Añade un argumento en tu idiomaA historical re-examination of Britain's Finest Hour and its actual nature.A historical re-examination of Britain's Finest Hour and its actual nature.A historical re-examination of Britain's Finest Hour and its actual nature.
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Peter Caddick-Adams
- Self - Military Historian
- (as Dr. Peter Caddick-Adams)
Harry Bennett
- Self - University of Plymouth
- (as Dr. Harry Bennett)
Thomas Neil
- Self - Fighter Pilot, 249 Squadron
- (as Tom Neil)
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Reseña destacada
I'm afraid this review belongs to another program in the series, "The Lost Evidence: The Battle of Britain." But that particular program is unavailable at the moment in IMDb.com. Yet is provides a perspective that's somewhat different from the usual, so I'm taking the liberty of posting a review here.
A briefer course on the history of the Battle of Britain, the chief contours of which are by now widely known. By 1940 Hitler had conquered most of the European continent, leaving Britain on her own. Hitler made several peace offers. Germany could rule the land, while Britain ruled the seas, but Churchill was prescient enough to realize that the British Navy was likely to become no more than Hitler's Navy. So Hitler made plans to invade Britain.
The air battles over France were, oddly enough, unanticipated by the Allies, as was the speed of the Blitzkrieg. The Luftwaffe pilots, experienced in combat during the Spanish Civil War, outclassed and outfought the Allies fighters at every turn, British Hurricans included. The film makes no mention of any other Allied fighters in France who bore the brunt of the fighter attacks. You will not hear the words Bouton Paul Defiant mentioned, let alone any French fighters, some of them pretty good. Nothing about the RAF abandoning their attractive V formations and adopting the far more effect four-finger pattern of the Luftwaffe. The film also attributes the victory in the Battle of Britain to Churchill and the resolve of the English citizens. No mention of increased support from North America, but only after Churchill had shown his willingness to fight by almost sinking most of the French fleet in its harbor at Oran, killing thousands of French sailors and engendering an ambivalent attitude among all the French. But then the entire film is tilted in the direction of the Allies. At this remove, propaganda always strikes me as almost offensive. We already know who was good and who was bad.
The Germans had plenty of reconnaissance photos of British facilities -- factories, airfields, and the like. They had photos of the radar defense towers along the southern coast too but failed to understand their significance, (The Japanese Navy were superb at night fighting but faced with same problem with radar, partially making up for it by highly trained lookouts and superior optics.) The Luftwaffe first attacked shipping in the English channel, sending a horde of fighters to cover the "infamous" Stuky Ju-87s, but were frustrated when the Briitish Hurricanes and Spitfires ignored the German fighter lure and instead attacked the lumbering, practically unarmed Stukas -- easy prey. Yet the losses on both sides, in airplanes and crew, were appalling. The losses couldn't be sustained by either side. So the Germans switched tactics and began to pummel British fighters on their air bases. The problem here was that the Brits, as so often, were magnificent at deception. They disguised many of their fields simply by criss-crossing them with lines of black sand that looked like hedge rows in recon photos.
A brief sketch of the battle shows German Intelligence misinterpreting the aerial recon photos and thereby committing several blunders. They gave up trying to destroy the radar warning system and began bombing RAF bases. This was effective, if costly for the Germans. But then, because of an accident, Goering switched to bombing first the docks and fuel storage tanks on the river, and then the city of London itself. I visited London in 1959 and there were still blocks of nothing but charred ruins along the Thames.
It was an exhausting and expensive battle on both sides. The German airplanes outnumbered the RAF fighters, whose numbers were underestimated by the Luftwaffe, but many of the German airplanes were relatively slow and underarmed. The RAF wisely left the bombers to the less speedy Hurricanes while the lesser numbers of Spitfires handled the Me-109s. No mention is made of the fact that the Germans were engaged over hostile territory and a bail out or crash landing meant one less Luftwaffe pilot. And nothing is said about the disadvantage under which the Messerschmidt's fought. They could carry only enough fuel for some twenty minutes over England before they were forced to turn back and leave the Dorniers and Heinkels to carry on without fighter escort. The USAAF faced the same problem in the first years of the bombing campaign against Germany.
