UK in wwII, according to todays tv programs.

[Pirx]

Hi.
I have that strange feeling that what i learnt about wwII was not true.
Watching BBC, Discovery , or others documentary in England it looks like United Kingdom has won war , with a little help from his friend. From begining i was very intereting with that, but after 2 years in UK i find out that this story is going again, and again, and again. British army never lost, never made mistake, nothing.Why is that? Please help me understand why tv in UK see war the same way like 60-50 years ago?

[phylo_roadking]

Pirx - if you'd been reading British comicbooks or watching British documentaries 30-40 years ago....you would have found it was actually WORSE Believe it or not, this is it improving!!!!

Plus - you have to realise how TV works; programmes get made that people will WANT to watch....so that they can be paid for by advertising revenue Make a programme people don't actually want to see - and you, the director/producer don't get to make another!

[michael kenny]

Hi.
I have that strange feeling that what i learnt about wwII was not true.
Watching BBC, Discovery , or others documentary in England it looks like United Kingdom has won war , with a little help from his friend. From begining i was very intereting with that, but after 2 years in UK i find out that this story is going again, and again, and again. British army never lost, never made mistake, nothing.Why is that? Please help me understand why tv in UK see war the same way like 60-50 years ago?

You just watch the wrong programes.
I would say the opposite is true. The post war years were dominated by the German side of the story. There was a concerted effort to hype the German performance and use this 'experience' to counter the Warsaw Pact steamroller. If anything Britian (wrongly) played down her role in WW2 and accepted that her Army may not have been as good as it could have been. The RAF and RN seemed to largely escape this criticism.

[Tom Houlihan]

Watching BBC, Discovery , or others documentary in England it looks like United Kingdom has won war , with a little help from his friend.

Pirx, come to the US and watch our TV. You'll find the King's military had nothing to do with it. The US military was what saved the day!

[phylo_roadking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill: ... wood_Years

[jerijerod]

In a way its part of the great post Imperial malaise that struck Great Britain after the war. We aren't a world power anymore, we were, and what we used to say and do was a major influence but now...

World War Two was our swansong, our last pitch at greatness and our last really decissive roll of the dice on the world stage so British popular culture always bigs up our involvement.

I agree with Tom though, the US does take alot of credit for winning WW2 as well, more so than Britain. My granddad, who fought in Burma is still quite miffed at the fact that John wayne beat the Japanese!
British TV as well does have an obsession with Nazi's too. The amount of docu's starting with "Hitlers:..." *Sigh*

[Pirx]

Wow. So many people here!
1. I wish visit USA, but Poles need very expensive visas, that is very hard to get.
2. I dont want to say that all programs are rubbish, some are very good but... well... narrow i would say. It's not only about Americans, Soviets, but where are Aussies, Kivis, South Africans, Canadians, Indians and others? They dissapear from memory?
3. After all we can find that there was four different second world wars in Europe:
a) USSR vs Germany
b) UK vs Germany and Italy
c) USA vs Germany (strange but almost never against Italy)
d) all other nations as partisants supported by SOE vs Germany (Italy excluded again, i dont know why)
And it looks like that those wars have nothing common, exept Germans.

for jerijerod
at least Great Britain saved independence, we lost freedom for 50 years!

[phylo_roadking]

Not John Wayne...Errol FLynn, in the "legendary" Objective, Burma!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective,_Burma!

[John W. Howard]

Hello Pirx:
All anyone needs to do is read a few good books about the campaigns in Italy to come into contact with a whole host of Allies from different countries. The Germans must have felt they were fighting the whole world with Algerians, Poles, Moroccans, Tunisians, French, New Zealanders, Indians, Brits, Brazilians, South Africans, Canadians, and Yanks all coming after them. Best wishes.

[jerijerod]

Hi Pirx

Yeah this is true, but we were only really saved by the 22 miles of sea between us and France!

I had a lecturer at uni who said that if you notice in popular culture/history the Italians are not mentioned as part of the Axis because in America there is a high proportion of Italian Americans and they would not be interested nor want to be reminded that their relatives, close or distant fought on the same side as the Nazi's (Not just the Germans but definate N-words) and thus be tarred with the same brush. I don't know how true this is but its a thought.

As for the Imperial troops not getting a mention... I agree. I work in the Imperial War museum and as a whole its mostly about "British" war effort, the Imperial troops are meant to fit under that umbrella but there are not that many examples of Imperial troops. In our Victora cross room there are no Non-British holders! We have a speciefic gallery at the moment for Carribean troops who fought for the crown (War to windrush) but nothing speciefically on the other groups. I've had many people ask me where our Canadian section is, or our Aussie cases. Some people get quite upset...
One guy asked me "Do you know how many of us died at Vimy for you guys?" and all i could do was appologise. (after all... I'm just a guard!)

[phylo_roadking]

In a way I can understand the reluctance of the British "corporate remembrance" to neglect Dominion efforts during the war - during the late 1940s and 1950s they wouldn't want to be reminded that Imperial greatness had departed! LOL But on the other hand - I've always assumed the Dominions have their own museums and ways of commemorating? Canadian TV might produce more programmes in Dieppe for instance or their efforts at D-Day. And certainly Australia for one has a thriving historical /museum "community", and has been significantly in advance of the UK in getting as much as it can onto the Net for public access.

[jerijerod]

This is true. I've had a lot of visitors saying about the Australian and Canadian museums but they are still disappointed about the lack of information on their struggles here, i guess they hoped we would mention them more often.
Of course there are the odd mentions we aren;t allowed to talk about... like the Vimy flag. Up until fairly recently the Canadian flag from Vimy ridge had been here and there was a strong movement in Canada to take it back. One of the stories going around the MA's was that if a canadian asks you where the Vimy flag is you have to say you didn't know!!! But its on loan to the Canadian war museum now.

[Pirx]

Hello Pirx:
All anyone needs to do is read a few good books about the campaigns ...

Yes. Books are great here (i mean choice of books). Unfortunatelly most people has contact with history via tv.

[phylo_roadking]

That is indeed a VERY major issue. Viewers with a healthy "bullsh1t filter" CAN realise that there's more to any story than gets crammed into 50mins plus adverts...but not always; ESPECIALLY if, for example, it's a British audience watching a.programme about British exploits - that agrees with what they've been taught in the British education system. Ditto problem for America...see here for an example viewtopic.php?f=50&t=29565...and it's the same I presume for every country. Nowadays it takes that much more to break through the barriers...especially as we pass out if the era of having living war veterans in families or communities...

[Hans]

Hi Pirx,

The British did win WWII without any help from anyone. Just think, would you take on Captain Mainwaring and Lance Corporal Jones of No.1 Platoon./B.Company./Wallmington on Sea. They singlehandedly stopped Hitlers invasion of Britain by defending the coast between the Pier and the Ice-cream Parlour. My better half and I have bought the whole series of "Dads Army" and are now up to Series 9 for the umpteenth time.

Funny, last night we were talking about the tens of billions of Dollars/Pounds/Scheckels etc. that Hitler has generated since WWII. The world should at least be gratefull to him for that. Even some of our own Feldgrauians are making money out of him without a second thought for what this maniac and his clowns really stood for.

On the more serious side, we Aussies greatly resent the British attitude to the colonies contribution to it's wars and particularly to Australias contribution. We were simply used as gun fodder in WWI for instance and left to rot in WWII. However I guess that is what colonies are for, to be exploited. The thing that rangles most I guess is the fact that Britain has never shown any loyalty to Australia nor come to its aid. It is what makes the Union Jack the most despised symbol in the Land Down Under. More is the pity, as I consider it mine.
- Hans