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In Desperate Battle: Normandy 1944


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With most of the attention going to Sicily at the moment I thought this nice TV documentary might raise some interest in Normandy again

http://www.nfb.ca/film/in_desperate_battle_normandy_1944

It's a Canadien documentary from the early 90's but in my opinion it's clearly superior to many modern documentaries.

What especially suprised me was how much it tries to really show both sides of the story. I understand it caused quite an uproar in Canada back in the day for being rather critical of the Allied armies actually.

Anyways, I liked it a lot, so I thought I'd share.

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I understand it caused quite an uproar in Canada back in the day for being rather critical of the Allied armies actually.

That's putting in mildly.

The [Canadian Broadcast Corporation] Ombudsman’s office investigated the series and had historian S.F. Wise prepare a report on it. Among the findings of his report were that some of the claims were untrue, material was presented out of context so that it was misleading, information differing from the producers’ views were ignored, and that the series can’t be considered history rather, at best, editorializing. The CBC Ombudsman William Morgan then issued a report noting that The Valour and the Horror has serious problems with accuracy in particular “various interpretations and assertions which the producers were unable adequately to support with documentary evidence and which were questioned or challenged by the historians consulted, including those recommended by the program makers themselves.” The report further noted that The Valour and the Horror “is flawed and fails to measure up to the CBC’s demanding policies and procedures.”

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Yeah, LOL I just watched it and about a quarter of the way in the word "controversial" flashed in my head in huge neon letters. However, I liked it, it was very dark and at times heart breaking. It was cool to watch something from someone elses perspective besides a US centric piece.

Thanks, for posting it.

Mord.

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Wooo, cool. Thanks! I'll be checking it out.

I don't know if you guys have watched any of those Greatest Tank Battles episodes from the Military Channel, but I was pretty impressed that they talked about more than just US versus Germans. Had a couple Canadian episodes, some Russian ones, and a German one...as well as some stuff not pertaining to WWII.

Mord.

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Thanks for putting things into perspective.

Honestly, I have only skimmed the article quickly and went straight for the link at the bottom ;)

On the other hand from the same article:

The films were defended by a range of the world's top military historians, including John Keegan.

(No source unfortunately)

To be honest again, I didn't know about much of the stuff that was portrayed (i.e. what happened at the strategic level on the Allied side essentially), I just liked the calm style of it, compared to those modern History Channel or Military Channel documentaries.

Obviously, most of the archive film material was wrong, as is true with most TV documentaries. A few minutes into "War Stories" I noticed the same thing, btw.

Also, the praise for the German equipment and training and fighting skill was way over the top at times. I guess German fanboys really loved that thing at the time (oh my god does that make me one? ;) )

I stumbled across it btw after reading of some other film that was supposed to be some kind of an "answer" to The Valour and the Horror and essentially claimed that it was entirely impossible that the Canadians commited war crimes as well, which I found rather ridicoulus. Got me interested though.

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Very good doc, Jon. I am only part way through the second story, but the first was really entertaining. I liked all the little asides about other VC winners. The twist at the end (I won't give it away) made it even more meaningful.

Mord.

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(No source unfortunately)

I was curious about that: "The Valour and the Horror Revisited" turns out to be partially viewable via Google. According to it, Keegan's involvement was a letter consisting "a single short paragraph of general support."

Longer responses from historians seem to have been of the "Yes, but..." variety: Doco got much right, some important things wrong or without justification.

Google also turned up an essay titled "The Bombing of Brian McKenna"

It contained references to a magazine article (in Saturday Night) on the controversy. According to the essay the article contained this:

Brian's teachers at the English Catholic school in Montreal he attended as a boy had been war veterans, who beat him viciously when he tested their patience or authority. As he grew older he came to believe that their violence towards him and other boys came out of their silenced war. It horrified him that they had beaten into him a capacity for violence.

Further down in the essay...

But McKenna, when talking to Collins, was quite willing to emphasize where his arguments were really coming from:

"The fact that I was victimized by these people probably helped fuel my rage against the use of authority in this way," says McKenna. "I refuse to be victimized and I refuse to not document [emphasis in original] how people are victimized."

