What's on the TV today?

[FONT=&quot]8.30pm – 9.30pm ABC1 Thursday 23 April 2009[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]Ninety years after the last shots were fired, two young Australian historians embark on an emotional journey to the battlefields of the First World War on the infamous Western Front.
History teacher Michael Molkentin joins battlefield historian Mat McLachlan in an exploration of the Australian soldiers' wartime experience in Belgium. The two young men visit iconic sites, and join an archaeological excavation of the trenches and fields where 20,000 Australians went missing, their bodies lost, their graves unmarked. While Michael and Mat fail to uncover any soldiers' remains, a twist of fate sees local workers uncover the bodies of five Australian soldiers, while laying a gas pipe nearby.
The discovery sparks a unique investigation, bringing science and military history together, involving Michael and Mat in a gripping forensic detective story that leads them back to rural Australia. Through DNA testing, used for the first time on First World War remains, two of the bodies are ultimately identified and finally laid to rest in graves marked with their names. As Michael and Mat trace the stories of the missing soldiers, and meet their descendants, they learn more about the cost of Australia's involvement in the war.
Speaking with the soldiers' families, visiting the towns where they grew up, walking the ground where they died and finally standing by their gravesides as the men are laid to rest, Michael and Mat rediscover a vital episode in Australian history which illuminates the real sacrifice of the thousands of Australians who lost their lives in Flanders.

 

Hitler, Churchill and the Paratroopers

Friday 24th April, 1500hrs on Channel 531

Any one recording this one

 

Spide , this is a Time watch production on the paratroop drop on Crete and how Hitler and Churchill both drew complete opposite conclusions from the outcome of the operation.
Illustrated through accounts of both Allied and German survivors of the Cretean experience.
The respect for paratroopers of all nationsis reflected in the interviews with modern British para officers.

A good one .

 

I watched the 3 part documentary this morning currently showing on the Military Channel throughout the week and they are showing all 3 one hour shows back to back.

It's made I thought very much along the line of the 'Forgotten Voices' books with numerous accounts from veterans of the RAF and Luftwaffe that fought over the skies of London and Kent and from the civilian witness's that stood in awe and watched the duels unfold and the bombs drop and from the numerous ladies who were plotters, Rad Ops, Telephonists, Observers and the like in the WRAC, WRAF etc.

In between the accounts the programme shows never seen before footage from the 1968 film Battle of Britain.

A must see for any BoB nut.....I really enjoyed it

Cheers

 

Hitler, Churchill and the Paratroopers

Friday 24th April, 1500hrs on Channel 531

Any one recording this one

Anyone recording this one?????????

 

I'm recording it on my Sky+ however I'm not sure how I'd get a workable copy to Australia

 

Saturday 9th May 22.00hrs on The Military History Channel 531

BATTLEFIELD TOUR: ...The Surviving Memory. The Anzio Landings And The Battle For Rome

In January 1944, Allied troops landed in Anzio, Italy to break the stalemate and to capture the City from the Germans.

 

One for the Italian nuts on here:


Italy's Stalingrad: Ortona 1943

The Battle of Ortona is not a name that resonates like The Siege of Stalingrad or The Normandy Landings, but it was just as crucial for the Italian campaign in the Second World War. The terrible violence of the conflict and the lack of a ceasefire on Christmas Day make it a painful and dramatic event that has left deep scars on the souls of the survivors and has given rise to some uncomfortable questions.

In December 1943, Allied forces made up of Canadian infantry regiments, advanced up the peninsula, while German divisions tried to hold their position. A battle was inevitable and disastrous for both sides, as well as for the civilian population. The soldiers fought street by street, destroying everything in their path, while the Italian civilians took refuge in caves, cellars and the town hospital. After many days of fighting, the Germans finally pulled back. The fighting had claimed the lives of 867 Germans, 1,372 Canadians and 1,314 Italian civilians. The total figure is shocking and out of proportion for an objective that was not considered of vital importance. So why did the battle take place? Why did the German troops make such an effort to defend a town of no strategic importance? Why did the Canadians want to conquer Ortona at all costs? Why did so many Ortona veterans among the Canadian troops need counselling when they returned home, despite the fact that they were the victors?

The remains of those who fell in battle are still being found. The presence of so many bodies in the countryside and in the city has raised calls for the creation of a German cemetery. It is important to reconstruct the battle in order to understand what really happened. The survivors of the appalling battle are the witnesses who will guide us across the inferno that was the city of Ortona. Through them, we reconstruct events and relive the emotions they felt during those dreadful days of war. Reconstructions and re-enactments, an extraordinary, incredibly realistic model of the war-torn town, as well as Italian, German and Canadian experts and historians help us to place the battle in its historic and human context. Incredible audio, video and photographic archive material, seen for the very first time, will be our window into the past.


