"Interesting D-Day docu on BBC iPlayer" Topic

For those in the UK, this link

may hold some interest. (For unfortunates abroad, maybe Neflix can help?)

The idea doesn't sound that persuasive: collect tape interviews with those who experienced the Battle of Normandy and have well-chosen actors lip-sync their testimony. Some of the accounts are well-known (such as John Howard and Werner Kortenhaus), others much less so. But in all, I found this treatment well done and moving.

The series really falls down badly, however in presenting context. I found much of the academic commentary pretty thin. I didn't expect to learn much new, but I am struck that some of the words I don't think I heard used were: Overlord, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley, Pas de Calais, deception, Fortitude, Mulberry, breakout, Patton and Falaise.

The story of Caen is told adequately, but since Patton's encirclement is not even mentioned, no sense is conveyed that this city was the anvil of a wider operation. I think this does an extraordinary disservice to the Americans.

And Caen is presented as a vital stepping-stone Paris, which was emphatically not an Allied objective. Finally, not a whisper about the Eastern Front and how this created the essential conditions for Overlord. Or the strategic air campaign.

So, a curate's egg worth 6.5/10. But still worth three hours of my Saturday evening.

For those in the UK, this link

may hold some interest. (For unfortunates abroad, maybe Neflix can help?)

The idea doesn't sound that persuasive: collect tape interviews with those who experienced the Battle of Normandy and have well-chosen actors lip-sync their testimony. Some of the accounts are well-known (such as John Howard and Werner Kortenhaus), others much less so. But in all, I found this treatment well done and moving.

The series really falls down badly, however in presenting context. I found much of the academic commentary pretty thin. I didn't expect to learn much new, but I am struck that some of the words I don't think I heard used were: Overlord, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley, Pas de Calais, deception, Fortitude, Mulberry, breakout, Patton and Falaise.

The story of Caen is told adequately, but since Patton's encirclement is not even mentioned, no sense is conveyed that this city was the anvil of a wider operation. I think this does an extraordinary disservice to the Americans.

And Caen is presented as a vital stepping-stone Paris, which was emphatically not an Allied objective. Finally, not a whisper about the Eastern Front and how this created the essential conditions for Overlord. Or the strategic air campaign.

So, a curate's egg worth 6.5/10. But still worth three hours of my Saturday evening.

I think the emphasis was on the personal experience of these men(and woman). Crossing the beaches in the first wave, would they have thought of Eisenhower, Montgomery, or the Pas de Calais?

4DJ: of course, very fair.

But the accompanying commentaries were also there to explain the how and why, and I think in this they failed abysmally.

The explanation was a bit thin. I didn't feel it distracted though. The interviews were excellent.