This declaration recalls the aphorism that an intellectual is a man who turns a private neurosis into a national catastrophe. McKenna's hatred of war is genuine, but mixed with a hatred of warriors. He prohibits himself from applying this to the mass of fighting men, so he can only turn his anger on its "authority figures": hence the demonization of Sir Arthur Harris.

Assuming the quotes from the article correct, and without some (major) bit of exculpatory context, that sounds pretty damning. (We've seen method and opportunity. The quotes speak strongly to motive.)

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Further down in the essay...

...SNIP... hence the demonization of Sir Arthur Harris.

So, is Bomber Harris supposed to be someone who deserves praise? Seeing as he was the one who deliberately targeted millions of civilians with his bombing campaign against German population centres which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths is that a praiseworthy achievement? It appeared that his main motivation was revenge on the German peoples for having bombed English civilian centres (also an unforgiveable strategy). Of course, Germany claimed that they were simply responding to the (ineffectual) bombing raid that had been orchestrated by Bomber Command against Berlin in the early days of the Battle of Britain.

I guess he simply wanted to prove once and for all that 2 wrongs do in fact make a right.

:rolleyes:

Regards

KR

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You know what? I don't give a flying fvk about German casualties in WWII, military or civilian, except that there weren't more, sooner.

As a good Monday Morning Quarterback I have a few quibbles about some of the specific tactics and techniques Harris used (and even more quibbles about some he resisted), but I'm not going to wring my hands or wet my panties about the Germans.

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So, is Bomber Harris supposed to be someone who deserves praise? Seeing as he was the one who deliberately targeted millions of civilians with his bombing campaign against German population centres which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths is that a praiseworthy achievement? It appeared that his main motivation was revenge on the German peoples for having bombed English civilian centres (also an unforgiveable strategy). Of course, Germany claimed that they were simply responding to the (ineffectual) bombing raid that had been orchestrated by Bomber Command against Berlin in the early days of the Battle of Britain.

I guess he simply wanted to prove once and for all that 2 wrongs do in fact make a right.

Given that the Germans would have done exactly the same had they possessed the equipment to do so, who cares? Do you think they would have refrained from launching devastating 1000 bomber raids on London had they possessed the bombers to do so because it was immoral? The Dutch remember the terror bombing of their cities when the Germans violated their neutrality and invaded in 1940.

The otherwise very highly cultured German nation decended into Hell in WW2. The Nazis were Evil and I don't use that label very often but in this case, I will because they wanted to enslave Europe and starve out the vast populations of slavs/poles etc in the East. There are no words to express how utterly horrific this all is. None.

Further, seeing as how the Americans were so reluctant to let Mr Churchill drag them into a European war, bombing Germany from the air was the only way the Commonwealth standing alone was going to be able to hurt the Germans. And, between the wars, there was a school of thought that believed that fleets of aircraft would decide the outcome of future wars. The Brits pursued this doctrine as far as they could take it. So, yes, Bomber Harris did what he could to stop the Germans and bring about an end to the horrors that they, the Germans, inflicted on the world. Bravo!

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Given that the Germans would have done exactly the same had they possessed the equipment to do so, who cares? Do you think they would have refrained from launching devastating 1000 bomber raids on London had they possessed the bombers to do so because it was immoral? The Dutch remember the terror bombing of their cities when the Germans violated their neutrality and invaded in 1940.

Deliberately targeting civilians, whether done pre-emptively, as an act of retribution, or to save the lives of soldiers, is immoral.

The otherwise very highly cultured German nation decended into Hell in WW2. The Nazis were Evil and I don't use that label very often but in this case, I will because they wanted to enslave Europe and starve out the vast populations of slavs/poles etc in the East.

One should not get into a situation where one tries to score human rights violations, based on the criteria in the above quote one could accuse the UK and the US of the same things, the only difference being that the Nazis compressed their atrocities into a five year time frame and had more devastating weapons.

