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...that yesterday's Dunkirk crossing only received a few short TV mentions. The original evacuation is an inspiring part of our history and, at the very least, a competent documentarist could have a field day - WWII background, the epic story, close description of the boats - few of them designed for the sea - personal histories and so forth.
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Lest we forget...
Do they actually teach history these days?
By the way, seeing the Telegraph front page pic and headline 'Typhoon and Spitfire'... Ummm, actually a Hurricane! Clueless numpties
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Agree. It's an important aspect of the early stages of the war and as an entree to the Battle of Britain. If those men had not been evauated the outcome of the war might have been different too, though there's a view that Hitler allowed it to happen in hope of being able to make peace.
Quite a bit on the radio both yesterday and today.
Notwithstanding absence from news of the flotilla I'd be surprised if there wasn't some anniversary doumentary and/or drama coverage in next few days.
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A contrary view for the sake of discussion: every month, for reasons of simple arithmetic, there is a 70th, 75th or 100th anniversary of something that happened in one world war or the other. Should we commemorate every one? The people involved are now nearly all dead. Remembering is one thing, but do we need to keep re-hashing these events as if they were still part of our life today? Is the second world war really still the defining event of recent history?
For discussion. Probably won't stop some idiot putting a scowly on it.
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>> A contrary view for the sake of discussion: every month, for reasons of simple arithmetic,
>> there is a 70th, 75th or 100th anniversary of something that happened in one world
>> war or the other
Every 25 years seems ok to me. That means a new generation is reminded of history. So 75th anniversary of operation Dynamo seems like an apt celebration, but militarily significant it may be, in the scheme of things some 75 years later, socially, its not. It was merely an event, a phase, during a war. So its had about the right amount of coverage.
Unlike VE day.
Now what was the point of trying to drum up a load of VE day celebrations for the 70th? With the 75th anniversary of Dunkirk the same month after it, the powers that be are, to my mind, throwing the chronological order of history to the dogs*
VE day should have been celebrated on the 75th anniversary.
*they are of course just trying to drum up viewing and reading figures - and that means money.
Now that is disgusting.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 22 May 15 at 10:11
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>>Now what was the point of trying to drum up a load of VE day celebrations for the 70th?
Because there will be even fewer people left in five years' time.
Dunkirk only managed iirc 9 veterans. Next time there won't be any. Without people who were there, the anniversaries become rather more detached.
Hitler was rumoured to let us get the troops out from Dunkirk as he didn't want to have to keep 300,000 prisoners, and he thought the war would soon be over as we would agree peace terms. There is no other sensible reason why we got so many out. This is something he came to regret later with so many battle-hardened warriors still available.
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The have been loads of TV documentaries and countless book about Dunkirk over the years. My argument would be that the second world war is massively over-done in terms of history documentaries compared with earlier eras. I suppose that is inevitable in view of its proximity but even then when was the last TV documentary on the Korean War or even the Vietnam War?
I suppose the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo next month may give us something about the Napoleonic Wars, a hugely important period in our history very much ignored by TV . Something on the Crimean War would be good too.
A a nation we have a lot of history. The events of the 1940s were important of course but lets also try to understand the the bigger picture
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Perhaps my perspective is wrong but I think WW2 exemplifies the bigger picture, a critical singularity in the history of pretty much the whole world. It's hard to imagine, guess or calculate what the world would have looked like now had the USA not been drawn fully into the conflict, if Germany won, or if Russia had overrun Germany entirely for example.
I think it's right to keep as much understanding of events alive as possible. Maybe more lessons could be drawn from history generally, to the benefit of all.
That said I agree VE day could have waited until 75 years for its anniversary commemoration.
I am a bit immersed in WW2 at the moment, having just re-read Max Hastings' book on Churchill's war years, and then a very interesting memoir by Commander Mike Crosley RN, "They gave me a Seafire", about carrier operations (which the admirals of the time didn't seem to understand at all).
Crosley's book is worth reading not just for all the fascinating detail of the Fleet Air Arm's aircraft of the day and how they were used, but also for an insight into the attitudes of the time and the minds of some of the people directing the war on the ground/sea.
Among other things, Crosley developed attack methods that reduced losses significantly (simultaneous surprise attack from three directions, splitting the anti-aircraft fire and shortening the duration of the attack, rather than going in one behind another with the full fire of the target directed at each plane in turn).
The resulting much lower losses were interpreted by the vice admiral in charge at the time as a lack of commitment!
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What is not so well known is that most of the French soldiers evacuated fron Dunkirk were repatriated to France after the armistice, and so were not added to the Allied war effort. Only about 3000 joined De Gaule in Britain.
Many of the evacuated British soldiers were sent back to France, and had to be evacuated a second time, from NW France.
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Disgusting... - Ian (Cape Town)
