Stolpi, An excellent find. A documentary that angered many Canadian WW2 Veterans. The rebuttal was well documented in a trilogy written by George Blackburn MC. The books were titled Where are the Guns? The Guns of Normandy The Guns of Victory His inspiration to write his memoirs? The documentary 'The Valour and the Horror. Cheers Randy
I notice Jarymowycz was a 'researcher' for the program. Hardly the man to comment favourably on the Allied performance. Old style conclusions on the old way of looking at things.
Link to a 1992 Canadian documentary: In Desperate Battle: Normandy 1944 by Brian McKenna - NFB The link is already dead.
Ah, now it's back... 24 hours ago I was getting an 'Error 500' in Firefox and IE9; now Firefox plays happily.
The link works now although I will take a pass on viewing this vile piece of propaganda. It truly motivated veterans from coast to coast to take a strong stand and they were entirely justified in doing so. The McKenna brothers have been seldom seen since then.
Canuck I remember watching the documentary with my father, a Veteran who landed on Juno Beach. His two words were BULL SH**T
I cant imagine Radley Walters, the commonwealth 'ace of aces' and Jacque Dextraze, private to battalion CO in 4 years being very impressed being set around McKennas accusations of the Canadian army being poorly trained. Geez what a load of crap. more later. Tim, I did watch it again and was shocked at how really bad it was; but, when it came out it was pretty provacative especially regarding the destruction of the Black Watch. Also contraditory what poorly trained unit would do what the Watch did that day. Honour was everything for those men. It was Eisenhower, Montgomery, Simonds, and lastly the vasilating Foukles pushing it down to Meghill, who refused to stop the absurd attack from being made. Ben Cunningham put an end to it in the 3rd CID front by refusing to order the attack into Tilly and turned in his 'pips' to reenforce it. Matt
Hmmm. The only episode of this series I've seen is the Normandy one, and that without being able to give it full attention (i.e. I had to keep one eye on a wandering ten-month old baby thoughout). What I did see wasn't particularly impressive. The decision to introduce drama-documentary recreation struck me as misguided. I didn't care much for the pious tone of the narrator, nor the insistence of the filmmakers that they alone were prepared to speak truth to power - and that every previous account of the story had been conspiratorially bowdlerized (this totally ignores the very frank account of the Canadian Army's failings in the official history, for instance). The discussion of the Normandy campaign as a whole was crude; there was little interest in complexity or ambiguity, too much desire to see the story simply as one of victims and monsters. The war crimes accusations in particular were very badly handled. Overall, it wasn't a success, and I can understand why viewers were unhappy. From what I've heard, the first episode on Hong Kong is considered to be somewhat better, the last episode on Bomber Command even worse. But there is something about the commentary in this thread that strikes me as wrong too. The implication seems to be that if 'veterans' are upset or offended by a historical account, then by definition it is a failure - and contemptible too. That isn't so. The purpose of historical investigation is not to be congratulatory. The historians' job is not to make people feel good about themselves. The historians' job is to seek the truth about the past, wherever that journey may take him. It's possible that in pursuing the truth he may upset people who have a strong emotional investment in the traditional narrative. If so, then upset people he must. His job is not therapeutic. Sometimes he will shock or dismay. Societies which cannot accept an interpretation of the past which challenges ancient taboos are not really interested in history, only myth. As that rather good book on the series suggests, the real failing of the McKennas is not that they attempted to produce a revisionist history of Canada's role in WWII, but that they produced a bad revisionist history. There was plenty of better material that they could have used which would have produced a very unsettling narrative - and a usefully provocative one too. But they were too fixated on a particular vision of the story which was uselessly provocative. Best, Alan
Often the complaint is that as we are more distant from events we are trying to knock the nations heroes off pedestals. When in reality as more evidence is released or discovered the myths and accepted legends written and spoken of are rightly questioned it is these myths that should be challenged. The enemies contributions are dismissed - with a well they lost! My own point of frustration is the nonsense talked - our generals good yours bad. I have not quiet grasped the good book bad book theory. Taking into account the many undoubted myths that have become fact by repetition - are good books ones that comply with the myth and bad books those that offer questions?