There are no words to express how utterly horrific this all is. None.

There is a word, it's called Imperialism.

Further, seeing as how the Americans were so reluctant to let Mr Churchill drag them into a European war, bombing Germany from the air was the only way the Commonwealth standing alone was going to be able to hurt the Germans.

AFIK bombing Germany just stiffened the resolve of the German people and strengthened support for Hitler, like it did in the UK during the Blitz.

And, between the wars, there was a school of thought that believed that fleets of aircraft would decide the outcome of future wars. The Brits pursued this doctrine as far as they could take it.

But because it involved the deliberate targeting of civilians it was immoral.

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+1 to PT. And the same re nuking Japan for that matter. Saved possibly hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers' lives which would have been lost in Operation Olympic invasion. (And I wrote as much in the Hiroshima book when I was there.)

Since when has the deliberate targeting of civilians to reduce the casualties of soldiers been an acceptable use of force ?

And if the targets were military, it's moral to try and reduce the collateral damage to a minimum, so using the A bomb would be out of the question given the radiation fallout.

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You know what? I don't give a flying fvk about German casualties in WWII, military or civilian, except that there weren't more, sooner.

As a good Monday Morning Quarterback I have a few quibbles about some of the specific tactics and techniques Harris used (and even more quibbles about some he resisted), but I'm not going to wring my hands or wet my panties about the Germans.

There's no need for that sort of talk, the Nazis did not have the unanimous support of the entire German population, and a lot of what support they did have would of been through fear and intimidation, so there are millions of German citizens that died that were not ardent Nazis, so you should at least wring your hands for them.

And even in the case of the civilians that were ardent Nazis, you can't kill them just for supporting Hitler.

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When was it ever moral to attack another country and kill it's citizens? Just because you try and limit "civilian" casualties doesnt make it any more moral.

Since when has the deliberate targeting of civilians to reduce the casualties of soldiers been an acceptable use of force ?

And if the targets were military, it's moral to try and reduce the collateral damage to a minimum, so using the A bomb would be out of the question given the radiation fallout.

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When was it ever moral to attack another country and kill it's citizens?

It is never moral to attack unless one is attacked first, or one is coming to the assistance of a another country that is being attacked, and it is impossible to stop the original attacker through purely defensive measures, then attacking the aggressors domestic military assets is the next step, with the proviso that any civilian casualties are kept to a minimum.

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Since when has the deliberate targeting of civilians to reduce the casualties of soldiers been an acceptable use of force ?

And if the targets were military, it's moral to try and reduce the collateral damage to a minimum, so using the A bomb would be out of the question given the radiation fallout.

This is a fairly sensitive subject in my household (my spouse is Japanese), but honestly why should we be so willing to disregard our soldiers lives to save the lives of an aggressor? Japan was clearly in total denial about the state of the war, there was no question they were finished and yet Japanese troops still occupied significant portions of Asia inflicting those nations with a brutal occupation. At this point in the war it was Japan's decision as to what was going to happen, to insist that the Allies pay with their blood to achieve what was already a foregone conclusion is simply wrong.

I am not one who favors war on civilians nor am I totally callous about it. On the other hand our soldiers were fathers, brothers and sons to families back home, they were civilians forced to war by Japan and no less so now that they had to don a uniform. They had as much right to go back to a peaceful life as the Japanese and would be able to do so if the Japanese government would take the only step they had left - surrender.

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This is a fairly sensitive subject in my household (my spouse is Japanese), but honestly why should we be so willing to disregard our soldiers lives to save the lives of an aggressor?

Because we are supposed to be the good guys, that means we should protect innocent life, and IMO good guys don't decide that the entire population of a nation are as culpable as it's leaders, especially the children of that nation.

They had as much right to go back to a peaceful life as the Japanese and would be able to do so if the Japanese government would take the only step they had left - surrender.

Some would argue that they did offer to surrender before the A bomb was dropped, however that's not at issue, so even if the Japanese government would not surrender, the onus is on us, the good guys, to minimise civilian casualties as we carry on in an endeavor to force a surrender.

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