A good series. This program deals with three modes of battle between Britain and Hitler's Germany. First, the war in the air over the continent. The material, presented in Robert Powell's reassuring voice, is reasonably candid but necessarily brief. At first, the Brits tried daylight bombing of industrial plants. The bombers were shot down. Not only that, but later inspection showed that only a small percentage of bombs landed within five miles of the target. So "Bomber" Harris switched to night-time carpet bombing. That is, he bombed cities to break German morale.
It didn't work, any more than it had worked in Britain during the blitz, or was to work in the Vietnam war that lay in the future. When Harris demolished the ancient city of Dresden, it was of no particular military importance but it was choked with refugees fleeing the bombing elsewhere and the Russian steamroller approaching from the east. Many thought the act was unethical and after the war, when the Queen Mum unveiled a statue of Harris, there were boos among the crowd.
The second section deals with Hitler's surface fleet of ocean raiders, mainly battleships and pocket battleships, which were a real danger to shipping at sea. Both of the battleships -- the Bismark and her sister ship Tirpitz -- were eventually sunk. It was a shame in a way because they were not only highly advanced technologically but they were beautiful ships. The looked as if they'd been designed by an architect, not marine engineers.
The third and final section has to do with the the U-boat menace. There isn't space to describe the battles in detail but early in the war, Britain, an island nation, was losing forty percent of supplies being sent across the Atlantic. In May of 1943, because of technological advances by the Allies, the tide turned against the U-boats and missions had become almost suicidal.
I'd recommend a feature film from 1982, "Das Boot," for a reasonably accurate and very well done picture of what life on a typical U-boat was like in the early years of the way.
It didn't work, any more than it had worked in Britain during the blitz, or was to work in the Vietnam war that lay in the future. When Harris demolished the ancient city of Dresden, it was of no particular military importance but it was choked with refugees fleeing the bombing elsewhere and the Russian steamroller approaching from the east. Many thought the act was unethical and after the war, when the Queen Mum unveiled a statue of Harris, there were boos among the crowd.
The second section deals with Hitler's surface fleet of ocean raiders, mainly battleships and pocket battleships, which were a real danger to shipping at sea. Both of the battleships -- the Bismark and her sister ship Tirpitz -- were eventually sunk. It was a shame in a way because they were not only highly advanced technologically but they were beautiful ships. The looked as if they'd been designed by an architect, not marine engineers.
The third and final section has to do with the the U-boat menace. There isn't space to describe the battles in detail but early in the war, Britain, an island nation, was losing forty percent of supplies being sent across the Atlantic. In May of 1943, because of technological advances by the Allies, the tide turned against the U-boats and missions had become almost suicidal.
I'd recommend a feature film from 1982, "Das Boot," for a reasonably accurate and very well done picture of what life on a typical U-boat was like in the early years of the way.
