subject is available and than someone has to find alternative footage to accompany the story.

But, I think one of the main reasons is what Hanno describes; during the war or shortly after the war a lot of footage was combined to give an overview of the war in "Western Europe", which sometimes included footage from somewhere else, or footage of pre D-day invasion exercises labelled as the actual thing. Also, I have heard that sometimes the film unit didn't even know where they were.....leading to incorrect descriptions.....but, this was only very local, so the wrong village was named as the location.

Alex

[Lang]

This is a regular subject and hardly worth getting your knickers in a twist. It is great fun for "experts" like us to spot a soldier with his boot laces threaded crossed instead of straight but it almost never impacts on what the doco makers are trying to tell.

As mentioned above, all docos have both time constraints and budgets plus few film makers have detailed expert knowledge of their subject.

Unless there are outrageous claims directly impacting the story "British Spitfires leaving an airfield in France to intercept Richtofen's Flying Circus in March 1918" we can look on it as entertainment during idle moments to see where they have cut corners or saved money by using cheap stock footage of "generic" military scenes.

999 people out of 1,000 would never know the difference.

Lang

[Lang]

Diana,

I am sorry if you took my comment as a personal remark - it was not intended as such.

If you look back through MLU and other military site threads you will see people becoming quite enraged over errors in movies, books and docos.

Anyhow keep watching, as I said it is quite entertaining spotting the faults.

If you want to look at a very interesting doco there is one below. Unfortunately it has got lots of complete drivel in it for the spotters. The story of a Pan Am China Clipper caught out 7 Dec 1941 and flying back to USA from NZ the long way. All they did was follow the every day Imperial Airways flying boat route through all the established standard refueling and mooring stops. One of their "top secret" engines blew up and they miraculously found a DC3 engine (which the Japanese operated as well) to fit. Great propaganda for the time and hardly one of the leading heroic escapes of WW2 but despite the high drama very interesting and good entertainment. The public needed a morale boost in the weeks after Pearl Harbour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms84WfJwalI

Lang

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Lang

If you want to look at a very interesting doco there is one below. Unfortunately it has got lots of complete drivel in it for the spotters. The story of a Pan Am China Clipper caught out 7 Dec 1941 and flying back to USA from NZ the long way. All they did was follow the every day Imperial Airways flying boat route through all the established standard refueling and mooring stops. One of their "top secret" engines blew up and they miraculously found a DC3 engine (which the Japanese operated as well) to fit. Great propaganda for the time and hardly one of the leading heroic escapes of WW2 but despite the high drama very interesting and good entertainment. The public needed a morale boost in the weeks after Pearl Harbour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms84WfJwalI

Lang,

Sounds like the sort of trip you do every now and then with two fingers up your nose, eh?

Hanno

[Ed Landstrom]

The comment about Canadians at Juno beach being used to represent any landing reminded me of an interview I heard a few years ago. A Canadian WW II combat photographer (whose name and title I unfortunately can't remember) claimed that the Canadians were the only ones who took the time to set up camera tripods. (Possibly the only ones crazy enough to stand still long enough?)
He said that everyone else used hand-held cameras, resulting in footage that was often so jumpy as to be unwatchable. He further claimed that most of the WWII footage used in documentaries is Canadian, often desperately edited to make it look more generic.
Does anyone have any information on the accuracy of this claim?

[Ed Storey]

Yes, the cine film cameramen in the Canadian Army Film and Photo unit shot their footage from tripods which provided a superior product over hand-held techniques.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Dianaa

Not one of us would boycott the premises of a documentary maker or burn our DVD copies.

Nope, but it would not make us buy copies of it either.

Just something to enjoy / yawn over when aired on TV

H.