I've just watched this and I can't praise this one enough.

There appears to be a lot of archive footage from the frontline in and around the town that was shown in the programme.

It's full of interesting facts: A VC, A rather brave Canadian Major that saves some 400 civilians, German Paratroopers, street to street fighting, a practicle use of the PIAT is discovered, lots of interviews with those that were there and even Russian soldiers.....This story of fact has everything.

This is how documentaries should be made !

A must see programme.

Cheers
Andy

 

BATTLEFIELD DETECTIVES: World War II - Operation Market Garden

Fri May 15th at 5:00pm
Sat May 16th at 3:00am
Mon May 18th at 1:00pm





Operation Market Garden, which began on the 17th of September 1944, was an attempt by the Allies to take bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands. Despite the risks posed by such an ambitous operation, it was hoped that the plan would see a quick end to the long and bloody conflict.

The plan, devised by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, was history's largest airborne operation, more than 30,000 British, American and Polish troops landed miles behind enemy lines.

Far from being a decisive masterstroke it was a disaster, one of the worst Allied defeats of the Second World War. The question is, why?

Using innovative research on the ground over which the campaign was fought, this programme uncovers new insights in the fields of intelligence, communications, weaponry, and terrain.

Was Operation Market Garden a daring plan that almost succeeded, or was it fatally flawed before it even began?

 

BATTLEFIELD DETECTIVES: Battle of the Bulge

Tue May 19th at 5:00pm
Wed May 20th at 3:00am
Wed May 20th at 1:00pm




In 1944 the Ardennes region of Belgium was the frontier between Nazi Germany and the Allies.

After six months of hard but successful fighting, Allied troops had taken up winter quarters ready for the expected invasion of Germany in spring 1945.

Then, just days before Christmas on December 16th, a quarter of a million German troops launched a shattering offensive through the Ardennes.

The allied troops were taken completely off guard. They thought the war was almost over; only to find themselves engulfed in one of the greatest land battles of the 20th Century.

At first, Hitler's Ardennes Offensive was successful, but nearly two months of fighting left the German Army in ruins.

In this programme scientists and historians investigate why the Battle of the Bulge ended in total defeat for Germany.

 

BATTLEFIELD DETECTIVES: World War I - The Somme

Wed May 13th at 5:00pm
Thu May 14th at 3:00am
Thu May 14th at 1:00pm




During World War I, trenches and barbed wire ran across the Europe, from Switzerland to the North Sea.

The Battle of the Somme was one of the largest battles of the First World War, with more than one million casualties.

At 7.30am on July 1st, 1916, after a devastating artillery bombardment lasting more than a week, 100,000 British soldiers waited in their trenches ready to advance on the German lines.

They’d been told to expect minimal resistance, but as they picked their way slowly across no-man’s-land, guns opened fire. Shells burst overhead, and waves of men were machine-gunned down.

The British and French forces attempted to break through the German lines along a 25-mile (40 km) front north and south of the River Somme in northern France.

One purpose of the battle was to draw German forces away from the battle of Verdun; however, by its end the losses on the Somme had exceeded those at Verdun.

It was a military catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. In just one day the British suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead - the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army.

 

Das Boot


BBC2 Sunday 3 May 12.10am - 3.30am


The full-length director's cut of Wolfgang Petersen's epic German World War Two drama following the perilous fortunes of the crew of a U-boat hunting Allied ships in the Atlantic. Starring Jrgen Prochnow and Klaus Wennemann. In German with subtitles.

 

Blood and Bullets

Tue May 5th at 9:00pm on the Military History Channel, Sky 531


This is the untold story of the struggle to save soldiers’ lives, from the battlefield of Agincourt to the streets of Basra. Today we expect British soldiers to receive swift and expert medical attention, but for most of the past 600 years, British soldiers have instead experienced terrible neglect, suffering and needless death. Until the First World War, dysentery, typhoid fever, yellow fever and cholera were by far the biggest threats to a soldier’s life. Meanwhile, battlefield casualties were subject to agonising surgery, which often failed to save them from lethal wound infections such as gangrene.

It took centuries to turn this situation around. Presented by military historian Andrew Robertshaw, and co-produced with the National Army Museum, ‘Blood & Bullets’ explores how military medical care evolved from the almost non-existent, to the professionalism and dedication of today’s Royal Army Medical Corps. With live firing of the weapons that shaped the battlefield, and a close look at how the resulting wounds would’ve been treated, Andrew Robertshaw tells the story of one of military history’s most significant - and yet neglected -stories.

‘Blood & Bullets – The story of military medicine’ tells the story of army medical history from the Middle Ages to the present day. Presented by Andrew Robertshaw of the National Army Museum, the programme will relate the hitherto neglected story of those wounded in battle and those who fall sick on campaign, and the efforts of surgeons and army medical services to treat them.