No disrespect is meant towards individual combatants on either side. War is a terrible business and, like a lethal disease, it's cause is unknown.
A briefer course on the history of the Battle of Britain, the chief contours of which are by now widely known. By 1940 Hitler had conquered most of the European continent, leaving Britain on her own. Hitler made several peace offers. Germany could rule the land, while Britain ruled the seas, but Churchill was prescient enough to realize that the British Navy was likely to become no more than Hitler's Navy. So Hitler made plans to invade Britain.
The air battles over France were, oddly enough, unanticipated by the Allies, as was the speed of the Blitzkrieg. The Luftwaffe pilots, experienced in combat during the Spanish Civil War, outclassed and outfought the Allies fighters at every turn, British Hurricans included. The film makes no mention of any other Allied fighters in France who bore the brunt of the fighter attacks. You will not hear the words Bouton Paul Defiant mentioned, let alone any French fighters, some of them pretty good. Nothing about the RAF abandoning their attractive V formations and adopting the far more effect four-finger pattern of the Luftwaffe. The film also attributes the victory in the Battle of Britain to Churchill and the resolve of the English citizens. No mention of increased support from North America, but only after Churchill had shown his willingness to fight by almost sinking most of the French fleet in its harbor at Oran, killing thousands of French sailors and engendering an ambivalent attitude among all the French. But then the entire film is tilted in the direction of the Allies. At this remove, propaganda always strikes me as almost offensive. We already know who was good and who was bad.
The Germans had plenty of reconnaissance photos of British facilities -- factories, airfields, and the like. They had photos of the radar defense towers along the southern coast too but failed to understand their significance, (The Japanese Navy were superb at night fighting but faced with same problem with radar, partially making up for it by highly trained lookouts and superior optics.) The Luftwaffe first attacked shipping in the English channel, sending a horde of fighters to cover the "infamous" Stuky Ju-87s, but were frustrated when the Briitish Hurricanes and Spitfires ignored the German fighter lure and instead attacked the lumbering, practically unarmed Stukas -- easy prey. Yet the losses on both sides, in airplanes and crew, were appalling. The losses couldn't be sustained by either side. So the Germans switched tactics and began to pummel British fighters on their air bases. The problem here was that the Brits, as so often, were magnificent at deception. They disguised many of their fields simply by criss-crossing them with lines of black sand that looked like hedge rows in recon photos.
A brief sketch of the battle shows German Intelligence misinterpreting the aerial recon photos and thereby committing several blunders. They gave up trying to destroy the radar warning system and began bombing RAF bases. This was effective, if costly for the Germans. But then, because of an accident, Goering switched to bombing first the docks and fuel storage tanks on the river, and then the city of London itself. I visited London in 1959 and there were still blocks of nothing but charred ruins along the Thames.
It was an exhausting and expensive battle on both sides. The German airplanes outnumbered the RAF fighters, whose numbers were underestimated by the Luftwaffe, but many of the German airplanes were relatively slow and underarmed. The RAF wisely left the bombers to the less speedy Hurricanes while the lesser numbers of Spitfires handled the Me-109s. No mention is made of the fact that the Germans were engaged over hostile territory and a bail out or crash landing meant one less Luftwaffe pilot. And nothing is said about the disadvantage under which the Messerschmidt's fought. They could carry only enough fuel for some twenty minutes over England before they were forced to turn back and leave the Dorniers and Heinkels to carry on without fighter escort. The USAAF faced the same problem in the first years of the bombing campaign against Germany.
No disrespect is meant towards individual combatants on either side. War is a terrible business and, like a lethal disease, it's cause is unknown.
- rmax304823
- 24 mar 2017
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By what name was Battle of Britain: The Real Story (2010) officially released in Canada in English?
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