I cant imagine Radley Walters, the commonwealth 'ace of aces' and Jacque Dextraze, private to battalion CO in 4 years being very impressed being set around McKennas accusations of the Canadian army being poorly trained. Geez what a load of crap. more later. Tim, I did watch it again and was shocked at how really bad it was; but, when it came out it was pretty provacative especially regarding the destruction of the Black Watch. Also contraditory what poorly trained unit would do what the Watch did that day. Honour was everything for those men. It was Eisenhower, Montgomery, Simonds, and lastly the vasilating Foukles pushing it down to Meghill, who refused to stop the absurd attack from being made. Ben Cunningham put an end to it in the 3rd CID front by refusing to order the attack into Tilly and turned in his 'pips' to reenforce it. Matt Matt, If Radley-Walters is still with us, it would be fascinating to get his take on the documentary. I would have to assume that he had no idea he was being manipulated by the producer, Brian McKenna. Randy
Often the complaint is that as we are more distant from events we are trying to knock the nations heroes off pedestals. When in reality as more evidence is released or discovered the myths and accepted legends written and spoken of are rightly questioned it is these myths that should be challenged. The enemies contributions are dismissed - with a well they lost! My own point of frustration is the nonsense talked - our generals good yours bad. I have not quiet grasped the good book bad book theory. Taking into account the many undoubted myths that have became fact by repetition - are good books ones that comply with the myth and bad books those that offer questions? Wills, You make a very valid point about the good book versus bad book. George Blackburn MC wrote his battlefield memoirs in direct rebuttal to the Valour and the Horror documentary. I will hopefully provide a direct quote later today. Cheers Randy
From George Blackburn's " Guns of Normandy " This deficiency in the material set down at the time by those responsible for historical records ( on which all official and unofficial histories would be based ) has led to inaccurate, irresponsible conclusions bordering on outright dishonesty - even in the works of our own official historians - regarding the training and fighting qualities of Canadian officers and men in World War 2. And these inaccuracies - insulting to the memory of all those Canadians who died facing the enemy while the official record-keepers sheltered miles to the rear - are being perpetuated by British and American writers and even built upon by some domestic revisionists.
Often a desire to explode myths and false legend is taken as an attack on the individual. Many of those in history sometimes for reasons of morale were authors of their own myths. There is no reason why this cannot be reviewed and I make it clear review is not necessarily revise. Caen 1944 if we cross reference to German archives, different views are given. This was a battle of two doctrines, the German tactics of task and mobility - the French and British WW1 style tactics of orders. The German (also Russian and American) tactics of task, where the commander states his intentions and allows commanders to achieve his intentions in the best way they see fit - this failed because of the vast superiority of the assaulting forces in manpower, equipment and total air domination, the Germans said they could not move in clear weather without being shot up. Tactics of task allow commanders to exploit success. Tactics of orders where a defined objective is give and a unit is tasked to take,clear and hold, this does not give intentions to exploit success. The German command who openly admit they were battered and lost many soldiers, also stated that the British command would take and stop to reform. which in turn allowed them a breathing space. Each time the 'British’ restarted they had casualties that they would not have sustained had they continued the advance. They gave praise for ‘British’ armour yet recorded there was no infantry armour cooperation - the armour being used as artillery. Also recorded was the efficiency of artillery whilst suggesting it was often misused - we were under very accurate barrage and took heavy casualties, waiting for the enemy advance - he did on many occasions not move to exploit his success after artillery barrage. They question why it took a vastly superior force so long to achieve the task set, the claim in more than one report (also post war) asks why the ‘British’ claimed they took ‘fortress Caen’ when we were so badly depleted in manpower, equipment,fuel and ammunition. Why did they not see we were rationing counter artillery shoots as we did not have the rounds. Are they right to claim that the heavy allied casualties were down to lack of coordination between armour, infantry and air. That tactics used did not make best use of the huge advantage in scale. The Chief of Staff states, there never was a ‘fortress’ the records show how badly depleted we were and that we could not get supplies as rail was being shot up, road transport was also attacked, how did this make for a ‘fortress?’ This was a ‘British’ invention.