The story will begin in the era of the Hundred Years War, when few could expect access to skilled surgeons, and medical science itself was hindered by ignorance and superstition. The treatment of wounds could be terrifyingly barbaric and painful, but it was disease (as for most of history) which was deadliest to an army on campaign. Ignorance of camp hygiene and sanitation was disastrous for many armies –up to and including British armies in Mesopotamia in the First World War.

The documentary will follow, in tandem, the evolution of battlefield weapons and the evolution of military medical care (as the latter sought effective responses to the former). It will chart the strides and breakthroughs achieved by great figures such as Paré, Wiseman, Nightingale and Lister. It will describe the crucial advances in medical science over 500 years of history, and the evolution of the army’s medical services into the sophisticated modern organisations of surgeons, doctors, and nurses that exist today. The programme will also look at military medical organisations and individuals as pioneers in surgery, sanitation and preventive medicine, and specialised fields such as plastic surgery and psychiatry.

 

It's a bit short notice but The movie Battle of Britain is on Channel 4 today at 1pm

'Please Repeat'

One of my favourites.......Enjoy

 

I remember going with my stepdad to see this in Leicester Square when it was first released. Amazing movie, and one which also helped develop Steadicam techniques.



Das Boot
BBC2 Sunday 3 May 12.10am - 3.30am
The full-length director's cut of Wolfgang Petersen's epic German World War Two drama following the perilous fortunes of the crew of a U-boat hunting Allied ships in the Atlantic. Starring Jrgen Prochnow and Klaus Wennemann. In German with subtitles.

 

This worth watching just for the Arnhem Vet putting a few rounds down the range from a Sten Gun.

One of the best in the 'Battlefield Detectives' series in my opinion.

The History Channel, 530 on Sky



BATTLEFIELD DETECTIVES: World War II - Operation Market Garden

Fri May 15th at 5:00pm
Sat May 16th at 3:00am
Mon May 18th at 1:00pm


Operation Market Garden, which began on the 17th of September 1944, was an attempt by the Allies to take bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands. Despite the risks posed by such an ambitous operation, it was hoped that the plan would see a quick end to the long and bloody conflict.

The plan, devised by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, was history's largest airborne operation, more than 30,000 British, American and Polish troops landed miles behind enemy lines.

Far from being a decisive masterstroke it was a disaster, one of the worst Allied defeats of the Second World War. The question is, why?

Using innovative research on the ground over which the campaign was fought, this programme uncovers new insights in the fields of intelligence, communications, weaponry, and terrain.

Was Operation Market Garden a daring plan that almost succeeded, or was it fatally flawed before it even began?



ps not too sure what a Hellcat on a carrier has got to do with OMG before you moan at me

 

Military History Channel 531. Saturday 16 May at 22.00hrs

Battlefield Tour: Surviving - Cassino





During the Second World War, between January and May 1944, a series of costly but ultimately successful Allied assaults were made on the heavily fortified German positions blocking the Allied advance to Rome.

One of these was at Cassino, southern Italy, approximately 50 miles northwest of Naples, at the foot of Monte Cassino. Both sides sustained heavy losses in the operation.

 

Mengele - The Final Account

Military History Channel 531 Mon May 18th at 10:00pm





Josef Mengele is perhaps the most notorious of all Nazi war criminals. The brutal SS officer and physician performed horrendous experiments upon prisoners of war at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Yet the ‘Angel of Death’ evaded capture for many years after the Second World War. In this compelling and unsettling documentary, we tell the definitive story of the search for Mengele.

Mengele was just 32 years old when he earned the infamous title of ‘Angel of Death’. In 1944, he became Chief Medical Officer of the main infirmary camp at Birkenau. He was responsible for determining which prisoners would be sent to the gas chambers on their arrival at the camp, and which were considered medically fit to work.

Horrifically, Mengele also used his position at the camp to continue his grim research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. He was sadistically fascinated by physical abnormalities, and conducted much of his most unpleasant research upon dwarves and sets of twins.

After the Second World War, Mengele initially hid in Germany under an assumed name. He then escaped to South America in 1949 on an International Red Cross Passport under the name Helmut Gregor. After living in Buenos Aires, he changed his name back to Mengele and represented the family business under the name. This was a somewhat reckless decision considering he was an infamous and hunted Nazi war criminal.

He later moved to Brazil, where he suffered a stroke while swimming in the sea. This was confirmed by DNA testing on his remains. This documentary tells the frustrating story of the manhunt for Mengele. It also discusses the anguish felt by those who never saw the criminal doctor bought to justice.

 

I have put it in correct thread.......oops

 

Hi Spider,

I think you've posted a book in the TV thread