Why did they not see we were rationing counter artillery shoots as we did not have the rounds Not so much a question of rounds, as regiments. 80% of Monty's, AGRA's, Field, Medium, Heavy & Super Heavy artillery, British & Canadian, was stuck over in England because of the channel storms and did not arrive in Normandy untill the 2nd/3rd week of July. I have always subscribed to the thought that the lack of Heavy Artillery support was a major factor in the Caen situation. Best Rob
The report was suggesting that there was plenty of good and accurate allied artillery it was their own that could not reply. He records that the Royal Artillery took out a commander and had several times taken out communications where radio had to take over wired comms and caused much problems with command. He claims that the longer range heavy was very accurate!
Often a desire to explode myths and false legend is taken as an attack on the individual. Many of those in history sometimes for reasons of morale were authors of their own myths. There is no reason why this cannot be reviewed and I make it clear review is not necessarily revise. Caen 1944 if we cross reference to German archives, different views are given. This was a battle of two doctrines, the German tactics of task and mobility - the French and British WW1 style tactics of orders. The German (also Russian and American) tactics of task, where the commander states his intentions and allows commanders to achieve his intentions in the best way they see fit - this failed because of the vast superiority of the assaulting forces in manpower, equipment and total air domination, the Germans said they could not move in clear weather without being shot up. Tactics of task allow commanders to exploit success. Tactics of orders where a defined objective is give and a unit is tasked to take,clear and hold, this does not give intentions to exploit success. The German command who openly admit they were battered and lost many soldiers, also stated that the British command would take and stop to reform. which in turn allowed them a breathing space. Each time the 'British’ restarted they had casualties that they would not have sustained had they continued the advance. They gave praise for ‘British’ armour yet recorded there was no infantry armour cooperation - the armour being used as artillery. Also recorded was the efficiency of artillery whilst suggesting it was often misused - we were under very accurate barrage and took heavy casualties, waiting for the enemy advance - he did on many occasions not move to exploit his success after artillery barrage. They question why it took a vastly superior force so long to achieve the task set, the claim in more than one report (also post war) asks why the ‘British’ claimed they took ‘fortress Caen’ when we were so badly depleted in manpower, equipment,fuel and ammunition. Why did they not see we were rationing counter artillery shoots as we did not have the rounds. Are they right to claim that the heavy allied casualties were down to lack of coordination between armour, infantry and air. That tactics used did not make best use of the huge advantage in scale. The Chief of Staff states, there never was a ‘fortress’ the records show how badly depleted we were and that we could not get supplies as rail was being shot up, road transport was also attacked, how did this make for a ‘fortress?’ This was a ‘British’ invention. Wills, I don't think anyone would argue that an objective review of previously held beliefs and perceptions is a healthy pursuit and that obviously may challenge the status quo. In Canada, Terry Copp is a good example. But, there is a vast difference between an academic examination of events vs a politically motivated attack. The Valour and the Horror is simply not very good. The producers, with a clear agenda, denigrated the efforts of veterans without offering any substantive evidence. It was a thinly disguised anti-military piece. Numerous controversial books and movies have been produced which did not generate the same fervour from the vets as did this "documentary". For those who don't live in Canada, there is also the context of the CBC where a long history of far left leaning views have dominated.
Playing devils advocate! Sometimes arguments get a bit one sided, Study periods would find a syndicate fighting a past battle against another syndicate using intelligence from the signal logs, Intreps A,G and Q etc from the era. Each phase would be discussed and a critique on where events succeeded or not. Of course it was with hindsight.However, when the same errors occurred -as you point out not peculiar to one side - I cannot in all honesty comment on books (military), I own none now . My last war film was a 'Bridge too far' which I watched in the Kinema - Gremendorf Munster in the year it was released! The CSM had free tickets and gave me two. Still enjoy a look at the despatches from commanders and training programmes.
